HEXUS.gaming :: Review: UFO Aftershock

[Nick]

It's the follow on from UFO Aftermath which was the next in the X-COM series... It's a strategy game and it's rather good.

We ask what's that funny light in the sky with our HEXUS.gaming UFO Aftershock Review

[TiG]

Nice review Nick, I've owned all the UFO series and have to admit i was rather disappointed by aftermath, but played and completed all of the previous ones i'm pleased to see that it appears to be improved.

The different factions on earth was already in Apocalypse though so there is nothing new there.

I didn't see any "shooting down" alien ships, is there any intercept/terror type missions ?

As for lack of pressure - i've always favoured this type of system, i mean the originals weren't even real time pause, they where turn based only.

If i remember rightly in Aftermath you could turn down the events which stopped your troops so you could play it in full real time if you so desired.

Most importantly how good is the research tree?, this for me was one of the poorest bits of aftermath.

Is it out already?

TiG

[Grey M@a]

I waited years for aftermath to come along and loved it, been a fan of the x-com series for years. Will have to nab this one Big thumbs up from me on the series. Also looks like they have improved the map screens a great deal.

[HybridVision]

I waited years for aftermath to come along and loved it, been a fan of the x-com series for years. Will have to nab this one Big thumbs up from me on the series. Also looks like they have improved the map screens a great deal.

Your sig freaks me out, dude!

I've played the UFO series since PCFormat release a demo for UFO:EU on a 3.5" floppy Those were the days...

UFO1 was an incredibly well designed game. Challenging but not tedious, deep and convincing. TFTD was a so-so sequal. Alien bases were too large and some of the enemies were obscenely resistant to being killed One of the best aspects of TFTD tho was close range combat. Against some types of aliens, guns were totally useless.

Along came Apocalypse, with better graphics and real-time combat. Strategically much more involved than the previous games, Apocalypse represented a very worthy successor to its two predecessors. However the factions were simplistic and almost unimportant. Mostly you would be friendly or agressive to the same few factions every game. Raiding the human opposition for money was a new idea, and one I found enjoyable.

Aftermath I never played. I watched my brother play it, and I was sorry that Mythos had abandoned Freedom Ridge. It was nothing like my beloved UFO. The graphics were poor, the troopers annoying, and I felt the transition to 3d was largely detrimental the gameplay. One of the joys of the previous games was getting a good look at the aliens. They were varied in appearance, and looked sufficiently menacing to evoke fear in the player. Everyone remembers their first encounter with Crysallids Not so in Aftermath; the aliens all looked like generic white blobs.

A few days ago I tried the AfterSHOCK demo (why such a similar name, why?) The first time I was baffled and seriously appauled. The second time, I started to enjoy it. My biggest initial criticism was that the soldiers appeared to be virtually blind. You would only see an alien once you got to about 3 feet away from it, by which time you had lost 2 squad members to some sort of alien missile attack. However, I doggedly completed both missions the demo gave me.

I sort-of enjoyed it. But when I remember back to the UFO:EU demo, things were different. There was no "sort-of". I was so enthralled by that demo that I must have played it 20 times (the game hadn't been released yet). Now that was fun!

All in all, I think I'll pick up Aftershock, if nothing else than having nothing new to play atm. I'm not expecting to be amazed, but I would like to be reasonably entertained for a few hours.

k9

[TiG]

Having played the demo i'm a little disappointed it doesn't allow you to see the other parts of the strategy only the combat missions. But the combat was very good, a big improvement over aftermath.

Research tree from the looks of things appears to be fairly good, with an apparent much better economy setup (again just from looks of things)

One of the aliens had a grenade launcher that kept knocking my troops down so hard, So i restarted and the alien equipment changed (some had shields already!)

AI was very strong, (the new LOS mode helps with finding the aliens though)

Definitely going to get this.
TiG

[TiG]

Just got the game and just a quick note Game has this on offer for £20 this week. for the dvd collectors edition.

Well worth it

TiG

[dkmech]

I remember playing the original UFO (or it might have been tftd) and really enjoying it.

I had a soldier who was a REALLY good marksman... Unfortunately he was very unstable and would be easily mind controlled. I still took him with me every time

I also remember in the last mission throwing a plasma grenade at the big brain - and then in the cutscene they shot it At the time i thought it would be a tough bastard so I made sure I started on it with something heavy!

Great times. Also reminds me of Jagged Alliance 2 - meticulously setting up my assaults or defenses. In fact I have played through JA2 demo countless times trying new strategies every time...

Also. About the reviews. I appreciate that every reviewer has his own system and people would still have different opinions but i think it would be better to have some sort of score at the end of review. As it seems at the moment most games get a "recommended" stamped on them... I find the percentage system, such as pcgamer employs to be very nice, as those couple of percent do get the message across, but even a system of points out of ten would give a better indication of the quality of the game.

[Nick]

We are looking at ways to score the games, using numbers in some type of system.

The problem we have is that if you score a game 90% and then something comes along and trounces that, do you score the new game higher, despites its faults or socre it the same, despite it being better?

ANd if you do socre it higher, what happens when something comes along that's even better?

Pretty soon you start running out of room at the top and you've got little space for proper comparison... What we're looking at is a way to deal with all of those issues in one hit... but other than that I'll say no more.

[Flibb]

Am in two minds about this game, was originally a laser squad player also had a go at reblestar on my mates spectrum. I seemed to lose interest when UFO came out, but did give aftermath a go. For some reason I found the not quiet turned based control system a real bore, much prefered full turned based or real time. There was also a PD game called act of war at the same time, that took laser squad to a new level, but somebody has nicked the name and made an RTS.

If you fancy a look at LS

http://www.geocities.com/lasersquadclassic/

C64 version is freeware

[dkmech]

We are looking at ways to score the games, using numbers in some type of system.

The problem we have is that if you score a game 90% and then something comes along and trounces that, do you score the new game higher, despites its faults or socre it the same, despite it being better?

ANd if you do socre it higher, what happens when something comes along that's even better?

Pretty soon you start running out of room at the top and you've got little space for proper comparison... What we're looking at is a way to deal with all of those issues in one hit... but other than that I'll say no more.

You don't have to compare games you know. The score is valid at the time of print. It grades the game in line with current expectations and competition, but not in a "this game is better than this" way. I mean todays game scored at 85% has every right to be better than last years game scored at 89%. Things have moved on and the same old don't cut it any more.

Obviously the review is a very important part of making ones mind too, but having a score helps. I think you'd need a bit of practice to figure out your way of scoring things and doing it in a consistent manner. Maybe seeing how magazines do it would be of help.

[TiG]

The score isn't the thing that ultimately matters, the review itself and the reflection of what the game is about is what ultimately reflects in the decision to or not buy the game.

it scoring 89% doesn't mean anything to me. the game might get 89% on the assumption made in the review that you like strategy games.

It might say that the game is great for micromanagement freaks and may not be everyone's ideal game, yet for people like me it might be just what i'm looking for

The reason i read hexus is because i know and trust hexus, they know their stuff and i know if nick recommends a game its going to be good.

I go back to Nicks review of Pacific fighters and the score of 4! and what chaos that caused in the il2 gaming community as prime example of scores and percentages giving stupid problems.

I'm interested to see what hexus has up their sleeves to help with reviewing games.

TiG

[Nick]

I think you'd need a bit of practice to figure out your way of scoring things and doing it in a consistent manner.

Nope, not the way we're thinking about doing it.

Maybe seeing how magazines do it would be of help.

Nope again. Half Life 2 was not a 98% scoring game but that's what magazines scored it.

Like I said, it's all stuff we're talking about. The excellent advantage our current system has is that it means you have to read the review rather than just skip to the end to see the score. That way you'll not get any nasty surprises when you by Brain Killer 9 on the strngth of an 80% socre and then find out it's not the gore-filled shoot-em-up you were expecting but actually a medical simulation...

(ok, so I take the example to the extreme, but you would not believe some the the e-mails I get about the reviews)

[dkmech]

I read all of the reviews in PCGamer, I don't just look at the scores, and yet i find their scores to be a helpful means to further express their point. They do make it clear in the review if its the game for fanboys or for anyone too.

No, HL2 wasn't a 98% game. And it didn't score 98% in PCGamer. 96% is close, granted, but there was a couple other games scoring that throughout the years too. I accept that there is a couple per cent leeway in the scoring, but it does give me a better idea. For example PCGamer used to give any game with the score of over 85% its mark of distinction, which meant that it is a good game and you will enjoy it. Yet there is also room in the reviews to find out that you personally might love this 67% game.

The reason I brought this up was that for most games reviewed lately the conclusion has been "Recommended" or a bizzare

They may well be "recommended", but some more accurate idea would also be nice. Writing reviews is not easy and you are doing a job, Nick. ( sorry I had to do it )
You are totally entitled to your opinion and your own reviewing system. I just made a suggestion based on my expectations from a review and on what I have seen so far here and in a magazine.

[Nick]

dk, sorry dude, I wasn't meaning to come on strong... apologies!

We've got a couple of things under discussion, though I can't reveal what these are and how they work...

[dkmech]

No worries too

By the way, I know this isn't the place, but since I've got your attention... I've sent a mail through the hexus web site about some funkily made CPU heatsinks that I came accross at a conference. I was wondering if hexus would've liked me to get more info on them and write a small article about this" exciting new technology". Never heard anything back though... Was just over a month ago that i sent it.

[Nick]

Dunno bud, I'll flag it with the Tech guys.. it could've been that though announced, nothing was ready to look at or something similar... I'll ask trhem though.