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Ufo: Aftershock And Aftermach, Nices Games?


Artemix

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This is what I think of Aftermath:

Did you like the first one? I havn't really heard anyones review from it.

I found the first one very much interesting, but also very much flawed, there is a clear problem of tactical balance, as at one point there would come about 5-6 aliens with Rocket Spitters and squash your little squad like a bug in a matter of 4 seconds, and there was little you could do, except hide and never *ever* try to attack them. Also the game got a little repetitive, tactical missions were simpler than in X-Com (doesn't precisely mean easier, but the ones at the beginnings in which you only fight mutants are a piece of cake, except counted occassions), there is the "glossary", poor and lame term to what would be the UFOPaedia. I found the base system to be incredibly lame and simple. I did LOVE the music of the game, the general dread feeling, the globe (greatly rendered and texturised, imo) the Glossary descriptions, albeit short, are nice and reinforce the general feeling that Earth is lost already and you're all alone, the soldier voices are GREAT, they each have different accents (not many, mind you), there is even asiatic people who say "Arien!" instead of Alien when they spot one, that certainly helps you believe the whole atmosphere. The SAS (Simultaneous Action System) is great, basically it's the same combat system used in Apoc, but a little lamer.

Overall it's a very interesting game, which can be a lot of fun but a bit simple at times, but definitely worth playing, not precisely something to write home about, but a good game all in all, should be patched.

About UFO: Aftermath interviews, you can read some here in StrategyCore

I wish to remark once again that the music of the game is superb, IMHO :)

 

Haven't played UFO: Aftershock yet, and by the looks of it I won't be doing it any time soon. First, the game has more bugs than you can count them, it's not rare at all that it crashes on almost every game session (I've heard some people complaining of it crashing 10 times in one day).

Also, the game has StarForce, the latest one, a protection system many people prefer to stay away from, since it can be rather harmful to your computer (read about a guy whose DVD driver stopped working after he installed StarForce, and it wouldn't work even after harddrive formatting). (In fact, I decided not to get Aftershock after all I read about StarForce, no thanks).

Other than that, Aftershock looks like an improvement from Aftermath, including Base Management, extended research, more tactical combat (also far more balanced), diplomacy among different factions (I've heard it's pretty lame diplomacy, though).

But the troubles that StarForce causes are not worth a game that keeps crashing and has tons and tons of bugs, even with the latest patch, in my opinion.

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Aftermath isn't a great game, but worth a try. It's so cheap these days there's no good reason not to really.

 

Aftershock on the other hand is quite excellent! I've played it for a long time already, and I'm nowhere near the end. Customize your weapons with silencers, scopes and so on, aim at bodyparts with trained snipers, build bases, research a HUGE list of technologies and so on. It's an enormous step up from Aftermath, so if you can live with no turn-based, go play! IGN just published their review, and it's the most accurate one I've read so far. You can find it here.

 

Azrael is right in that the game does have a lot of bugs however. I had no trouble to begin with, but after playing maybe 70 missions in I had to stop. Once the first patch was released however, my trouble was over, and I'm now happily playing on (when I should read for my exam). There are some minor bugs still, and some people still have crashes, but much less so.

 

StarForce isn't a nice copy protection, but don't let yourself scare too much. Most players never have a problem with it, and those who had major trouble are few. Most people "know a guy who has a friend who's grandfather had his HD ruined". The early versions of StarForce were bugged, and this was a little more frequent. Now it hardly ever happens, and most users never notice they have it. Not saying that I like it, cause I don't, but it's not like StarForce destroy half of the PCs it's on. Take a look at the list of games using it here.

 

My advice to you would be to try the UFO: Aftershock demo. If you think it looks promising, buy the game. If you can get Aftermath cheap, buy it as well.

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Games that use Starforce

 

(Released Games/Upcoming Games)

 

Starforce is a controversial copy-protection system. Reports about destroyed CD ROM devices, unstable or slower-running Windows systems after installing a video game (even after it was removed!), and corrupted drivers as a possible result of Starforce, have made many computer gamers wary of this copy protection technology. There are also many reports from customers that say that Starforce-protected games refuse to work at all with various DVD/CD drives and notebooks.

 

Older versions of Starforce are not entirely compatible with the 64-bit variant of Windows XP. While publishers can fix this trouble by releasing updates for their games, it is done very rarely. This provides reason to believe that the next Windows generation may also clash with some Starforce versions, in which case one might not be able to play Starforce-protected games smoothly (or at all) unless updates are made available for them.

 

Unwilling to take chances, numerous PC enthusiasts feel that Starforce-protected games should not be supported, as they believe that the risk of undesired side-effects and dangers to one's computer, or of the inability to play a legally purchased game, is simply too high. They face a problem, however: Because publishers don't always state what type of copy protection they use, and because the kind of protection is rarely mentioned on the box, it is not generally transparent just which games the concerned PC gamer might wish to avoid.

 

This is the reason why I created this resource. On this page I have collected the names of already released games -- as well as upcoming titles --, including the names of their publishers, that use, or will use, Starforce. To learn more about Starforce and its possible, undesired side-effects and dangers, please visit the links to the right. There is also a link to a removal tool if your computer already hosts the Starforce drivers and you would like to delete them safely (Starforce-protected games will then no longer work).

 

Publishers may not always be aware of how potential customers feel about Starforce and how it might affect their decision to purchase the product. For this reason it might be beneficial to express concerns on the public forums of publishers who distribute games that quietly install Starforce on the user's computer. The names of the publishers of the Starforce-protected games listed below are linked to the respective forums. If there are no forums, the link goes to the publisher's main site or contact page. Do not hesitate to express your opinion. You are a customer and it is your money that is on the table. There are alternative forms of copy protection available to fight piracy without exposing buyers of PC games to unnecessary risks and inconveniences.

 

Unless otherwise noted, the following list refers to both European and US releases of games. In Russia, most locally released games are protected with Starfoce. Because these are not relevant to the Western gaming audience, they have not been listed here. At the bottom is an alphabetical list of all publishers known to use (or have used) Starforce. New releases and demos from these companies may also come with Starforce, though not all publishers use it for all of their titles.

 

If you know of games that use Starforce, or will use Starforce, that are not already listed on this page, please drop me an email. Please include "Starforce" in the subject line, so that I do not mistake your note for spam. If you spot any errors, I'll be happy to hear from you also. Thank you, and feel free to spread this URL!

Hey, I have Etherlords 2! good thing StarForce was disabled there :D

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I "played" Aftershock... i mean, i played the demo like 2 min. when i saw the "trees" like a bunch of white-rectangles/triangles... well, uninstall... yea.. i got to buy a new video card... give me the money :P.

But im playing a really nice game right now, "Silent Storm", play this one, is quite good, i wish xenocide can match that 3dengine.. is really powerfull and simple, walls, rails, cars, almost all (if not all) can be destroyed, awesome.

Conclussion: Xenocide will kick them UFO´s a s s, After-wtv version.

 

Starforce?, no problem, i dont play new games, cuz my old pc, 64 mb videocard... say no more.. <_< , but is better this way, cuz if i have a really fast pc... well..it is pointless to explain. ;). C++ doesnt need a fast pc :D.

Edited by Artemix
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I can play Silent Storm, no problem, but Aftershock presents a kind of video-bug, all textures in the game presents some kinda bug.. well maybe is my video card, anyway, Silent Storm is a really nice game, no "Alien-stuff" but gameplay and graphics are greats.

Silent Storm use Starforce?, didint noticed that..

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My 2 cents:

 

Con: Bugged as heck - wait for patch 1.2 at the very least (it's version 1.1 at the moment), but I am praying that I don't have to eat my words when people come telling me that it's 1.999999 and it's still bugged up.

 

Pro: But still worth it. Dammit, if Xcom 1 is like your first girlfriend, Aftershock is like your first girlfriend "re-interpreted". Or something. Still not as good as your first girlfriend, and slightly "off" in different respects.

 

And that's the long and short of it. =p Go get it.

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I can play Silent Storm, no problem, but Aftershock presents a kind of video-bug, all textures in the game presents some kinda bug.. well maybe is my video card, anyway, Silent Storm is a really nice game, no "Alien-stuff" but gameplay and graphics are greats.

 

It seems to be common with GeForce MX 440 graphics card at least (Which i have). No solution found yet, but textures for some items are displayed correctly in some missions, which troubles me. (Heads, aliens occasionally, in base missions everything is always the way it is supposed to be.) The card is quite much crap, everyone says, but it has worked fine, until now it seems.

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  • 1 month later...

I bought aftershock on friday and played all weekend. As for me it's great! Has everything what I liked most in enemy unknown only better. As for bugs I didn't notice it too much, it crashed twice.

The problem of this game may be the fact it's very linear, you start always in the same place and have same missions on the begining (I believe) however I'm not even sure about it and as for the fist play the fun is great.

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I too picked Aftershock up last week. Initial thoughts are it's a good game, but I'm still getting in to it.

 

The only thing I'm not to keen on, is that you seem to have to get in to lots of missions before you get chance to research anything. I'm still researching Human Weapons when I'm on my 6th or 7th mission, and the reticulan power cells are starting to run out. Maybe I'm missing a skip here?

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