UFO Aftermath

[Afty]

If you've been thinking about buying it, STOP THINKING AND BUY IT.

This is a little gem - not quite as advanced as the original was for its' time, but very very nice looking, v atmospheric in missions, great attention to detail (first time round I started in Colorado, my fighters were FA/18 - second start was in Europe and the first thing I noticed in the FMV fighter sequences was that my guys were flying Eurofighters. Capture a base in Asia? Your comrades fly Mig29s. In the USA I mostly got Colt M4s when capturing weapons, in Europe I was inundated with H&K equipment... VV nice). It's got a strategic section, research+development, a great little real time tactical squad game (pause available to issue orders) and an RPG element as your soldiers level up and can be trained.

If you liked the original this is a GOOD but not GREAT sequel, there are some downsides : entering UFOs takes you to another map, instead of being (more realistically in the original) part of the map... you can't use buildings (you can't enter them) to setup kill zones and use windows/doors to good effect, which is probably THE biggest misgiving I have - shotguns and sub machine guns have such limited range that these (and in UFOs/bases) are the only environments one could realistically use them in... but they were cut from the game during the dev process.

All in all I know I whinged quite a bit, but this baby is *ADDICTIVE*. I gave the CDs to housemate yesterday, he went 9 hours without eating and was still playing when I hit the sack at 1am.

[Bluey]

I've seen it and it caught my interest, sounds a bit like the old x-com games, and i loved x-com apocalypse so ill give this a look :)

[ShadowMan]

it is an x-com game. UFO:Enemy unknown is the first in the series and this is #5 or 6.

will probably have to buy it today.

[Afty]

Originally posted by ShadowMan
it is an x-com game. UFO:Enemy unknown is the first in the series and this is #5 or 6.

Technically, it's not as they don't own the franchise, however the project was started by the same head designer, Julian Gollop, who designed and wrote the original UFO : Enemy Unknown, but SONY cancelled the project when it was aimed at PS2, eventually a Czech Developer picked up the pieces, bought the code + rights, and finished the game...

[Zakalwe]

Can confirm that this is one addicitive game! 12 hrs logged on Sunday :) Only stopped because Psym made me play gunbound.

It's great watching the spread of your empire over the globe (which is such a cool harking back to the original) - I've got most of a hemisphere pacified now. Although UFO sightings are picking up...

The small squad combat is damn good fun, although my Haxxing grenadier squad has made it a little ridiculous (3 men with Heroic Speed, Heroic Throwing and Heroic Strength fully loaded with grenades & med packs).

Our standard tactical engagement involves one man running towards the aliens then taunting them by running from side to side dodging their fire whilst the other 2 arc grenades in from somewhere on the other side of the map. Most missions take less than 10 minutes with this approach :) I've plans for a sniper corp to complement ths group, but that means quite a bit more training to get effective (only 2 heroic marksman ATM)

Great fun though, truly recommend it as a damn good buy.

[Afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
It's great watching the spread of your empire over the globe (which is such a cool harking back to the original) - I've got most of a hemisphere pacified now. Although UFO sightings are picking up...

have you spotted the biomass yet? The way it grows is quite... insidious. Watch it on close up...

Originally posted by Zakalwe
The small squad combat is damn good fun, although my Haxxing grenadier squad has made it a little ridiculous

Yeah, grenades are real fun early on, very powerful too, but once you start facing reticulans it's a very different matter, especially when they've got plasma guns :)

[Flufball]

Its a well minted game. UFO 1 was brilliant, UFO 2 was ok... This is closer than most of the sequals

[Blood Sport]

The orginal, enermy unknown was very good. Got quiet far, untill they breached my bases defences, landed in my base. And kill everything, and then GAME OVER came up at which point I could not be bothered to try again

[bvark]

I concur, an excellent game, once you get past the niggles of the real-time orders system, and turn off some of the more annoying indicators that keep you pausing every two seconds. The fact I can delegate missions rather than having to ignore them is also a welcome change from the original.

I've managed to capture an enemy plasma gren launcher from Area 51 (cost 4 of my men a trip to sickbay!), and as such am very much enjoying the squad missions, since i believe I'm really not supposed to have this weapon right now.

The noobstick rapid fire shotguns are a lot of fun, but part of the appeal of the game is the wide variety of weapons.

Looking forward to getting some time to play it properly (only 5-6 hours on sunday :-) sometime soon. Such a shame there's no multiplayer, but well worth the wait anyway.

[Zakalwe]

Yeah, grenades are real fun early on, very powerful too, but once you start facing reticulans it's a very different matter, especially when they've got plasma guns :)

Easy kills on reticulans with the grenade squads (you have to realise that heroic throwers can range a lengthy corridoor in base missions and a 3 gren blast can kill 2-4 Reticulans before they get a shot off. Essentially this group are fast enough to lob their grens then leg it behind cover before the reticulans can return fire.


Bvark, I didn't pick that gun up in area 51 (actually I completed the area51 mission with 1 man - the heroically speedy Patrick McMad, and yes I did rename him). But I've got an enourmos quantity of alien weapony from downing various UFO's (knocked down a lab, 4 fighters, 1 spotter and 2 bases so far) and base defence (hardest one was a kill 15 reticulans base defence - although the gren squad got 4 in one volley). I guess I need to research them before using them? Need to retool some more bases to research probably, only got 3 at the moment.

Ah must play more this evening, if you're about get on TS and we can swap tactics during gaming (not quite multiplayer but still good).

[Bluey]

*Me drools and opens wallet*

[Afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
the heroically speedy Patrick McMad

Only you.

[Afty]

Originally posted by bvark
The noobstick rapid fire shotguns are a lot of fun

CAWS I tell you, CAWS. Damn that's a fun gun.

[bigc90210]

i loved the x-coms, playing EU on my amiga, then ps1. iv completed EU, got to almost the last part of TFTD, completed apocalypse, got very far into interceptor, and x-com email isnt completeable, but have had many a good game with mates from college :D

imho, EU was the best (iv completed EU on superhuman, one of my all time claims to fame), TFTD was a rip off of EU, but still "ok", apocalypse was excellent when you understood all the changes and played it on advanced or higher difficulty (harder difficulty, bigger city to look after etc), interceptor was good in its own right, kind of like x-com crossed with frontier elite 2 imho, though not what your after if you want another 2d style game, and email was cool as you could be the aliens, though im sure it could easily have been so much more.

i look forward to purchasing the next installment

[Say_Ten]

I'm still pining the lost X-COM FPS with co-op mode :(

[Flufball]

that was allliance wasnt it?

[Afty]

Oh my, the man portable, deployable, sit-in and turn on motors and fire 20 rockets in short succession jobby is TEH SEX.

[ShadowMan]

well currently my squad consists of 3 rilemen with H&K G3's (1 with heroic rifle skill) and Deagle backups. 1 AutoShotgunner (That neo weapon thing) 1 Sniper(currently in training), 1 medic (she only has a glock but is "Super-Heroic" at medical) and 1 RPG soldier (Has backup auto shotgun)

currently cutting a swath through the enemy. G3's rock at ranges around 30 meters. anything gets within 12 or inside bases find shotguns and grenades in the face.

This game is so cool. as the troops get better so does the game. now i just need to do some more research! got 3 research bases and its still not fast enough.

[Zakalwe]

Originally posted by ShadowMan
well currently my squad consists of 3 rilemen with H&K G3's (1 with heroic rifle skill) and Deagle backups. 1 AutoShotgunner (That neo weapon thing) 1 Sniper(currently in training), 1 medic (she only has a glock but is "Super-Heroic" at medical) and 1 RPG soldier (Has backup auto shotgun)

currently cutting a swath through the enemy. G3's rock at ranges around 30 meters. anything gets within 12 or inside bases find shotguns and grenades in the face.

This game is so cool. as the troops get better so does the game. now i just need to do some more research! got 3 research bases and its still not fast enough.

Bah you clealy have not found the power of the grenade squad:)
Note, against unarmoured opponents grens do 1400 damage and McMad is now a superheroic thrower and Super-heroically speedy.

On the other hand he's not as handy as the armada of Plasma jobbies I've got backing him up (5 to be precise) and the 1 man wonder that is the CAWS is, as Afty says, pretty leet at close range (1,400 damage per burst). Essentially super-heroic speed and sun-armour mean that his job is to run around in front of the aliens calling them names whilst the rest of the squad stay well back and pump in the plasma. This has mystified most opponents so far:)

In the UFO's I'm having more difficult, I guess I need heavier short-range armaments as I'm having to gren spaff rooms rather than engage directly. Still super-heroic throwing does allow you to get 3 grens in the air at the same time...

Still a damn good game.

[ShadowMan]

well i have a stockpile of the autoshotguns and they seem to do around 5500 damage per shot at a range of around 6-8 meters. makes clearing indoors a breeze. currently researching alien weapons. gonna go for a load of plasmas to replace the G3's

[andyf]

where in the blue hell do you find the auto shotguns?

I just got hammered on the first mission to feature car crabs because the only two people I had not recovering had plasma shotguns, and plasma is a weak weapon against these sods. However the HK rifle with hard type ammo slaughters them pretty easily. I think I'll play this over my lunch hour (5 min trip to home from here, woo hoo)

[Afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
Bah you clealy have not found the power of the grenade squad:)
Note, against unarmoured opponents grens do 1400 damage and McMad is now a superheroic thrower and Super-heroically speedy.

Amusing - have you tried the deployable rocket launcher, or dbl barrelled machine gun or gatling cannon yet?

The Gattling cannon is pure rape in a metal form...

Furthermore, have you completed the second Area 51 mission yet (you eventually discover it elsewhere, mine was in the Russian steppes) - this is extremely hard. I've currently got about 30 bases, and I'm just considering going back to it to try again (tried a couple of times earlier, but the ability of the enemy rocket launchers to burn your guys to death is annoying. You can dodge one, but having four coming at different guys with a LARGE area of effect is annoying to say the least).

[phil]

I can't believe they have dropped all the great sounds from UFO:EU. The 'pings' and 'boings' of the menu and the death screeches of aliens have got to be the most commonly stolen sounds from a game (apart from maybe the door opening noise of doom) and should be in there.

Oh, and on a related note, there is a program about faking a UFO sighting on channel 4 tonight at 10pm. From the Times 2 supplement:

"Ingenious model-makers at Elstree Studios build a 25ft flying saucer and fly it over the sacred stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire on a late summer evening. They had to overcome numerous technical problems and get permission from the Civil Aviation Authority. ("No wonder we don't get many aliens landing here with all this f***ing and farting about with the CAA," says one of them.) Their flying saucer consists of a carbon fibre ring inside a gas filled balloon, propelled by fan engines. It looks serene, beautiful and totally convincing. Don't miss."

[Lucifa]

Played it for a few hours, I found it really really hard at the start though?
The aliens seem to have 2000+ hp while my weapons (apart from shotgun) do 70 damage. Even finding an ak47 and GS1 (?) made it no easier, especially when facing some of the slime lobbing aliens...and this is only like my 4th mission.

Help!

Lucifa

[andyf]

I can't arm the goddamn gattling guns / collapsable stuff onto my guys - it just won't fit in their hands / backpacks.

ARe there some kind of hidden pre-requisittes for thes ethings ???

[andyf]

Originally posted by lucifa
Played it for a few hours, I found it really really hard at the start though?
The aliens seem to have 2000+ hp while my weapons (apart from shotgun) do 70 damage. Even finding an ak47 and GS1 (?) made it no easier, especially when facing some of the slime lobbing aliens...and this is only like my 4th mission.

Help!

Lucifa


use cover and stuff, use dastardly sneak attacks to get them at close range.


I made the mistake of sending a squad out recently with one of the guys wearing no armour. He died in one goddamn hit and was level 10. I felt ill.

[Afty]

OK, a few hints:

1] Early on while aliens don't have huge ranges, GRENADES are your friend. A couple of guys with decent throwing skill and a backpack full of grens makes things alot smoothers.

2] To equip the ENORMOUS weapons your guys must be wearing armour with gyro stabilizers. USE THE GLOSSARY IF IN DOUBT.

3] The deployable rocket launcher is your friend.

4] This game is very good, and very hard. I currently have the biomass growing INSIDE Europe from a node which appeared out of the blue, and is eating my highly concentrated European bases VERY quickly. Oh, and did I mention none of the 8 planters I have shot down have had the unused node I need for my research to stop this crap?

HARD HARD HARD
cool cool cool

[andyf]

Originally posted by afty
OK, a few hints:
2] To equip the ENORMOUS weapons your guys must be wearing armour with gyro stabilizers. USE THE GLOSSARY IF IN DOUBT.


Ahh I missed all references in the Glossary about how to arm these.. Cheers afty :)


By the way have you ever had a problem where you win a base, and when you return to the World View you instantly lose it following the 'chopper returned to base' message? I'm wondering if the patch will fix this - I hope so - I'll test it tonight.

[Afty]

Originally posted by andyf
By the way have you ever had a problem where you win a base, and when you return to the World View you instantly lose it following the 'chopper returned to base' message? I'm wondering if the patch will fix this - I hope so - I'll test it tonight.

This happens if the base is in the area of the biomass...

[Lucifa]

I'm doing better now, thanks to the grenade tip, that got me through a few more missions til I found some sniper rifles.
Now up to 11 bases covering most of the Americas.
However I just had my arse handed to me defending my base against 8/9 reticulans. Those DAMN plasma grenade things, if it weren't for them it would be no problem.
I think next weekend I will be mostly watching Afty/Zak play.

Lucifa

[Afty]

I'll bring my CD with me.

I'm having ENORMOUS problems though with obtaining a BIOMASS NODE MATERIAL from a Planter in a restart I've tried (starting in Europe instead of America, and changing tack alot on levelling my men up)... 8 planters in and I still don't have. And the **** just started growing.

I find a mixed party tends to work well in most situations, as follows:

2 Short Range Combat (Sub Machine Gun, Combat Shotgun or Grenade/Pistol)
2/3 Medium Range Combat (Assault Rifles)
1/2 Snipers (with an SMG in backpack - the PD7 is very light - for indoor continuation missions)
1 "Heavy" who carries Rocket Launcher/Super Striker or Heavier depending on enemy type.

[Zakalwe]

BIO armour aliens finally stopped my rampaging grenade squad.

Afty, any advice on what to hit these mothers with? They just seem to walk through everything I use.

Keep 1 Psionic lad with your boys (make sure he's levelled up to be able to keep up!) as this stops aliens mind controlling all your favourite troopers.

I finally found a copy of the game in Game over the weekend, so I'll be reinstalling it and starting again, lots I'll do differently second time around. Will keep the savegames though.

Damn good game, although I have been distracted by Viewtiful Joe arriving for the gamecube, wonderful little number.

[Afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
Afty, any advice on what to hit these mothers with? They just seem to walk through everything I use.

Not faced them yet - as I restarted not once but twice and haven't had a great deal of time to play the last few days.

Once you capture a suit, and have developed it, take a peek at the % defensive values and then start using whatever is lowest...

The only thing I've found thart is consistent in the game is that THWACKING things with half a dozen assault rifles and an RPG tends to down anything V quicly, but groups of Aliens are a pain.

[Zakalwe]

I've had no trouble with Reticulans in Sky armour or Sun Armour, these take damage from Grenades like normal people, but the Bio Amour is a pain, they can get 2-3 shots off from whatever (ludicrously powerful and accurate) weapon they are carrying even when their in the middle of a flame patch, and under fire from 2 fully set-up gattling cannons.

Most annoying, I'll be restarting this evening. Should be fun :)

[Afty]

Originally posted by Zakalwe
...under fire from 2 fully set-up gattling cannons.

Holy crap, that's bad. Those Gattling babies are amazing.... You really need to research/dev the bio armour and find out what it's %ages are for defence.

So much is (wonderfully) taken from the original, that I'm guessing you'll need to use Psi Weapons on them...?

[Zakalwe]

I've got the enhanced heavy armor on my gattling lads at the moment, means they can take 5-6 hits from the aliens before going down. I really need to get this bio armour stuff though. I was cruising the game till the aliens got it (did the Russian area 51 mission in about 10 mins with 0 casualties).

[bvark]

anyone who has any tips about the spaceship retribution mission do feel free to share them. I count 11 aliens circling me at the start of the mission, mix of sky & bio, rocket/mind control/slug gun/warp gun armed. I think I've survived about 30 seconds on one occasion.

[Afty]

Originally posted by bvark
anyone who has any tips about the spaceship retribution mission do feel free to share them. I count 11 aliens circling me at the start of the mission, mix of sky & bio, rocket/mind control/slug gun/warp gun armed. I think I've survived about 30 seconds on one occasion.

If you get a really unlucky start to a mission like this one where you're surrounded, load a save game PREVIOUS to the mission appearing in GEO mode, and allow it to appear again - the spawn locations for you and the aliens will be different.

[bvark]

No no, this is the 2nd to last mission (or so it would seem). I've even gone back to before I got the research that gets the mission, and I'm still surrounded every time I go there.

I suspect it is deliberate, however there doesn't seem to be much time pressure to complete so I'm going for enhanced heavy armour or bio armour for everyone.

A protective curtain of smoke grenades and a tactical fall back to where I'm not quite so surrounded seems wise.

[TelexStar]

game is quite fun however only being able to research one thing at a time is f**king annoying. I must have played about 10 or so missions and I've yet to spot any biomass. Should I be expecting this soon?

[Big Giant Head]

Yeah OK so I need practice, got my arse handed to me twice on the first mission yesterday (admitedly I was ill and couldn't focus and yada yada I suck) I think, maybe planning moves before I do them could be the way forward

Appears to be a damn cool game though

[Afty]

Apart from the storyline missions, the hardest part is defending your own base.

Aftermath tip #1 - when you load the mission for the first time, take note of which coloured guys start where. If you get your ass whupped (9 times out of 10) reload, and place the guys nearest the aliens with HUGE FECK OFF guns and the guys further away with little weapons so they can Linford to the action.

[Riki]

The research is annoying, but you can often guess which research topics are *mission critical*, i.e The book thingy that tells u about area 51, or the Internal Teleport. Try to avoid researching these early on, this lets u develop a good range of other technologies, and level your troops up on girly aliens before fighting those big mofos.

I find the manufactoring more frustrating, only one peice of armor at a time, which seems to take 3 days to make =/.