Platform: PC

Genre: Strategy RPG

Publisher: Cenega

Developer: Altar Interactive

ETA: Q3 2003

Review: Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (PC)

Review: Commandos 2 (Playstation 2)

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UFO: Aftermath

Well, crap. Looks like the day after tomorrow a big spaceship is going to park its ass in orbit around the Earth and release a bunch of spores into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun, only to saturate and rain down on us, clogging bodies of water, bury wild life, and suffocate most of us. Looks like I’ll have to head down to my underground bunker, complete with food stuffs and independent oxygen supply so that I can wait out this disaster and get my revenge by kicking some alien butt when the dust settles. At least that’s the plot behind Altar Interactive’s new strategy RPG for the PC.

Aftermath looks like it’s leaning in the strategic direction, as the game has players trying to gain more territory on Earth so that they can use the land to setup military bases, research facilities, interception bases, and repulsion facilities. All of this is in hopes of better repulsing the huge biomass that is slowly enveloping the globe. Players must figure out how to best

balance these different installations so to regain the Earth. But this is only a small part of the strategy involved in Aftermath, as the majority of the strategy comes in the form of the tactical-based missions players must embark on to gain new territories. Combat is a hybrid of turn-based and real time battles where players can pause when they like to issue commands, as circumstances dictate, adjusting as new developments unfold. Interestingly, the landscapes appear to be randomly generated, instead of based on templates, which should allow for a good deal of replay value.

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The RPG elements come in how your troops improve as they get more battle hardened. Each character has general base stats, and they can be enhanced as they gain experience, allowing for generalists, or specialized characters such as medics, snipers, or heavy weapons soldiers.

Features:

Simultaneous turn-based combat: combines the best of the real-time and turn-based combat systems;
Randomly generated tactical missions: Each playing field is unique, no two games are the same;
Strong RPG elements: your soldiers will improve as they gain more experience, allowing you to make specialists like snipers, medics, and many more;
Intricate, rich, and frighteningly alien setting displayed in full 3D.
Over 100 varied mission objectives.
70 plus unique weapons

Squad-based tactical strategy games with global implications such as that found in Aftermath are seldom seen in the PC market as of late. Altar looks to try and fill this void in late 2003.

Mr. Nash

April 19, 2003