UFO: Aftermath

This game takes several notes from X-COM. Turn-based fans, however, should consider carefully based on the gameplay, rather than just the setting. First, some things that were done very well: The graphics are well done. It's not the prettiest game in the world, but everything is pretty clear, well presented, and fits well with the games themes of conspiracies and alien mysteries. There's plenty of equipment to use, though many of the "standard" human weapons (assault rifles and such) are a bit the same. Some are clearly better, but there's also many that don't stand out from each other. The alien weapons are more distinctive, though. The setting is rather intriguing: you start as a lone soldier amidst a ruined world, teaming up with others and eventually forming a force to fight back the alien encroachment that seems to be in the works. Nobody really knows what happened exactly, and its your job to figure out. There are several set-piece missions that will come up gradually, allowing you to find details of what went wrong and what's going on. The game is also split up into a strategic and a tactical portion (sound familiar?), with you controlling a number of bases and resources, trying to get a handle on the world while also having the opportunity to lead your squads in action. But then there's the things that I, personally, didn't like. Be your own judge: First, the game is not turn-based in the tactical portion like X-COM and Jagged Alliance. I knew this going in, but still found it a bit distasteful. You have the option (and you'll need it) of pausing the action at any time and changing your soldiers' orders. Otherwise, there's no grid-based, turn-based action to be found. Hope you got this far into the review if you were counting on it. Secondly, I found the game's AI extremely disappointing. Your soldiers do not have ANY. Anything they do has to be ordered by you. Movement, firing, using equipment, the whole thing. Now, I wouldn't mind this except the game is in real-time. Which means I'm pausing quite a bit since your soldiers can't even so much as switch to a second, in-range target after a first one goes down. And your enemies don't have very impressive AI. The game has a fairly dumb approach, basically rushing your men as soon as they are spotted, constantly moving forward and shooting. If an alien happens to run out of ammo, it will just continue moving forward, with no change to its pattern. The game compensates by making the aliens extremely cheap in their attacks. Expect a constant rain of grenades, mortar fire, and rockets as the game compensates for bad AI with sheer firepower. Finally, the base management in this game was simplified a bit from what an X-COM fan might expect. Rather than being able to build your own bases anywhere, with certain layouts, facilities, etc, you occasionally come across bases that you can seize control of and use. As for controlling them, you can choose which kind of base you want it to be (for example, research or military deployment), and that is the extent of your choices there. While I did beat the game, and I found it interesting at first, enough so to go to the end, I wouldn't try it again. Realize that this review is being written from a fairly big X-COM and TBS fan, so take it with a grain of salt as necessary. But if you can live without the TBS in your X-COM-like action, then this game might be a good match for you. Also, if your really not into turn-based action, this might be the alien-fighting game just for you.

...Not quite so. Even thou this game WAS developed as a spirtual succerssor to UFO games, it has ended up as a very different game. World was attacked by aliens (again!?), and the whole humanity was annihilated by spores. Now, aliens are taking the planet over, with their own agenda, which is, of course, unknown to us. But let's split this thing up a bit, shall we? First of all, I'll talk a bit about gameplay, after all that IS the most important thing about a game, isn't it? Well... I'd say 'medicore' at best. The game, as well as X-Coms, is divided into two parts - world map and tactical missions. Since there's almost no base management, except possibility to change what said base does (research, military, ingeneering or ... Well, I'd be spoiling the story if I said the last thing :D ). No, you don't build buildings, however you DO research and manufacture stuff - how fast you do so is dependant on how many bases of said type you have. Oh, and what do military bases do? Their purpose is to station interceptor jets and a helicopter with your team, so it basically gives you a military coverage over the map. And, of course the last thing - your team! I'll say more about these guys in the next paragraph. It's same ol' otherwise - you shoot down alien ships, you search wreckages, you research dead or living alien beings and their equipement and if alien ship manages to land, you're infiltrating alien base. Fun, eh? Well, not so much. 'Tactical' gameplay of this game consists of running with a bunch of soldiers around the map, shooting whatever moves until objectives are complete. Yes, sometimes you get into challenging situations, mostly in shot-down alien ships, which WILL force you to plan ahead and think about what are you doing a bit, but mostly ... you'll just run around and click. More interesting part of this is that you CAN capture live aliens, or just bring bodies back home. Objectives of missions ARE diverse enough to keep you entertained. And your soldiers level-up and you can upgrade their statistics - that adds a bit to 'fun' value as well. But, overall, in-mission gameplay is pretty monotoneus and you'll get into memorable situation just on a few occassions. Now let's look at the obvious. Graphics. Yes, as far as I know they were outdated even when the game was released, but they fit the whole thing perfectly and I really like their diversity - based on a place of planet on which mission is taking place, design of cities/villages/plains changes and... Well, it's actually pretty atmospheric that way. But that's the only good thing I can say about them, really. They're nothing memorable, nothing unique, aliens may sometimes be gross (especially after you find out something about them), but that's about it. Doesn't look like a game that would deserve 70%, does it? It'll get better from now on, I promise. That's because I'm about to talk about story and atmosphere. Both are simply... Fantastic. Story is well-written post-apocalyptic scenario about people who are trying to survive and eventually counter alien attack. How comes survivors of human race can kick assess of hi-tech alien force? Don't worry, it doesn't go unexplained. Game goes really deep as far as it's own lore goes, with everything alien explained by the believable sci-fi blabbering and you WILL be craving for more. Actually, I think story is good enough to keep anyone who likes alien invasions, post-apo or sci-fi in general going, and eventually force them to finish the damn game. There you have it. Game itself is average and I'd give it 50%. But very good story, setting and atmosphere won't let me give it less than 70%. Yes, it's not exactly objective, game may deserve just 60%, but fact is: I've finished it 2 times and it keeps luring me back. There has to be reason for that, right? So, if you like things that are good about this game, you'll like it and it WILL be your money's worth. If you are looking for tactical gameplay... You'll be better off waiting for second and third part of the series, which are focused on it.

This comes from superhuman XCom and TFTD player, who started playing originals in 1995 and replayed them at least 90 times. If you want XCom or TFTD, your best choice is to use OpenXCom. Really. However you should not look away from this game. It is not an XCOM, or more precisely, UFO is "NOT an Xcom" (as "Gnu is Not Unix"). Guys pretty much sat around table and re-thought the series. The amount of micromanagement is much less compared to Xcom, as you don't have to think about individual scientists and you do not build bases yourself, rather than you decide which base type it should be. There is less strategy, but very comparable amount of tactics, however different tactics. You see, full 3d is used, but the action is not use turn-based, but a real-time with planning system. Already this makes it quite different. Neverthe less its VERY challenging, especially if its your first play-through. You would be very angry, at first. Also, the second part "UFO: Aftershock" is connected to this one story wise, that is - if you fail your mission in some sense here. It has much more micromanagement, although is generally less challenging. I highly recommend watching Lets Plays from user Kikoskia on youtube on both series. This will get you going and help understand the mechanics inside. It is not an Xcom, but it is Xcom. I recommend the series to fans of original game, it is very very decent!

I've always felt a weird nostalgia for this game. Something about the haunting music, the apocalyptic setting always set it apart from its closest cousin X-Com which looks aesthetically like a Saturday Morning cartoon in comparison. The opening cinematic of this game shows an obvious homage to Independence Day playing in a theater...only to reveal the audience watching it is dead. It's that kind of atmosphere. In X-Com you feel like you're getting more and more powerful and if you failed it was RNG. In UFO it feels like a desperate struggle against the odds with more of an emphasis on rushing enemies than hiding behind walls, realistic guns, and lasting consequences to taking damage. You can specialize your units, there's more control over time and can give multiple orders to your units to execute. The voice acting is a little wonky, you need to be VERY specific with your order of operations (unless you wait until an order is accomplished the unit will not do the order, even if that means picking something up or changing weapons) and this game is NOT easy. But there's something here X-Com lacks. The dour destroyed locations, the enemies that were once human mutated into monsters, conventional fire arms in the hands of rag-tag resistance fighters, a helicopter instead of a hover craft. Maybe X-Com has more polish, but UFO has much more atmosphere and options I think.