Posted December 03, 2009
Humour me for a second here. I want you to stop thinking about that *other* game. You know the one; the one we all love so much that we'd buy it flowers and marry it if we could.
Because, if you ignore that *other* game, then there's actually quite a lot to like about UFO: Aftermath.
The UFO series works because it unashamedly clones a winning formula. It's copies the first two X-COM games so closely that I'm surprised lawyers weren't involved. For us gamers, this is good. This is a game that lets you save the world by shooting aliens in the face. It'll suck up hours and hours and hours of your time. You'll care about the fate of your little shooty-men. You'll debate long and hard about your strategy. That sounds like fun, doesn't it?
There are also a few improvements over X-COM. The squad commands are much more fluid, meaning that ground encounters no longer take hours to play. And the graphics may lack a certain VGA-charm, but they get the job done and create a nice visual style.
So, why only three stars? Well, I took one off because of balancing problems. Last time I saved this particular planet, a few missions had huge difficulty spikes which just seemed unfair. In addition, things get a bit random when your squad enters a UFO - those aliens are either all spread out or sitting in a corner having coffee. Another star comes off because, quite simply, it's so similar to X-COM that I felt I'd seen it all before. I finished the game, but I was a little bored by the end.
So, if this is your first encounter with the alien menace, add a star on. It's a good game in its own right. And if you're a seasoned planet-saver, there's still plenty to like. Just don't expect to feel the same 'wow' that you did back in 1993.
Because, if you ignore that *other* game, then there's actually quite a lot to like about UFO: Aftermath.
The UFO series works because it unashamedly clones a winning formula. It's copies the first two X-COM games so closely that I'm surprised lawyers weren't involved. For us gamers, this is good. This is a game that lets you save the world by shooting aliens in the face. It'll suck up hours and hours and hours of your time. You'll care about the fate of your little shooty-men. You'll debate long and hard about your strategy. That sounds like fun, doesn't it?
There are also a few improvements over X-COM. The squad commands are much more fluid, meaning that ground encounters no longer take hours to play. And the graphics may lack a certain VGA-charm, but they get the job done and create a nice visual style.
So, why only three stars? Well, I took one off because of balancing problems. Last time I saved this particular planet, a few missions had huge difficulty spikes which just seemed unfair. In addition, things get a bit random when your squad enters a UFO - those aliens are either all spread out or sitting in a corner having coffee. Another star comes off because, quite simply, it's so similar to X-COM that I felt I'd seen it all before. I finished the game, but I was a little bored by the end.
So, if this is your first encounter with the alien menace, add a star on. It's a good game in its own right. And if you're a seasoned planet-saver, there's still plenty to like. Just don't expect to feel the same 'wow' that you did back in 1993.