by Andrew Vawter - January 25, 2006

UFO: Aftershock is a direct sequel to UFO: Aftermath in which the player takes on the role of saving humanity from the invading Reticulans. Unfortunately for humanity the game picks up from one of the defeat endings in UFO: Aftermath.

We’ve Got to Save the Earth Here and There are Quite a Few Ways to Do It.

In UFO: Aftershock the player takes on the role of the Laputans, a group of survivors who struck a deal with the Reticulans in exchange for sanctuary in an orbiting space station. Unfortunately for them, fifty years later their space station has suffered some form of failure believed to be related to a revolt on the station. Thus the surviving humans relocated to the Laputa which is basically a floating island.

The game play begins from the geosphere; this is where you'll organize your squads, setup your bases, and choose what you want to research and manufacture. Early in the game there are a lot of choices for early research and which path you decide to follow will affect you for the rest of the game, so take your time in deciding what you need. Researching improved weapons or even body armor is useful, but doing the alien autopsies that become available to you will increase the damage your marines do to the enemy.

Squad organization is an extremely important aspect in UFO: Aftershock. You can only take a limited number of units with you on each mission so you need to think about who you will bring. Up to seven squad members per mission will be available and you’ll want to constantly rotate squad members in and out in order for all your troops to gain experience.

Experienced squad members are extremely useful in that they will aim better, shoot further, have more stamina, and be more likely to spot enemy aliens earlier. While it may be tempting to constantly use the same squad members over and over again if one of them should die or be injured (healing squad members takes quite some time) you may not be so lucky on your next mission.

In UFO: Aftershock there are three surviving groups on the planet’s surface: the Humans, the Cyborgs, and the Psionic factions. These three groups tend to not get along well with one another but all three of them want your help. In exchange for your help (in various missions be it rescue, defense, or simply clearing the area of aliens) they will give you much needed resources such as additional recruits for your squad. The more you help them the better the squad members they’ll offer you.

Once you've organized your squads it will be time to head into the tactical game. The tactical part of the game is where the meat is in this game. It's the area where you'll see the effects of all that research you've done (or haven't done)! Also it’s where you’ll receive various missions from the survivors on Earth or defensive operations to hold one of your military bases that you’ll build on the planet.

The tactical mode of the game runs in real time however in the options menu you can setup automatic pauses. If you want to it’s possible to have the game pause every time someone has no orders, runs out of ammo, spots an enemy, and quite a few other events. This is extremely useful since often you’ll want to split your squad into even smaller groups during a mission. Also while in the paused mode you have the complete ability to plan ahead, set waypoints, choose targets to fire on, and to change a unit’s stance, reload a unit’s ammo, or even to switch from automatic to semi-automatic and in some cases to a sniper mode.

You’ll never be lacking weapons in UFO: Aftershock seeing how the aliens will always be dropping a nice weapon (which you’ll have to research before you can use). Weapons vary from pistols that feel almost worthless to machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and even alien energy weapons.

Not the Best Graphics I’ve Ever Seen but Definitely Up to Date and Clean.

The graphics in this game are more than serviceable although the engine hasn't really been updated between UFO: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock. You'll never be left wondering what a graphic is but don't expect anything to strain your graphics card. The unit models look good and the aliens come in all shapes and sizes. Furthermore the camera handles well with tilt and rotates being a matter of just holding the middle mouse button down and using the mouse. You can zoom in as close as you need to but usually you’ll be playing zoomed all the way out so that you can see what’s going on.

Moving in Stereo

The sound in this game is excellent. All of the aliens in the game tend to make a lot of noise as they move around so you will normally hear the enemy coming and your squad members will be able to pinpoint the location of these aliens. The game seems to run in stereo only with no surround sound effects. The music in the game is very well played and tends to keep pace with what’s happening in the game. The tactical part of the game is where the sound truly shines; creepy ambient noises as you’re stalking around and good weapons sound effects helps to give a real sense of location.

Guns Everywhere!

The real problem in Aftershock is that if you fall behind in research it can take a long time to get back on equal footing with the enemy. If you happen to spend too much time researching new base technology such as improved manufacturing but completely forget to research any new weapons you’ll quickly start to lose squad members. Worse still is that you can’t just focus on weapons as body armor is crucial in keeping people alive. It truly is a balancing act to get everything "just right" but once you figure out what you need to research and when, you’ll find it much easier to balance technologies.

You also need to be very careful with your troops. Should you lose a unit in combat who had a lot of experience you’ll quickly start to miss them on the frontlines. The real issue is that squad members take a long time to build up and should you lose your entire "A-Team" squad you might go from a nearly won game to a lost game in the course of a few missions. This requires you to constantly cycle new squad members into your "A-Team" squad, this way you’ll always have at least slightly trained men available should something catastrophic happen on your next mission.

Didn't I Just Do This?

UFO: Aftershock does have some drawbacks though. First, missions tend to get repetitive as there aren’t that many different maps (maybe thirty-five at most) and there aren’t very many mission types. Second, there’s usually a pretty long lull in the game from where you’ve achieved the opening goals but haven’t yet advanced far enough for the story to advance. Finally, UFO: Aftershock is not for a gamer who doesn’t enjoy consequences; failure in a mission can be as bad as a few wounded squad members or can range all the way up to your best squad members being wiped out which will cost you precious time to rebuild units up to an equal strength.

Good but not Perfect

UFO: Aftershock is a good game but tends to become repetitive around the thirty hour mark as there really aren't that many maps in the tactical mode. However the story in this game is excellent and every time you research something you get a great description of what exactly it is (since there's a lot of alien technology it’s fun to read the descriptions). If you liked X-com or UFO: Aftermath this game will be right for you. If you’re just looking for something you can just jump in and play where consequences don't matter and there's very little thinking involved, you might want to move on to something else.