UFO Aftershock Preview

Intro.

The year is 2054 and the earth is an un-inhabitable mass of land. An alien invasion fifty years ago renders the earth useless. This resulted in the remaining humans to flee to a floating island known as the Laputa, which is eventually destroyed by corruption and internal conflict. The humans must now try to reclaim earth from the forces that control it. This sets the premise for UFO: Aftershock, the sequel to ALTAR Interactive’s UFO: Aftermath which was released in late 2003. Aftershock is a squad based tactical game with elements of role-playing and strategy. The developers are big fans of the popular X-Com series of games, from which the game is heavily inspired.

The story slowly unravels as you land up on a new Laputa, which is under the control of an alien foe, only known as the Reticulans. The game is clearly divided into two forms of gameplay - the tactical and the strategic. The tactical parts involve your control of a squad around the map as you go around completing missions. The strategy bit has you managing resources, researching technology, manufacturing equipment, acquiring territories, etc.

Of Tactics.

The tactical part puts you in charge of a squad, which you have complete control over. Completing missions rewards you with experience, which levels up your troops. Missions include acquiring new territory, securing bases, finding resources, scouting enemies, finding artifacts, etc. This part of the game will be in top-down isometric 3D, allowing you to rotate the view and zoom in and out of the action.

The gameplay is a fusion of turn based and real-time combat. The game pauses and allows you to issue orders to your troops, after which the results of your actions are carried out in real-time. The game can be paused at any time, if you wish to change your orders. Once unpaused, the action that takes place is simultaneous, so even your enemies move around and attack as your troops carry out your orders. You are presented with a wide range of tactical options in movement and combat.

The enemy AI is advanced and they duck for cover, call for help and even heal each other. There is also a wide range of equipment and weaponry, most of which is manufactured in the strategic part of the game. The tactical part plays out like an RPG. You will need a wide variety of soldiers in your troop, from engineers to medics and heavy weapons specialists. Soldiers are improved in two ways - one is through fighting and gaining experience points which levels up a soldier, giving him an attribute point which he can allocate in one of the six core stats - strength, agility, dexterity, willpower, intelligence and perception. The other way is through training. Training gives a soldier a unique ability, though a soldier is only limited to a set number of different training.

Of Strategy.

The strategy part of the game takes place in your Laputa’s control room where you have a full view of the earth. Included is an indicator, showing you where you are in the earth’s atmosphere and the places where you can land. Here you have access to manufacturing, research, diplomacy, base and building maintenance screens.

Missions include goals like capturing aliens, destroying enemies, aqcuiring weapons, etc. Winning missions gives you influence, which in turn gets you territory. This gives you resources. Resources fuel manufacturing and research. This gives you more power and lets you move on to tougher missions. Earth is divided into districts. Capturing a district can be carried out either by force or diplomacy with the various other factions and races residing there. Once acquired, you can set up a base there and then proceed to build buildings to aid in your research and manufacturing. All your bases have to be connected to your main base to contribute resources to operations.

You come across different factions in the game and your actions will either make or break your relationship with them. Sending gifts and tributes to other factions keeps them happy and strengthens alliances. The game revolves around you deciding what resources to acquire and what to research and subsequently manufacture and the effect of all these actions in the world.

The missions are not completely linear. While you do have a set goal in a campaign, the way you go about it is completely upto you. The story also remains the same, but you can complete missions in your own playing style.

Final thoughts.

The engine supports dynamic lighting, shadows, weather effects and a minimum resolution of 1024×768. Replay value is added by way of a random mission generator, which churns out random maps and missions which promises a new game every time you play. While the gameplay might have a daunting learning curve, which may put off new players, the game will make hardcore fans of the first part and X-Com type games feel right at home.

Meshach Thomas