UFO: Aftershock

ALTAR went broke finishing the sequel to Aftermath and it shows. There are too many bugs to list. However, the ALTAR games are blessed with an amazing modding community who have fixed and improved this game. You will have to do a little homework but it will really pay off. Unpatched and unmodded this game scores only 2/4 mind you. The game which is most like the ALTAR UFO games is NOT the original turn based XCOM game, but the realtime-pause combat of X-COM: Apocalypse. So if you hated that you can stop reading now :) Patched and modded, Aftershock is a delightful game. The realtime-pause combat combined with ragdoll physics is incredibly addictive. Combat will change a lot as the game progresses and new technologies and skills become available. The game is very different from the original Aftermath so take that into account before buying. I like both games for various reasons. Aftermath (modded) for its extreme difficulty and Aftershock for the hilarious ragdoll physics. The next game in the series, Afterlight, is one of my all time favourites, where they did not make any of the mistakes they made when making Aftershock, and vastly improved on it.

I played this on Win7-64/Nvidia. The game is enjoyable in between the bugs, but there are so many that after finishing it I won't ever be replaying it. The following issues of developer shame were encountered: - Squad members sometimes get wrong name labels in tactical view. - Squad members sometimes turn invisible in tactical view. - Entering manufacturing after a mission results in interface filled with blank debug text. - Enemy unit mission objective sometimes would not spawn making mission unwinnable. - Game often hangs loading saves at 95% load completion. - Inventory interface weirdness/hangs using under-barrel plasma launcher. - Game-ending crash-to-desktop/squad disappeared that required re-playing from earlier saves to avoid. - Game hangs after playing ending cinematic. I usually use a save file pool of 10-ish saves, rotating and saving over earlier saves as the game progresses. This may have been what caused the game ending crash. I started not reusing saves afterwards and encountered no more crashes to desktop. Save often. Save numerous. Deeper plot with better gameplay than UFO: Aftermath. Good luck.

It's a good game, I have enjoyed all of the 'UFO' series, and this hits the spot. I have the Steam version. However, if you have a machine with Intel graphics be prepared for disappointment, as it probably won't run. This is a known issue. Spent ages trying everything to get it to work on my Intel laptop, no luck, but fortunately my old AMD machine runs it fine, so I use that, just to play it! So if you like the other UFO games, warts and all, and you don't have Intel graphics, this is a no-brainer.

This is one of those games that developed my interest in military sci-fi, though the first of the series Aftermath was the one that actually sparked it off. Aftershock is a big brother/second attempt of the formula laid down by Aftermath and does very well. The only gripes of the time was Starforce which is now devoid in this DRM-free version, and there are various mods and modding guides if you feel the need to change the game. There are factions, and it's a good idea to be friendly to at least the humans but a better idea to be friendly to them all. Humans are generic and my favorite as they get the best flexibility in the field, Cyborgs make excellent high-speed high-health tank-scouts, and Psionics are fine medics with decent sniping capability and a '6th sense' which can detect living creatures through walls. As I mentioned above just be friendly with the humans and you will be fine, they are flexible enough to be anything but an uber-tank. Resource and base management is done proper but I will give you a warning, you can't just grab a ton of bases and use them all. Supply lines through territories cost maintenance to keep going and the cost gets higher for more and more lines so be careful and thoughtful on which bases to attach and which ones to leave as-is. Building space in bases is limited also, which means capability to make advanced items and weapons will be exponentially more expensive. This forces the player to use 'cheap' equipment for a long while as a means to keep fighting, and to use common munitions for a long while. I would easily say the game is very balanced. To cut to the chase, if you like Aftermath then Aftershock is a truly well-done sequel. If you haven't tried both, then it's the best infantry tactical game I ran into that is modern (XCom requires DOS and is dated) and there isn't many games to fill the niche Aftershock does, nor do they do it nearly as well.

UFO Aftershock is a buggy, flawed, often repetitive mess of a tactical strategy game, but beneath it's admittedly rough exterior lies wealth of stories and mechanical ideas that are still innovative even by modern standards. It's significantly longer than similar titles, and while a frustrating amount of this length comes from grinding defense missions, the campaign does a genuinely interesting job of answering the many questions raised by this game and its predecessor.