UFO: Aftermath: PC Game Reviews - The Armchair Empire


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- It loads - It kind of reminds you of XCOM...

- It loads - It kind of reminds you of XCOM...

Review: Impossible Creatures (PC) Review: 1503AD - The New World (PC) Review: Empire Earth (PC)
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UFO: Aftermath

Score: 5.9/10

I’m going to throw Aftermath a bone, and give it a mediocre rating. I’m ignoring all my bias in doing so, and providing clean, objective criticism. It’s buggy, bland and repetitive, the graphics are nothing worthy of merit, and if it were made of wood you’d be able to see rusty nails sticking out left right and centre, but it’s not the worst thing that the world has ever seen. So, that’s that out of the way; if you’re the sort of person who browses the Empire every so often in search of the latest high-scorer, then it’s time to stop reading. I recommend Prince of Persia 3D, or something. Maybe one of the Fallout games, if you want to confine yourself roughly to the genre. Hell, you could do worse than the original XCOM… but I’ll get to that, in a minute.

First, to expand upon the mediocrity, let me give you some background. The game is a third person strategy game, in which you control a real time squad, that feels turn based, in a post apocalyptic environment, against the hordes of some alien menace or other. There’s not much to chew on, and it’s hard to get pulled into the storyline. It’s pretty standard fare – bog standard in fact, with no bells, whistles or sphincter-clenching innovations. The environments are totally not deformable, the aliens are pretty bug-eyed, and the weapons pop like peashooters at fifty yards. What’s missing is atmosphere.

As far as slick and polish goes, Aftermath poorly misses the mark, giving the sort of jury-rigged impression you’d expect to get if it were actually being held together with staples. Rumour has it the project changed hands part way through the development, so there’s likely to be a certain amount of meat behind the metaphor.

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About one third of the way through the game there is a sudden, inexplicable and totally unsubtle increase in difficulty. And that’s where, if I had to poll it, I’d imagine the vast majority of players gave up and went to try something else. So that’s it. A mediocre experience, with poor gameplay balance. But wait…! Despite being in all ways average, I really do hate this game, and there’s just time for some vitriol.

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You see, although for legal reasons Cenega may not be able to admit it, Aftermath is the obvious bastard child of the XCOM series and harks back to the very first two titles of the series. There’s an alien invasion and a task force to deal with it, an expandable encyclopaedia of researched artefacts, a rotating planetlike geoscape ticking off UFO sightings, and which is followed by related tactical missions. Almost carbon.

For a long time in development, this game looked like the business. It looked like XCOM + one decade of computer enhancements. In every way this game seems intended to honour the memory of that distinguished title, and so it’s my belief that Cenega did not merely create this shameful pretender in order to cash in on a legacy. Perhaps they just got kind of bored around the halfway mark, and decided to ship.

One thing is crystal: when held to the light of XCOM, even ten years down the timeline, Aftermath absolutely pales. In every particular area in which XCOM excelled, Aftermath has taken devastating shortcuts. It is a bitter cup to drink. Aftermath is like the skeleton of UFO Defense. Imagine, if you will, some enthusiastic youth taking the time to explain the original XCOM game to his half-deaf maternal grandmother. This is her impression of the game; the following Christmas she’ll knit him a sweater with three arms, and UFO Aftermath.

The game should probably better have been dubbed UFO: Afterbirth – it’s ugly and sloppy and imposes itself on the heels of what you really wanted to see.

- Matt BLB

(January 18, 2004)