The game is just plain fun and has a terrific timeless appeal to it. This is the sort of title you could play through once or twice right away (even though it might take you three months), and then reinstall it again a year, two years, even five years later, and still have just as much fun.
Though Aftershock might edge Afterlight for combat and UFO: Extraterrestrials might be a better X-COM clone for purists, Afterlight feels like the most thoughtfully designed and fun of the UFO titles to date.
Just about the best tactical combat game Ive played. I wonder why theres not more like this. The combination of realtime and turn based management is unique and it is best what Ive seen. It does exactly what good game should do: lets you stop action, make important changes - more at once, then resume the reality. But every action takes its time, so you cant really bluff or get advantage.
Ultimate squad combat, I am only sad that there is no multiplayer and no other similar multiplayer game out there either. Frozen Synapse is trying to do something similar in terms of engine, but it's not quite it. In FS its too much about luck and chances. Afterlight is about precise tactics and counting with all possibilities when planning mission execution. Bravo Altar.
It's such a crime that this game has been overlooked by so many people. Reviewers didn't take enough time to dive deep into the game and find out what there is under the hood. Sure, the voice acting on the English version is abysmal and some of the mission art is bland (not many objects or cover) but the rest of the game is top notch. Any X-Com fan should love this title and it's certainly the best of the UFO series. Not to be overlooked if you're a fan of the X-Com series, especially if you liked Apocalypse.
The engine is a lot of fun, but the campaign is a disaster, and it appears that Altar Games hasn’t learned anything since releasing UFO: Aftershock two years ago.
Ultimately though, the lack of variety in the battles and the time lost wrestling with a less than convenient base interface will dampen your enthusiasm.
What really keeps me from recommending Afterlight, however, is the repetition of its bases. The relative simplicity of the fights, married to returning to the same locale time and time again, means the game is simply not thrilling enough.
Gamers the world over would thrill to play a soup-to-nuts remake of X-COM, updated with modern tech but otherwise essentially the same. In trying to mimic X-COM but also leverage original ideas, Altar's UFO series has succeeded only in highlighting its shortcomings - shortcomings particularly egregious in this disappointing installment.
This game is great. It picks up where X-com left off. The characters are memorable, and the action can get pretty intense for a Stop-Time-Strategy-Game. I found my heart beating heavily as if I was playing L4D2, or Gears of War. When the rag doll physics kicks in and a enemy rolls off the top of a catwalk and slides downhill, it pulls of sensations of awesome.
You get three games in one, a base planner, a tactical shooter, and an RPG
The technology and specialazations of your colony is pretty varied. This game is so worth it. If you catch it on sale its a no-brainer.
Note: Not recommended for people with short attention spans.
This is a review for the game as it comes after you buy it. That means up to patch 1.5.
So after I completed aftermath and aftershock(I liked both game especially aftershock) I started play afterlight. At that momment I didn't have internet to use mods or unofficial patches(as most people do) so I played the vanilla version. And oh man was I disappointed.
Because of that I feel that I should start with the numerous drawbacks of the game. Graphics were too cartoony for my liking and bright for a Ufo game where you are trying to save the humanity. The first enemy you encounter was another disappointment. Some laughtable looking alien robots that you can't take seriously.
In afterlight forget all seriousness. It doesn't feel like you command soldiers. It mostly feels like you command the local militia of a colony which consists from old grannies to teenagers. When you start the game the can't even run or crouch for cover even in light suits. You have to walk them all over the map
like some invalids(I understand about the granny but the rest?) without strategy and shooting whatever moves. You have to train them later to run and there is a different training for crouching and laying prone(for light suits. You can only walk in heavy suits. In medium suits you can run and crouch but now lay prone. Mabe they are afraid that the suit will get dirty). People are talking about tactics in this game but I just don't see any. When in heavy armor you return to the tactics of 18th century. You put your troopers in heavy armor in a line(they can't take cover since they can't crouch or lay prone and can only walk) and shoot your enemies with laser weapons. When in light armor you can use tactics and cover but after a while you need to change to heavy if you want your people to survive. Then just put heavy armors and heavy laser weapons(with two shotgunners for the alien warbeasts) form a line and it's a walk in the park.
The problems are not ending there. We still have a long way to go. The weapon variety is way to small(forget the many weapons from aftermath and aftershock.there are 3 human rifles, ONE sniper, no machineguns etc.) and most of them are becoming obsolite after a while. After you start fighting matriarchs for example the standard human rifle becomes completely useless(as most of the weapons tha shoot bullets) and the game forces you to go laserstyle or you can't win. Snipers are greatly nurfed and in the late game almost useless. They are also bugged or something since first level snipers are supposed to take accuracy bonus with precise shots but in my game it stayed the same.
Now in the game there are 3 classes. Soldiers, scientists and engineers. There are also hybrids. This makes the game look more like a failed "how to organise you colony" simulator than a strategy game. You have to babysit not only your soldiers now but your scientists engineers and hybrids as well. So after a mission you have to arange those with two classes to return to the factory or lab and complete their other duties. Because it's not enought they are going to war. They have to work extra after the missions in factories. Like a **** militia. Your soldiers are brain dead as well and can't use medkits. In this game you have to be a scientist to use them.
Other traits that I dislike is that you can't recruit more soldiers(game forces you to reload after a while), the crapload of bugs(almost as many as aftershock but at least aftershock was not anoying on top of its bugs), the plotholes(one advisor asks if it is morally right to take from the beastmen their homeworld but noone brings it up again), the luck of strategy form your enemies(they just trie to overwhelm you), the fact that beastmen have scanerlike equipment but I've never seen them to use it, the fact that diplomacy is a joke(if you sign a trade agreement only with war you can stop it), the luck of ap ammo(there is only heavy ammo which seems useless and light ammo which is good for snipers) so projectile weapons(except shotguns) become useless against almost everyone and that the advisors doesn't say the names of the soldiers that got healed or trained. You just know that someone got healed. I want to add tha soldiers with small bodies (eg the two twins) end up with huge heads in the battle map since the game has only one body model for men and it can't adapt them correctly.
The most annoying thing though is when you are under attack. There is an advisor that pops out and tells you that there are invaders but when you try to push the show region button he just goes back and you are just confused without knowing where the invaders are so you have to search the whole map.
Some of the things I liked were the weapon sounds, the psionic powers and the alien soldiers.
All in all UFO:Afterlight v1.5 is a simplistic and downgraded version of aftershock and a big no imo. The worst UFO of the after series.
This is not the spiritual successor of the original UFO games. The battles are in real time (altough you can pause and issue commands to your units) and the atmosphere is unlike the original one: This one is cartoonish-childish, missing any tension or thrill of the old UFO games.
Beside the barren, and empty battle maps the 2 major faults of the game are:
- Defensive battles are repetitive, and are happening too frequently,
- Badly calibrated, and designed difficulty.
Normal diff. here is like insane or impossible one in any other game. You have to know the tech tree (especially the weapon and armour researches) or you will restart the game a dozen of times.
i think you should look after the original UFO games first. This is different from many important viewpoint. This one is aimed for kids and doesnt hav the thrilling athmosphere of the original.
its really repetitive .
and theres something wrong with the difficulty.
Played this game when it first came out was brilliant then, unfortunaylt you can't play it now on updated graphics cards or laptops, either way dont buy this unless you have a very old computer/OS
SummaryUFO: Afterlight is the next instalment in the "UFO: Aftermath" and "UFO: Aftershock" series, bringing a completely new insight to the story of Aftershock, this time from the perspective of lonely human inhabitants on Mars; combination of global strategy and tactical missions; completely new story built on the events from UFO: Aftershock;...