What I posted below is mostly fact. I'm not one of the fanboys that think Aftermath is the greatest game ever. Silent Storm is better, simple as that. I did get annoyed with all the attacks on ALTAR based on misunderstandings or lack of knowledge in the beginning however, and vented some of my frustration here. For that I am sorry.

I do however think Aftermath has great potential. That is an opinion, and it's up to you to decide what you think. Reason I tried to explain a few things below, is that I run a Aftermath fan-site, and am in contact with ALTAR on a regular basis. Thus I know more about the trouble they faced than most others, and it could help explain a few things for some.

Isn't Slaughter the one always campaigning this game?



I don't trust his opinion, based on that. Nor do I trust ALTAR to make something that isn't a pile of puke. Not after the moronic design decisions of the previous game.

Get a new lead designer and I'll give it a fair shake. The technical team was fine, but the design team needs to find new day jobs.

Yeah, UFO2000 is fun. Been a while since I tried it though. Probably improved a good deal since then.

Invasion 2021 was new to me. Looks interesting from the screens! Thanks for the heads up.

Regarding Xenocide, I would also love to see some tactical stuff. Only thing I've seen so far is textures and models. Quite a bit of that posted at their boards though.

Cutedge, there is also:

I should go put links to these on my X-Com site. I mean, I know about Xenocide but UFO Ex looks pretty badass. As for Xenocide, i'll keep an open mind until i see a battlescape. He's had a 3d globe view (the alpha) for a long time and to be honest, there's code for doing a 3d globe all over the net.

For the sake of listing more:
UFO2000 - uses the X-Com engine for multiplayer
http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/

Invasion 2021 - slow ass site but it looks kinda promising
http://www.invasion2021.narod.ru/main_eng.html

Liked it? Hmmm I must've missed something. The part that got me the most was the research tree, or lack thereof. The way the game handled research was awful, I remember having to wait months and months before I captured one stupid piece of equipment just to make lasers... Sheesh.. That and the interface was confusing as hell. I'm quite surprised that ALTAR was sucessful enough to warrant making an expansion.

Cutedge, there is also:
http://www.xforce-online.de/news.php (dead recently, but the download you can play is very interesting)
http://www.projectxenocide.com/ (Alpha looks promising)
http://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/ (don't know all that much about this one)

Believe it or not, but there are quite a few people out there that like UFO:Aftermath. The official site have pretty much all the reviews there is listed, as you can see here: http://www.ufo-aftermath.com/pages/press.html

The average is about 70 % as Awesome says I believe. And we have had a fairly good modding community compared to for instance Silent Storm. I find that strange, since I think S2 is a better game. I like Aftermath, but S2 is stunning.

S2 (and the upcoming S3) does however lack the strategic part, and that's sorely missed from my point of view. It was simplified in Aftermath as well, but at least there was some of it. And the voices is as bad in S2 as in Aftermath

But back on topic. Aftermath sold more in preorders than Cenega expected it to do in it's lifetime. It was the first "big hit" for them as far as I know. And therefore I am positive that they are willing to put some serious resources into the sequel. I hope so at least, and the trailer looked promising quality-wise.

You should also be aware of the situation ALTAR were in when they developed Aftermath. Vivendi (or who it was that gave them Dreamland) abandoned them shortly after they started, and thus they were without a publisher for most of the development period. And it's not easy to develop a game without money ;).

My point is that ALTAR is in a much better position to give us what we want now, and they listen closely to their community. So even though I guess I'm kind of biased, I'll ask you to at least be open minded.

i hope these guys learned something from the constant raping in every review

What surprised me most about UFO:AM was how positive the reviews I read where. I'm not talking 80s or 90s but usually solid 70s and very occasionally higher. It's like they'd been playing a different game to me. Yet, apart from the 2 or 3 hardcore on the official message boards nobody I know liked it. As soon as you hit aliens with mind control tech the gameplay went to shit. It was just arbitrary who pulled off mind control first to see whether you were going to clear a level unscathed or have your party wiped out. Stupid game. The sequel will need to be friggin brilliant for me to look at it.

I just checked Gametab and the average over 31 reviews was 71%. Baffled...

Cutedge, what do you mean the sounds were decent? They were horrible!

The sound in the video for this new one, I mean. The voice over for this sequel is good, where the voices in the original were terrible.

There are 2 fan-based x-com games in development right now.

Yeah, UFO:AI will rock (http://ufo.myexp.de/)

This comment was edited on May 5, 15:40.

Silent Storm really WAS the game that UFO Aftermath should've been, but in dubya dubya too.

I pray that we can get the developers of Silent Storm to just keep cranking out new content for that game, because really the engine is about all one man could ask for.

Although it lacks the base-building and general campaign aspects of X-COM, Laser Squad Nemesis has a great combat engine. And it's no longer just Play By EMail (PBEM). I've been enjoying the single-player demo.

Cutedge, what do you mean the sounds were decent? They were horrible!

The only saving grace for this game was the graphics and the interface. The rest was bile. All along, ALTAR has said they don't want to make an x-com clone. Well good for them, it seems to be doing quite well for them.

There are 2 fan-based x-com games in development right now. I suggest you support those if you are really looking for what x-com used to be.

just go ahead and play Silent Storm so you can get the full breadth of how shitty UFO:AM was

_____________________________________________
Give me slack. Or kill me.

Yes, the lack of indoor action was a major strike against the game IMHO. If they put in destructable environments and use colors other than brown and gray, I might be interested. But unless this one has true turn-based, my expectations remain very low.

Yep no noticeable AI was just the worst of thier many sins.


I never went back for the patches after haring reports.
Was it still the case that the .50 cal rifles were better for killing than all the alien weapons?

This game was not renamed AfterBirth just by the cynical, it was all to apparent what had been done to the XCOM legacy.

I'm not suprised to see that it sold so well. Hell, we're so fucking starved for an X-Com game and since Infogrames killed the francise ("We hear you guys", they said in a forum post about us wanting a new X-Com game, three years ago).

I mean, the game wasn't that bad until you hit the point where they had the rocket launchers, so hopefully this one they'll do really well on. If you compare to the X-Com, yeah, of course it's not as good. And they do have a right to make a game like this since *they bought the righst to dreamland cronicles* and that's where this came from.

Or maybe I was just that desperate for a new X-Com.

If I give them credit for anything, it's that they listened to the fan community and I'm sure they'll continue to do so. I mean, it already looks like this is going to have insides of buildings (thank god). Hopefully they'll have full on night missions (which even Apocalypse was lacking) and better AI for your troops (with worse AI for theirs, which was fixed in 1.2 i believe).


eh, at least the voices don't sound as bad.

This comment was edited on May 5, 11:59.

i hope these guys learned something from the constant raping in every review

somehow I doubt they did tho...

_____________________________________________
Give me slack. Or kill me.

I'm really surprised to see a sequel... the first was such a piece of junk that I didn't think it would've sold very well. I was SO disappointed. Too bad the video didn't include any gameplay footage.

UFO: Aftermath = the suckage. It wouldn't have been THAT bad had they actually coded in some AI

..and a decent combat system...

Someone should dig out X-Com: Alliance and finish it.

amen!

UFO: Aftermath = the suckage. It wouldn't have been THAT bad had they actually coded in some AI