UFO: Afterlight (PC)

CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 06/19/2007
• Released on: 06/11/2007

What's in a name? Altar Games hasn't made much progress over the past few years when it comes to the unimaginative subtitles of its UFO series, but at least the developer is continually improving the games themselves. The latest addition to the franchise, UFO: Afterlight, is certainly an upgrade on both its UFO: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock predecessors. However, this base-managing, alien-hunting escapade has some tactical combat quirks and difficulty that bounces around like a superball, making it a flawed, if reasonable, rehashing of the X-COM formula.

Look familiar? As with the standard X-COM formula, the default view here is a globe that highlights your bases and the alien hot spots.

Most of Afterlight follows the template of the first two UFO games, which, of course, are revamped takes on X-COM. Instead of battling the Reticulan menace on Earth, however, you'll war with these nasty extraterrestrials on Mars. Humanity has been booted out by the new landlords, which forces a ragtag bunch to attempt a new beginning on our closest celestial neighbor. Only problem is that there are already residents on the red planet, so a fight begins as soon as you build your new digs. Gameplay focuses on the old standards for this genre--you develop a base, manage soldiers, scientists, and technicians RPG style, research sci-fi tech, and attack enemy-occupied territories in turn-based tactical scenarios. About the only real tweaks to the formula involve operating just a single modular base, instead of the collection of headquarters that you usually amass in these ET-battling epics, and taking over neutral territory by sending in rovers and building resource-collecting mines.

Despite the fact that you've seen all of this before, there is something alluring about Afterlight's story. Although fighting for Mars isn't as engaging as fighting for good old Earth, the atmosphere is developed through the use of story triggers and lots of dialogue between base officials giving you tips and plot points. This sometimes gets in the way of simply playing the game, as the chattering of these talking heads seems to go on forever when all you really want to do is gear up and hunt little green men, and the almost manga-style character graphics don't seem to fit this style of game. Still, better too much story than not enough, especially when the tale is an intriguingly pulpy saga where you wage battles and do deals with insidious alien and human adversaries.

These battles aren't quite as intriguing as the plot. While Altar has pretty much perfected the modern turn-based combat engine by giving you almost unlimited control over the starts and stops, the terrain is so repetitive and devoid of interesting features that scraps are often monotonous fire-at-will gunfights. There isn't much in the way of cover on most maps, and your range of sight is so poor that aliens often show up without warning. Battles frequently turn into shoot-'em-ups in Martian valleys and plains where you have few tactical options aside from blasting away at the bad guys and hoping that they fall down before you do.

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