UFO: Aftermath

aka: The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge, UFO: Kolejne Starcie, UFO:AM
Moby ID: 10575

Description official descriptions

In the year 2004, Earth is suddenly overcome by "spores" launching from an alien mothership. Slowly blocking earth from the sun, in only a week it rains down biological death on the earth... killing most of humanity and larger life forms.

Since then, the few survivors of mankind have sought out each other, and by 2005, enough humanity has joined together to make a stand. Calling themselves the Council of Earth, and working secretly in hidden bases, they must research, recruit and train to the ultimate goal of shooting down UFOs, engaging aliens in combat and reclaiming the Earth from their oppressors and the mutated biology.

This game is VERY similar to the cult favorite, X-Com but with a post-apocalyptic War of the Worlds (or perhaps "V: The miniseries") feel to it. Much of the game takes place on the world map where you choose which missions to attend to, where to build new bases (and what type) and your overall sphere of influence. Additionally, you control Research & Development and current equipment for your squad.

On the 3D map of each "area" however, the game is real-time strategy that pauses to allow you to give orders to your forces. In fact, at the end of queued actions or whenever something 'signifigant' is noticed, the game stops allowing you to put together a strategy. Just as in X-Com, these areas are limited in size, and visibility. However objectives vary.. killing all enemies is not always the purpose of a mission. Soldier development is also fairly detailed. The skills your squad uses out in the field they will get better at (they gain experience individually). Additionally when they reach certain prerequisites in their base stats, they can train to get better at certain skills, including Soldier, Medic, Scientist and others.

Spellings

  • UFO: Нашествие - Russian spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

74 People (69 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 35 ratings with 8 reviews)

Nice try

The Good
When an old strategy gamer hear about a new game based on the early 90s UFO series it makes someone to try it or try it and I feel the need to say that meeting features on this title that I didn’t saw for years was a pleasure. In contemporary days is very hard to find a TBS instead of a RTS (in this game you will find a mix, but closer to TBS)

I found many reviews to focus on the fact that the graphics are strongly disappointing for a modern game and base their ratings on it, well they are right that even the isometric 2D view on the original games are still better that the present 3D but I disagree on nuking a game just because the graphics.

The plot and story play are well executed and the technology tree and base management are ok. The enemies are ok despite the fact that the transgenants are very easy to eliminate.

The RPG-like soldier development is one of the strong sides on the game, enjoyable, as well as the variety on armors, guns, grenades and similar.



The Bad
There are many minor flaws that as a player, I can allow, but the mayor flaw in this game is the unbalanced, non-escalated difficulty.

I will tell my story with this game, I start playing and finds it a decent game while I am advancing trough the learning curve (a little long) at one moment the difficult is ok , but suddenly I need to beat the “enter a crashed UFO missions” and here my problems begin. I found that it will be better if I restart my game (now that I know how to play it better) and develop further my technologies and my soldiers so I can beat this reticulans (the main raze) and continue advancing. In my second game I did better and managed to beat these hard missions, so far, the game is ok, I like challenging games even very hard games and using a few save and load do not bother me.

SPOILER I continue advancing by playing every non-plot missions and fighting for every experience points when I come to the third plot mission, the one where you need to secure an item so you can build a ship to reach the moon for the final mission and I found it impossible. I believe that some fans will negate this but for the average player this mission is frustrating, I could try, right, but saving, loading and replaying every min for 10 hours isn’t my idea of a good game experience. Therefore, I gave up and either I quit or cheat… SPOILER

I rarely come to one of these options but after expending not a few hours at least I deserve to know how the story ends so I cheated (third time on my life since I dislike it) for the last 20 mins just to reach the final.



The Bottom Line
I will give an advice to any original UFO games lover that this game, while isn’t better that the original and despite the fact that you will find many similar features, can be very frustrating. However, if you can live with it, go ahead, UFO aftermath is a nice try.

Windows · by Cabeza2000 (689) · 2004

Slightly disappointing, but a good start

The Good
Cool premise, and some nice video work, though the only graphical aspect i felt was executed really well was soldier animations. The animations are smooth and blend well, leaving you with some very lifelike characters.

The Bad
I bought the game about a week ago, and i'm having really mixed feelings. On one side, i was deeply in love with UFO: Enemy unknown on the amiga, but i also sucked at it, horribly. It still kept me coming back though, even though the micromanagement and many in-depth aspects went way over my head at the time. It's very hard for me to see Aftermath as anything other than a spiritual sequel. It may not share the same lingo, but the gameplay is incredibly similar. Where it doesn't match up is in the way it handles base building (bases are established as rewards for certain completed missions) and in the pseudo-realtime combat system. Being so deeply affectionate about the "forefather" makes it tough to accept the shortcomings, but i've given it an honest, truthful attempt. I still come off disappointed.

The biggest problem in my opinion is the premise. Where UFO charged you with figuring out the increasing frequency of UFO sightings and abductions, leading up to full scale invasion, Aftermath starts off with the attack well underway. The strange thing here is that wow, almost all humans have been destroyed, yet it takes little to no effort to regain control of most of the american continents within the first couple of weeks. There's a leap of faith required on the player's part that i had severe issues with.

In addition, the research is delegated strangely. When you have 12 research bases you'd think you could run several projects at once, but you are forced to take them one at a time. Same with developing new technologies. you have x number of engineering bases, but they all cooperate to produce a single suit of armor? Eh?

A final lapse of logic is that while you protect the whole world from alien attacks, you have one squad of soldiers and one chopper with which to fly them to their destinations. So all in all the "strategic game" as the manual calls it is an overly simplified and broken down version of the XCOM global view game dynamic with no resource management whatsoever, contrary to the box blurb.

The tactical game is equally simple. You guide your troops around the battlefield in a jilted on/off fashion as the game auto-pauses for you on a bazillion different occasions. Often you have to unpause the game up to 7 times in a row to get back in control of things. The interface sorely lacks basic features, like telling a soldier to guard an area. Instead the game will auto-pause for you whenever a targeted enemy enters or leaves line of sight. Very very annoying. "No you damn idiots, you don't need to do some spectacularly intelligent thing, all you need to do is keep your gun pointed in the same general direction and fire again when he pops back out!"

Another strange function is the "manipulate" button. There are no objects in the game to use other than doors, and doors are opened with a right click regardless. Why there is a "use" function at all is mind boggling.

In addition, there is no way of moving while crouching or going prone, making crouching pretty a pretty worthless maneuver. The game world itself is randomly generated, and it shows. Missions are all markedly similar, and buildings cannot be entered, making the game bound to street level. There are levels where you enter crashed UFOs and alien bases, and the interiors leave a lot to be desired.

The sound work is also lackluster. The music is about as scary as your average episode of MASK, although you can sense it really tried, rock ballads during aerial dogfights and all. The voice work moves between atrocious and good. For some reason the game attempts comedy at odd times. Some characters are stereotyped so bad it aches, including the ditzy blonde and the ahhnold german. It really doesn't fit the game's post-apocalyptic setting or overall graphical execution.

A final blow is the uninterested and matter-of-factly way the game addresses itself. Missions aren't presented as a game world element, but rather as "tasks for you to finish before the game can proceed". Objectives are given in a simple, to the point way that is overtly generic and undescriptive, making what could have been a "The laboratory ship downed over Poland has crash landed in central Krakow. Investigate the crash site and secure it for our science team" a case of the "You must eliminate a certain number of enemies to complete this mission". Very sad, and a total atmosphere killer.

The Bottom Line
All in all, Aftermath gets certain things dead on, but they are all minor. The gameplay remains too simple and random to be truly satisfying, and the lapses of logic make the storyline a bit hard to swallow. I'm pleased to be playing a new UFO game, and i hope they do a sequel to this one, but it feels like a work in progress solution.

Windows · by Andreas SJ (21) · 2003

Tactical combat freaks will enjoy this game

The Good
There are strong surface similarities between UFO and X-COM, but U:A is a very good game on its own merits. The combination of individual tactics and a captivating plot results in an amazing game where you can use several powerful weapons to combat the alien enemies. The graphics are pretty competent and both the sound effects and the voice over are very good. Also the world map is well done and very detailed.



The Bad
The tactical interface could have been a bit user-friendlier: it takes some time getting used to.

The Bottom Line
I have played the game for a week and I just love it.

Windows · by Tommy Wood (38) · 2004

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Many of the graphics are regionalized. For instance, European cities look very different than American cities. Additionally, you may select your starting region from the GAMES menu.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Shoddyan.

Additional contributors: Corn Popper, JRK, Stratege, Victor Vance.

Game added October 5, 2003. Last modified March 6, 2024.