Posted on: December 15, 2009
robobrien
Games: 37 Reviews: 7
Hey Dude Where's The Rest Of My Game?
The first installment of Altar's trilogy was a rather timid affair. Possibly afraid a couple of x-com fanboys dressed as sectoids would show up and attempt to mindprobe them with a homemade device built from a cereal box and toilet rolls, the resulting game was far too streamlined for it's own good. The sequel returns many of the elements that were missing from Aftermath and begins with the good old planet Earth seriously screwed up and its your job to unscrew it. To this end you can enlist the aid of earth's survivors by kicking mutant butt in any territory they call home or take what you need regardless of whose particular butt gets kicked and prepare yourself for a serious frowning and dip in diplomatic relations. The survivors are made up of three factions, rugged good looking humans, black eyed scary looking psychists and huge cyborgs who have lots of fun with their x-ray vision. Depending on your status with them you can request or be given an amount of each of their unique resource or man/she power. The bodies can be put into the field and the resources put to use creating bigger and louder weaponary, support items or armor. Base building is back in and no longer the pointless addition it was in Aftermath and as progress is made in the game a greater network of manufactories, military and research centres can be built. Each base varies in size which in turn limits the amount of buildings that can be placed and expanding into new territory opens up new base building opportunities. Taking a terrirtory is one of a number of missions that can be undertaken in the tactical side of the game, they usually all involve shooting anything that walks, floats or crawls and even a simple extraction mission has every chance of turning into a bloodbath. The missions all begin from a floating island which is home base of your squad, and via a shuttle that looks pretty much like a golf ball you can send an away team to any hotspot you wish. Missions are won, loot is collected for research or use in the field and the experience of your squad increases, turning what was once a bunch of knock kneed rookies into a bunch of class-based killers and support guys. Sound good? Well it is, at first. The start of this game is easily four or five star material. An attempt to make a game with more personality is evident from the beginning as several of your crew and each of the faction leaders introduce themselves with a lengthy monologue. The graphics on the tactical map and squad portraits are more fleshed out and robust than previous and help give the game a bit more character. With the ability to research, expand and build up a kick ass squad, use each of the factions to your own advantage and as with this type of game the added bonus of uncovering the alien plot and new technologies; this is the kind of stuff that should keep me up till dawn. The game lacks too many finishing touches. Its as if Altar laid the foundations for a great game then headed off for a liquid lunch from which they never returned. There are no surprises, no twists, not enough layers to both the strategic map or tactical missions. Altar could have done so much more. Hotspots appear on the map so frequently that it does not take all that long before a sense of deja-vu descends as you fight in all too familar locations. And you fight the same drab looking aliens and mutants again and again. Questionable A.I tactics, hostile units swarm toward your squad, and line of sight issues, aliens suddenly appearing almost next to your team, doesn't help the constant grind. Neither does the lack of command options with your units resulting in the need to babysit them at every encounter and hitting the pause button every half a second. You only have to play the game for a few hours and i guarantee you will have a bucketful of good ideas that you will wish had been incorporated into the game. Blasting aliens is fun. Developing new weapons and a creating a varied team of warriors is fun. Aftershock is a fun game until it gets tired of showing you new things and requires too many hours of completing tactical missions before the story/research hits its next trigger. More events, maps, tactical options, creatively designed aliens and greater faction diplomacy would have made for a much greater game.
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