UFO Aftermath

satchmo

Anyone else buy this yesterday? I've been up half the night playing it..
I was a big fan of UFO Enemy Unknown, and I'm delighted to say that they've really captured the gameplay of the original in this sequel. The graphics are lush, and you don't need a monster machine to get the best out of it. I really like the new real-time combat too, it's kind of a cross between UFO and Neverwinter Nights - you can pause the game at any time and issue new orders, which take a certain amount of time to carry out. But while the clock is running, the aliens are also up and about, so every second is precious. Overall I feel it really lets you position your men tactically with a minimum of fuss, and lets the game move along very swiftly if you want it to.

My only gripe so far is that the aliens are quite tough to kill, with soldiers sometimes emptying entire rifle clips to down a single one. But on the other hand, this also makes you very cautious about just running down the middle of the road without any cover, as you'll likely never make it to the other end. Solution: take as many grenades as possible!!

The maps are lovely, and randomly generated before each mission so you'll never play the same one twice. There's a wide variety in terrains - each mission is a mini-adventure really, and generally a few of your men will advance a level after each one, allowing you to improve different skills and build up a proper team (sniper, grenadier, medic etc).

The tactical view of earth is much like in the first UFO, although you don't get to choose where your first base is placed (no more Dublin-based anti-UFO military bases). UFO's appear, and can be intercepted, at the risk of your own planes being shot down, in which case you'll probably have to scramble another mission to rescue the downed pilot.

I'm sure there's alot more, but I haven't gotten to it yet! I definitely recommend this one, any fans of the original will be immediately right at home. I'm not familiar with them, but Altar Interactive have done the series proud.

Celt

Where did you buy it?

satchmo

Game Dawson Street, €40 with a loyalty card.

Furez

I Think Ill buy it. I loved X-com 1 and terror from the deep. I didnt like Apocalypse so much mainly because of the 50s retro style .

In fact the 3rd one didnt give me the heebee geebees and shocks like the 1st two did. Probably because of the real-time.

But Ive got to try it. I hope theres a good story to it < dont spoil >.

Furzy

adnans

i've been one of the sad people counting down this game untill its release date and i was so excited like i was getting my first bike or something. the story starts off with aliens scorching the sky and killing almost all life on earth. of course, some people dont need the sun to live and are hell bent into chasing the alien skum off the earth.

im pissed off that you cant build your own bases(ill get to the whole resource management later) and name them after sexy body parts. the 3d view is nice, camera a bit messy since you cant zoom out or in much, the models are nice and weapons ok. but the lack of making your own weapons, selling them and buying new techs is gone out the window. theres three base types. millitary, research and engineering. you have to capture these and gain territory this way to drive the alien skum.

they got rid of the turn based system and introduced a new system where you stop time and line up orders to your soldiers, like get the medpack out of the backpack and heal your teammate while he reloads his rocket launcher and kills the alien skum. you can cancel orders and issue multiple ones in succession, although its very annoying when they finish those orders and each one of the soldiers says "waiting for orders". thats a lot of space bar action! im still getting to grips with it.

ok. that whole other, "im no good at turn based games but fuck it, i rock at resource management" is gone. not only can't you make your own base and order new stuff in within the budget but you cant even make things and sell them for profit. ok, its going to be hard to sell stuff and have any kind of budget when the world is completely destroyed by aliens. who is going to sponsor you in the fight against aliens? there isnt anyone left really cept for a bunch of survivors dotted around the world. so what you do instead is fight aliens and take over old human bases which have handy weapons caches in them.

ok. at least you have your interceptors and skyrangers. right? wrong, the interceptors are there in form of MiG planes which you cant control (but watch a pretty video of them dog fighting alien skum) and instead of skyrangers there is a chinook helicopter which you cant even see when you land on a mission ground. at least you have your squad who are able to get training and equip them with all kinds of reality weapons like the mp5 or the glock. they look good in the battlefield if they werent so annoying. no longer do they turn to jello once they are hit by the alien skum, they bleed which is the more realistic approach games these days take.

ok. thats enough for now. the game is good, but not something we die hard UFO fans have been expecting.

ONE TIP FOR THIS GAME: when you enter alien ships, dont send in all the soldiers in. its a death trap. bring granades, lots of em.

adnans

satchmo

Christ this game is hard! just when I think my team is sorted out and I've gotten them some lasers, the aliens show up with feckin plasma rifles and just cut me down. I'm still enjoying it, but it's getting very frustrating... I figure I can hold off on the harder missions until I get some better training and weapons, but by the time that happens the missions have become even harder still. Now that i know what's going on I think i might restart and do things right from the beginning.

Wasn't there a sort of 'fog of war' in Enemy Unknown where you couldnt see a part of the map you hadn't already been in? I thought that really added to the tension, its a pity they removed it.

I must say I'm not as enthusiastic as I was when I first played it. When it goes well though, and you have your team with their backs to each other blasting aliens in all directions, it can be very good fun. That doesn't happen all that often though...

Squall

Just bought this game earlier. Gonna play it once i get home from college.

Hard you say. Good I like a challenge

[CrimsonGhost]

Well I'm still waiting for my copy to be delivered from play.com, it has shipped. I can't wait to get my teeth into it. I seriously love the previous games in the series so am really really looking forward to it.

[CrimsonGhost]

Patch 1.1a available on the homepage www.ufo-aftermath.com. Get it while it's hot. Got my copy in the post yesterday so I'll install it this evening when I get home. I can't wait. It's just **** I'm being dragged into work tomorrow.

Scruff

anyone(else) who's played it have any more opinions on the game? Cant really find any online reviews and from the homepage it seems that the mags are only giving it 70-80%

Tusky

I got it and hmmm...well ive only played it for around 30 minutes but i dont really feel like playing it again... the gameplay is a bit ****e...very boring very quickly , dont like the
"real time system" that pauses every time you havnt give an order, gets on my nerves...

on the other hand the aliens look pretty good..its fully 3d.emmm the map of earth is nice...

[CrimsonGhost]

I'd agree with the constant pausing being a bit annoying, but just go into the setting and turn of the pausing for different events.

Celt

I've played it a good 30 hours, as a strategic game, aftermath is horrible.

As a tactical game, aftermath is purely mediocre. It's real time combat system is flawed, the weapons are badly balanced, and my spacebar is almost broken after playing for JUST 30 hours.

Anyone who's encountered the reticulans with rocket launchers will know how frustrating and hard this game suddenly gets.

[CrimsonGhost]

Pah, Rocket launchers!
Remember Blaster Launchers from UFO: Enemy Unknown and their equivalent in Terror from the Deep? Now they'd put the ****s up you.

TwoShedsJackson

Anyone know where you can get a copy of the original X-Com nowadays? It's not on www.the-underdogs.org

Celt

Originally posted by [CrimsonGhost]
Pah, Rocket launchers!
Remember Blaster Launchers from UFO: Enemy Unknown and their equivalent in Terror from the Deep? Now they'd put the ****s up you.

Yes I do remember them, and no, they werent as game destroyingly badly balanced as the alien rocket launchers are in aftermath.

Know how I know? Because I've finished the original x-com 3-4 times, finished apocalypse 5-6 times, and given up on aftermath already.

DeVore

Aw, shít. I had really been looking forward to this game but these reviews are making sound like its juts a bunch of missions with a continuity of squad....

Fnck. Enemy Unknown utterly owned.

DeV.

Celt

Originally posted by DeVore
Aw, shít. I had really been looking forward to this game but these reviews are making sound like its juts a bunch of missions with a continuity of squad....

Fnck. Enemy Unknown utterly owned.

DeV.

That's exactly it.

Replay x-com apocalypse again, make yourself feel better

satchmo

Man this game has gotten rediculously hard. :mad: What a pain in the ass.

Matt Simis

Ive been reading about how "hard" this is as well, while playing on myself. I have to take a different view on this.
The first couple of missions are quite hard, then there are literally hours of quite easy missions (not too easy, but comfortable). This includes the rocket lauchers introduction.

Last night I played one mission for about 2hrs. It was just a simple base capture, but found it incredibly difficult. This is about the 3rd mission with Alien Wave weapons. The Aliens are packing Advanced Rockets, Wave Blasters and Advanced Plasma Launchers and literally using them in near-melee combat.

However, unlike everyone else, it seems I find this difficulty refreshing (I finish most games in 1.5 days). I played Apocalypse several times and would describe it as too easy.

In Apocalypse:
-About 50% of the way through the Aliens biggest ships become nothing more than annoyances, shot down by waves of smaller ships in the human aresenal.
-The last 30% of the game the tactical missions become an arcade game, when you introduce Bio weapons. Equip two guys with 2x Bio Handguns, switch to auto an watch them mow down aliens before they get a shot in.

It was so OTT I could fly into the Alien dimension, wipe out all their ships then start gutting their buildings from the inside meeting only cannonfodder to stop me.

Aftermath on the otherhand is rightly positioned so as the Aliens are advanced and intelligent. Notice how they usually dont walk around in groups, shoulder to shoulder like your squad do? Watch for the singular Aliens you target sometimes retreating while the rest of them continue piling on the shots? Simply emulate their tactics. Split into smaller teams. Watch for Aliens packing Rockets, and step out of the way as they fire them. Fall back, draw aliens into ambushes. Try and keep several guys from the start of the game (Ive only managed to keep 3 from very start, at level 13 now, others at 10, 9 etc)), try different loadouts (for instance, even in late game the simple incendiary grenade can wipeout a bunch of the mutant transgenient types). If you really are getting hammered, bring a Rookie with you and have them run back and forth, drawing alien shots while you take out the shooters with the rest of your team.

I imagine once of equip the entire squad with Sun or higher armour and research my own Wave weapons things will switch back to my favour again. This game is well worth purchasing and worthy successor (even though its only a successor in spirit) to Apocalypse.

There is simply more thinking involved here... it doesnt play like an American game as everyone appears to expect these days.




Matt


PS: If you find the game too hard, try playing it on Easy. The difficulty options are available when creating a new "Profile".

[CrimsonGhost]

Anyone know where you can get a copy of the original X-Com nowadays?

It was released recompiled for win32 not too long back.
X-Com: Collectors editions. Came with Enemy unknown, terror from the deep and apocalypse. I got it free when I pre-ordered enforcer from somewhere online. You should be able to order it from somewhere.

Celt

Originally posted by Matt Simis
I imagine once of equip the entire squad with Sun or higher armour and research my own Wave weapons things will switch back to my favour again. This game is well worth purchasing and worthy successor (even though its only a successor in spirit) to Apocalypse.

There is simply more thinking involved here... it doesnt play like an American game as everyone appears to expect these days.




Matt


PS: If you find the game too hard, try playing it on Easy. The difficulty options are available when creating a new "Profile".

I have 7 level 14 or higher soldiers, all with bio or heavy armour, 3 using skorpion sniper rifle, 1 with collapsible rocket launcher and 2 with double barreled machine guns.

I played the game on hard, and enjoyed it being hard, but now it's become a joke, reticulans always see me first, always fire first, always outnumber me and live longer. I can beat them, with hours of trying, but when there are so many missions popping up, it's not an obstacle to be overcome but something to make me stop playing the game.

btw, tried apocalypse on super hard? fun

Matt Simis

Originally posted by Celt


btw, tried apocalypse on super hard? fun

I think I replayed it on the hardest setting last year, its a great game alright. Pity there were no mods or expansions for it.



Matt

[CrimsonGhost]

Well I finally got some time to sit down and play this last night. My first impression are good. The aliens are pretty smart - they retreat when injured or even just outnumbered, they know how to use cover really well. The constant pausing was annoying but I disabled most pauses.

So far I've only played 10 missions, took about 2 hours and they were all relatively easy, in fact too easy, Whilst the aliens are pretty smart it is easy to out think them, throwing gernades over cover when normal fire can't be exchanged is a great tactic. Typically I would run 2 - 3 missions on a single flight out from base. Extensive use of medikits, but that isn't a problem really.

I've only engaged one UFO and that went badly. I need to get to grips with that, ie read the manual.

All told though I am very impressed and looking forward to it getting a bit harder.

Evil Phil

Its not X-COM not but it doesn't claim to be. The Aliens are smart and walking around in a heavily armed group won't make the grade. You do have to use tactics with your squad and operate them as single soldiers instead of a single group which makes for much more interesting game play.

Personally I would like more strategy on the strategy side and would prefer to buy and sell as well as capture bases and resources. Still a very good game though I give it a generous 8/10 after two evenings of play. We'll see how it settles down after a fortnight.