UFO: Aftermath previews

I heard about this game from a friend, and being a big fan of the X-COM series thought I'd give this game a shot for sure.

The first thing a lot of people will think of is the originals – well, it does them justice. Firstly I'd like to say that the combat side of this game is handled very well, it flows in real time, but you can pause it whenever you please and set new orders. I think this allows the game to flow alot more quickly than the old turned based move soldier by soldier, and a nice RPG'ish element in which your soldiers gain experience points and level.

Storyline wise, it's quite similar, aliens attacked the earth, now you're in command to send you elite squads to eliminate them, thankfully the economy and base micro-managing side of the originals does not appear in this, instead replaced with a more strategic method of capturing bases, and then selecting what type you wish them to be, especially strategic once you have to start dealing with biomass, but I won't say anything else about that.

All in all, a very solid game, system reqs. aren't high which is a bonus, and the graphics are still good. It will keep you entertained for quite some time as it has a decent amount of gameplay to it.

While similar in many respects to the X-COM series, its not a carbon copy, so it may dissapoint some who were expecting that.

Having been sucked into playing the original UFO by XCOM as a university student I was really looking forward to the release of UFO: Aftermath. Touted as nothing like the original but much better I feel it has not lived up to these claims.

The manual is comprehensive, but in black and white. The plot differs from the original UFO and the ‘base building’ part of the strategy is gone, replaced by the need to capture multiple bases around the world. Other than that UFO: aftermath is very similar to the original XCOM game.

The aliens are pretty monochromatic, the battles in the tactical section get very repetative and eventually the ‘Greys’ are almost impossible to destroy as they take over your men with Psi attacks.

However, the storyline aspect is a nice touch, the graphics are very smooth even on my mid-level machine, and the R&D component enables you to at least have some control over the games progression. I have yet to play the game through to the end, and have no tips on how to destroy the ever enlarging ‘biomass’ but would be interested to see how others faired.