33 replies to this topic

[Slaughter]

UFO: Aftershock is just a week away from release, and today Cenega released the official English demo. No sites but the official Cenega site has the demo available yet, but you can find a frequently updated list of mirrors here (281 mb).

[Blehm 98]

i'll download the demo then, i want to try it, and not pay a fortune, this'll be good, i want this game

[Blood Angel]

Anyone got any feedback? Due to a pitiful 20GB hard drive I've decided to start limiting my downloads, as I approach 500mb free space.

[Blehm 98]

download it, play it, and then delete it when you're done

[Slaughter]

Seems they worked faster than expected

[dipstick]

IT WON'T WORK?!

I dled it, but the installer crashes everytime

[dipstick]

ARRRGGHHH

[Slaughter]

Maybe the download is corrupt?

[dipstick]

re downloading now

[fux0r666]

Hehe. I hear the tactical AI in the first game was a joke. It just ran straight to you, first off, unless you were in some kind of prefab mission. So many things about aftermath were terrible, I wonder if the dev team got to fixing them all.

[Slaughter]

Most features are improved. Base building, entering buildings, kneel and prone and so on. The AI has also been improved somewhat. You don't see it very clearly in the demo, as it is small maps with few enemies, but I did notice when I tested the full game. One of the aliens ran away when his mate was shot, and then turned up a little later with 3 buddies. I wouldn't expect fantastic AI, but better than Aftermath.

[dipstick]

I have only played one mission so far - and it is ok in terms of gameplay, just the camera annoys me heh

A nice touch I saw was that the morelman I made fall unconscious actually managed to get up shortly after, whilst I was dealing with a few friends of his. So I killed him.

Two things I would say against the game though - first off, the scale seems a little off. I 'suddenly' saw an alien who was a mere inch from my soldier, yet I heard a 'mysterious noise' which turned out to be a morelman, from a significant range, one I would consider 'normal'...

Second, the only weapons that seemed to be effective, were alien weapons. I used the basic stuff that was given to me, which included a plasma rifle, sniper rifle, M16 thing, and a shotgun.

NO terran weapons really did much damage to the aliens, yet one was able to chew through my man quite effectively - and the medikits took AGES to use, and didn't heal my man anywhere near what was needed. I am guessing there are advanced medikits - cause I used up an entire medikit to only partially heal my guy.

Oh, and another thing, I could only play effectively on time speed 1 - anything more became impossible to handle!!

A rather mixed bag, all told.

[blob]

Did anyone else notice that soldiers don't see very far. The visible range was about 5 meters. And to shoot with a shotgun you had to be on about melee range to shoot. And what about cover? Atleast I wasn't able to shoot if I was behind some obstacle like a tree or a car.

The LOD seems quite odd. When turned of the game turns in to a power point presentation. And what does the LOD tell you? The visible range is about 5 meters in EVERY direction, ?

For now aftershock seems to have some issues but we'll see what it's going to be when it's released.

[Slaughter]

You can find information on the first reviews of UFO: Aftershock here. They are sort of positive...

[fux0r666]

I dunno what interesting drugs they are on, but there are certainly more impressive looking strategy games out in 2005.

[fux0r666]

AOE III, Winter Assault... I'm not really a strategy guy, so I'm far from able to provide an exhaustive list. I think that if there is any void in me to be filled by an xcomesque sort of game, it will be silent strorm and the expansion.

[kafros]

I dunno what interesting drugs they are on, but there are certainly more impressive looking strategy games out in 2005.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1)Rise and Fall, Civilizations at war
2) Heaven vs H-ell

They just rule . Especially Rise and Fall, the Titan 2 graphics engine is wonderful!
Just look at the sea in the link above..........

Edited by kafros, 18 October 2005 - 07:27 AM.

[fux0r666]

There's nothing super special about that shot other than the ocean. The rest of it looks like good artistry... nice colours.

[Slaughter]

I dunno what interesting drugs they are on, but there are certainly more impressive looking strategy games out in 2005.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And how important is the LOOK for a strategy game? If someone makes Winter Assault Strategy Game Of The Year because it looks pretty...suffice to say I'll not be impressed. Sure, nice graphics is a good thing, but gameplay and atmosphere are the important factors.

Oh, and Aftershock has 3 reviews out so far with 4 out of 5, 88% and a silver award and 90% and a gold award

Edited by Slaughter, 18 October 2005 - 11:59 AM.

[fux0r666]

When I said 'looks impressive' I meant 'seems cool by virtue of reviews and such.' I don't think that any game could whipe out the stain that Aftermath left, though. Maybe I have certain biases. However, good reviews or not, strategy game of the year *cough*

Edited by fux0r666, 18 October 2005 - 02:43 PM.

[Slaughter]

When I said 'looks impressive' I meant 'seems cool by virtue of reviews and such.'  I don't think that any game could whipe out the stain that Aftermath left, though.  Maybe I have certain biases.  However, good reviews or not, strategy game of the year *cough*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I'm not too optimistic about Strategy Game Of The Year either, but that's because AOEIII and Winter Assault are RTS. That being said, there are quite a few sites out there awarding GOTY. In fact, even Aftermath got a few SGOTY awards as you can see here. I wouldn't make Aftermath GOTY, that's for sure, but...

That being said, if Aftershock is as good as the first reviews indicate, I would have no problem awarding it SGOTY. The sites doing the reviews are not sites I trust however, so I'll hold my judgement.

[Slaughter]

I agree that "Strategy Game of the Year" is not very impressive, especially since the year is not over yet, so how can they know that no other strategy game to be released later is not going to be better?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you played UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense) for the first time in January, would you have a problem awarding it SGOTY? I sure wouldn't!

[fux0r666]

Well, I'm not too optimistic about Strategy Game Of The Year either, but that's because AOEIII and Winter Assault are RTS. That being said, there are quite a few sites out there awarding GOTY. In fact, even Aftermath got a few SGOTY awards as you can see here. I wouldn't make Aftermath GOTY, that's for sure, but...

So you're saying that because there are a lot of sites awarding GOTY prizes that they are random and meaningless? Up until this recent discussion, I would not have agreed, but now I concur with every fibre of my soul.

That being said, if Aftershock is as good as the first reviews indicate, I would have no problem awarding it SGOTY. The sites doing the reviews are not sites I trust however, so I'll hold my judgement.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good call. There are a lot of whackos out there. Hehe.

If you played UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense) for the first time in January, would you have a problem awarding it SGOTY? I sure wouldn't!

I don't even like X-Com.

[Slaughter]

Well, I'm not too optimistic about Strategy Game Of The Year either, but that's because AOEIII and Winter Assault are RTS. That being said, there are quite a few sites out there awarding GOTY. In fact, even Aftermath got a few SGOTY awards as you can see here. I wouldn't make Aftermath GOTY, that's for sure, but...

So you're saying that because there are a lot of sites awarding GOTY prizes that they are random and meaningless? Up until this recent discussion, I would not have agreed, but now I concur with every fibre of my soul.

A combination. Yes, there are WAY too many sites awarding GOTY, and it's basically a joke because of it. On the other hand however, different people like different games. I wouldn't visit a site like GameSpy, because I think it's horrible. If I were to care about a GOTY, I would pay more attention to a proper site dedicated to strategy games than GameSpy. The crowd that visit GameSpy are...not my crowd.

If you played UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense) for the first time in January, would you have a problem awarding it SGOTY? I sure wouldn't!

I don't even like X-Com.

Well, then I think you are a minority at this site

@Azrael: What are the chances of that happening? I would say slim to none . But yes, you are right.