UFO:Afterlight
From 1993 till today several sequels, some official, some non-official, of the memorable UFO: Enemy Unknown (also known as X-COM or UFO: Defense in the USA); some of the got a discreet success (UFO: Extraterrestrials) while others, like UFO: Aftermath, were a total fiasco. The Altar guys haven't chilled and tried to improve the quality with this brand new UFO: Afterlight.
The plot: humanity was forced by their oppressor to leave Earth and find a new home to Mars. Here, besides to fight the aliens, you'll have to set your roots and use the natural resources. The hostility of the original inhabitants (yep, Mars is not unmanned!) will make your job much harder. The gameplay is mainly taken from its genre standard: you'll be charged to build military bases, manage soldiers, scientists and tehnicians in a perfect RPG style and attack the enemy bases to expand your occupancy. The only piece of news is the use of a single modular base and the sending of external troops in conquered buildings.
Besides the fact that fighting to defend Earth is more involving than freeing Mars, the atmosphere is involving also beacuse of the use of expedients like the several dialogues between the officials of the bases, giving you some precious suggestions. This is a great idea, but it should be thought very good, not to find yourself locked in hours of dialogues, while your only thought is to take some green-head off the planet. Anyway, ?melius abundare quam deficere?: better a rich plot and gameplay, even if sometimes boring) than the opposite. Unfortunately, battles aren't so well cured as the plot. The fighting engine is considerably improved and gives an unlimited control of the actions; instead, maps and territory are generally repetitive and boring, takin the game to the ?shoot-anything-moving? level style. There's nothing we can do inside the map and your view range is so limited that your enemies will often look like they're coming out of nowhere. The battles are reduced to simple shoot 'em up's inside the enemy territory, where you'll even have a few tactics to defend or attack. You won't have any choice than annihilating your enemies before they do.
The difficulty level increases out of proportion. Despite you're in chief of an invincible army capable to kill hordes of aliens, you may face simple battles at first, and you may be miserably defeated on the later second. All of this has probably something to do with the territory control. By expanding your dominion, the AI of the game increases the difficulty by taking it from medium to insane in just one moment. If you conquer too many territories without caring of research and production of guns, the game will assume that you're ready for the best battles. Then, the aliens will attack your water resources stopping its flow from the tanks to your base. If you're not able to defeat the enemy on time, your armt will die of thirst. Unfortunately, to repair the water tanks, you'll have to fastly expand and get the control of surrounding mines that will let you produce the petrol feeding your UFO-crafts. Summarizing: you have the total need to fastly expand your domain on one hand, while on the other hand, as soon as you do it, the difficulty level will highly grow up. Prepare yourself to start over the game several times, because understanding the gameplay won't be that easy. The fighting are strainfull. The game controls are excellent and the interface is very intuitive. If you place the cursor over an enemy, you'll see the percentage of success of your attack. The command icons of your army's gun-recharge time are very visible. To ensure that battles are never boring, there are several alien species created for this title. Your targets may be simple ?search and destroy? missions or recognitions and discovery of old ruins. the technologic resources you'll have look to be infinite. You'll be able to build new guns, from the laser rifles to warp cannons. You'll even be able to start more than 100 different kinds of research, from the alien autopsy to the supercomputer study. All of this will give you the chance to conduct your gameplay just as you like it, and face these always new ?quests?. Soldiers, technicians and scientists can be taught in more than 100 different matters too. Their level can grow up during the game, just like happens in RPG style. The game tutorial is composed by different kinds of suggestions, but they're very few for the ones who tries for the first time this kind of game. It's sure that this UFO: Afterlight has been well-studied and takes Altar back to the levels that fit it. Difficult, intense and never boring are the main features of this title. Who ?has had? to put up with the clones of UFO, can't miss this original game. |
FrancescoPontillo - 20/08/2007
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Title: Universe At War: Earth Assault
Platform: PC
Release date: January 2008
Genre: Strategy
Author: zsinger
Vote: 7.6
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Universe at War: Earth appears to be, at first sight, an attempt to deliver and old style RTS game, with some innovations. Petroglyph developers have introduced three new alien races, two of which never seen before in RTS gaming.
Plot
“And the earth stands on the brink of destruction…” it’s the year 2012 and the alien forces called The Hierarchy have descended upon the planet earth destroying everything in their path. As human force prepare for strikes back, a new mysterious alien force arrives: the Novus. Novus are sentient machines whose only will is to destroy their nemesis, The Hierarchy. .... |
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