http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=219
Downloading now. Hope it is as good as I hope it is.
I really did not like UFO: Aftermath at all. The story in this one sounds cool (sounds like kind of a ripoff of Anvil of Stars actually, but that was an awesome book), but if they didn’t fix the gameplay…meh.
I haven’t played their previous title but the demo seemed quite decent on its own. There are two missions as well as a look at the strategic layer.
The original (UFO: Aftermath) had its moments, both good and bad. Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good but it was soooo very close! Given a few more months development and testing time it could have very easily swung in the other (the good) direction but, as is par for the course these days, it was rushed out the door.
It appears the sequel is much improved over the original by not only fixing what was broken but also by adding some of the features that Altar had intended to put into the original but ran out of time, eg base management, mini-map, walking inside buildings, more destructible terrain, etc…
I’m halfway through the original but I’m having trouble finding the effort to finish it. The crowded maps and their awful, busy art direction make too many levels seem like a grind. Especially when the gameplay doesn’t involve too many tactics beyond me getting my squad to zerg around.
Can someone tell me if anymore tactical depth has been added?
Dammit, developers. Just remake XCom.
Downloading. Supposedly they added a lot more stuff like destructable environments and base-building, so we’ll see how that goes.
Obligatory Starforce warning.
Now, given that I have it already installed anyway, why do I need to reboot after install? :evil:
>> Obligatory Starforce warning.
After seeing that, canceled the download. Fuck starforce.
Why do they put Starforce in game demos?
Is there some kind of explanation for this that I’m not getting?
It’d be really easy for hackers to clue in how to disable Starforce on that specific implementation if there was a Starforce-free version of the executable publicly available.
I give up already.
Unplayably jerky on medium/low settings, on a game that goes only as high as 1024 resolution, with a shithot gaming machine? Fuck off, frankly.
I really wanted to like this game, I really did. And up until the tactical/combat section, it brought back some great memories of X-Com – perfect GeoSphere, nice-looking base section, with support for researching and other stuff, diplomacy, etc. But the combat is just horrid. The voice actors are obnoxious and say stupid shit every 5 seconds, the game pauses itself randomly when activating my turn for no apparent reason, weapons have no sounds in combat, you can’t zoom the camera out far enough, and the AI is dumb as nails. When I saw the first alien (which is represented by an exlamation point because apparently when you’re 20 feet away you can’t see it at all, only hear it) I ordered my squad to shoot at it and activated my turn… after the game finished randomly pausing itself over and over for about 5 minutes, the alien just suddenly fell over dead. I assume they were shooting at it, but it never shot back, and there were no sounds or impact effects to indicate what was happening. Then my obnoxious female squadmate loudly proclaims, “I can’t continue attacking sir” after which, of course, the other obnoxious squad mates chime in with the obvious and say the same thing. The level I played was a mess… I tried to navigate the alien “base” but it was a total nightmare. Ugly textures and geometry, limited zoom, framerate jerkyness. That’s when I gave up and quit. Sorry guys, X-Com this is not.
Because, so I’ve been told, a lot of CD cracks are based on people looking at demo exe and the full release exe and figuring out what is different to disable the copy protection.
The demo is very uninspiring as far as combat goes. In the future, it seems that rifles will only have a range of about 15 metres.
The stop/start aspect of combat also detracts from the enjoyment.
I really liked Aftermath, and thought it was a great spiritual sequel to the XCOMs, but it had a difficulty ramp about 2/3ds of the way through that was fairly insurmountable for someone who isn’t expecting it, and wasn’t fun for anyone, I don’t think. I thought for a cheapass Eastern European knockoff, it was a fair attempt. They had the Geoscape, and the general atmosphere, and I enjoyed hunting the Transgenics and researching them, just like in XCOM. I’ll definitely give Aftershock a fair go. Gameplay are offering a free copy of Aftermath with Aftershock, BTW.
Dude, take a peek at the options. You have tons of control over the pausing mechanism, voice, camera, etc… Also, read the damned tutorial messages! They’re there to help you figure this stuff out.
I also don’t get the jerkiness problems. I have an an “average” machine at P4 2.4 ghz with 9800 (non pro) and it runs smooth as silk for me.
And fuck X-com. Yeah, it’s a classic and I’ll love it forever but don’t tell me you jumped in and figured everything out in 15 minutes. Not to mention UFO is a game all its own, with its own merits. It’s not X-com but so what? It’s still pretty darn good as far as I can tell…
Check the options and you can change the pause behavior. Disable all the minor pausing events and the combat will unfold much faster and with more satisfaction.
I’m telling you, once you get the order queuing and pausing figured out the battles really look and sound awesome, with guys shooting, running for cover, crouching, shooting some more, tossing nades, etc… You have as much control as you like (hence all the pausing) or you can let her rip and just watch the carnage.
Yes, I know about the options but the problem is that some options that I use still end up with combat being paused every too many times to get a rhythm going.
I find combat to be a case of clicking on everyone and telling them to attack alien A until it is dead, then alien B, and so on. Except for the guy with the shotgun. Then it involves trying to get him within his ridiculous 4m range, by which time the alien is dead and he needs to run towards alien B.
Whoa, chill. I actually did read the tutorial messages, at least most of the ones it popped up automatically. They all seemed to have numbered tips… you think I’m going to sit there and read every single one, when there’s 10 or 20 of them? Does anyone do that? Anyway, I disabled as much pausing as I could, and I still feel the combat isn’t all that satisfying. Someone has said it was a bug in the demo but the weapons have no firing sounds for me and either way there’s very little feedback in terms of effects.
Also, we all know why UFO: Aftershock calls itself UFO. It’s trying to play on the UFO: Enemy Unknown name (the UK name for X-Com) and that’s why nearly all ingame details, from the GeoSphere, base building, diplomacy, etc, is all straight from X-Com. Which leaves me a little irked that the combat isn’t. It’s like they tried to pull a BioWare and do something new, but it just didn’t work for this game.
The difference, for me, between X-Com and UFO: Aftershock is that the first battle I played in X-Com was extremely fun. And the second, and third, and so on. I’ve played 3 battles in Aftershock and none of them have been all that inspiring. It just doesn’t “feel” right. But oh well. I reinstalled TFTD anyway, which I never completed, so that will satisfy my X-Com desires for a while.
Hmm Installed : No prob (didnt have to reboot)
Played (run pretty smooth… No i dont have a speed pc, bought a medium pc last year; Could also hear the guns…)
The only thing that i had to get used to is the camera… Sometimes its not so easy to look at the things that you want to. But as a sum up i will buy this game on monday (my shop next door told me its getting it on 17. Oct.)
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