UFO: Aftermath.
The most famous tactical turn based squad game series has to be the UFO/X-Com series of games. Unfortunately the last released game of the franchise, X-Com Apocalypse, was not the financial success that
Microprose needed. Ultimately the company went under, and took the genre with it. For six years, we were without squad based tactical combat against aliens, until in 2003 when the game "UFO: Aftermath" was released.
Developed by ALTAR interactive and published by Cenega/Tri Synergy, the game is a spiritual successor to the UFO/X-com games. Taking charge of the defense of the planet you must guide humanity out of an apocalyptic scenario leading to the near extinction of all life on the planet. Defending Earth and its remaining human population from the alien invasion and whatever their sinister intentions may be.
The game starts with a soldier making his way to a nearby abandoned Army base, which serves as a tutorial to teach the basiscs of combat and issuing orders. There are some distinct changes from UFO/X-com, no longer strictly turn based, it functions on a 'planning' system. You can pause the game at any time, allowing you to give your soldiers orders. Once orders have been issued, unpausing sends them off to do as ordered to the best of their ability. The various tactical decisions are easy to grasp and have a distinct impact on the mechanics of the game. This allows you to react to different situations quickly and intuitively. Crouching increases accuracy but slows you down, running makes you go faster but is loud, and burst fire does more damage but is not as accurate as aimed fire.
Unlike UFO/X-Com where your soldiers stats increased depending on what actions you took in combat, Aftermath's soldiers gain experience and level up. Every level you increase one of your soldier's attributes; Strength, agility, dexterity, willpower, intelligence, and perception. Which effects various skills. Having high perception would increase your marksmanship with long range weapons such as sniper rifles. While having high intelligence allows you to make more efficient use of your medkits. Better strength allows you to carry more, and agility lets you better handle a pistol or SMG. Skills can also be upgraded by training if your soldier meets the physical requirements. Training as a medic for example requires intelligence and dexterity, while a scout requires perception and agility.
You generally have fewer soldiers than in UFO/X-com, as you are only the commander of Pheonix squad, the spearhead squad who gets the most dangerous assignments, and are generally the first ones on the ground. You can delegate missions away to other squads, but in general it is less likely that they will succeed. Useful for when its a little mission that won't make much difference, not so useful when assaulting an enemy base or crashed UFO.
Like UFO/X-com you should expect to rack up deaths quickly, especially in the early game where battle sometimes comes down to spotting the enemy before they spot you. Proper use of resources will make it a bit easier to keep your soldiers alive and in the fight. Managing and balancing the amount of resources spent on military bases, research, and engineering factors heavily into the game, and each choice matters. Do you choose to begin an alien autopsy, to better understand these strange creatures attacking us? Do you begin researching the alien weapons and artifacts in the hope to better your squad's equipment? Or do you start building what you already have access to, to ensure every one of your squad members has the best equipment you currently posess? The choice is yours, and the fate of the world is in your hands. No pressure.
A wonderful strategic and tactial game, it can currently be purchased for six dollars off of Good Old Games, and I really couldn't think of a better price. The graphics are a bit dated, but are still pleasing to the eye. The music and sound effects are well done, even if the voices of your soldiers can be a bit cheesy and grating at times. Overall, its a marvelous game that'll have you planning out assaults, counter assaults, and infiltration missions for weeks.
E-Tank
P.s.
I highly recommend the Combo Mod. It tweaks items a bit, adds new enemies, new euipment, and so many new guns. Sooooo many guns.
Showing posts with label Plan and Go. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plan and Go. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. Semper Fi.
Jagged Alliance, one of the best squad based strategy games out there, able to rub shoulders with games such as the X-Com series, has been sadly ignored for the past 13 years. The previous installment being Jagged Alliance 2, where a mercenary and his hired band of thugs, murderers, and psychopaths aid in the revolution of the fictional country of Alruco. You are able to purchase weapons, pay for insurance policies on your mercs, and even send flowers to the queen of Alruco. If only to watch her bitch-slap her hapless servant.
Fortunately, the Jagged Alliance series has returned with the latest title, Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. This latest title brings back the fun of ordering around a mob of bloodthirsty mercenaries in the attempt to save the people of Alruco. The developers have worked to try to capture the same spirit of the original, and I feel they have succeeded. The mercenaries are varied and you'll have fun reading their background information and dossiers. Many of them have bonuses and penalties based around their psyche, for instance a model turned mercenary has a huge morale boost when fighting naked.
The types of weapons are varied including but not limited to pistols, SMGs, shotguns, rocket launchers, rifles, etc. Each character has his or her own skillset, mechanics can pick locks and repair guns, medics can inject morphine and use medkits, demo men can use C4 to blow open weakened walls to gain entrance. All can generally point a gun at something and pull the trigger until whatever is on the wrong end of it is dead, just tends to miss a lot more than the dedicated soldiers.
The interface is intuitive, the buttons often having a very clear definition of what they do, and if you have a question the game offers tooltips. The mechanics are very well put together, giving you all the information you need in a firefight, such as line of sight and a general idea where your merc will be shooting to help avoid friendly fire. My one complaint is that your mercs can't peek around a corner in order to fire from cover, but you can find the usual waist high barricades to duck behind in a pinch.
The graphics are beautiful, showing great detail that usually would not be needed in a strategy game like this. Gunfire shatters concrete, digs holes in ground, and of course puts holes in your enemies. Each bullet clearly shows an impact with effects depending on the terrain hit, helping you see how close, or how far away the shooter is to their target.
What will probably be the most controversial, especially to people who grew up playing the original Jagged Alliance 2 is the change from pure turn based strategy to a mixture of real time and turn based. The 'Plan and go' system allows you to pause the action, selecting mercs individually to tell them where to go, set way points, and tell them when to fire. You can set options to let it pause automatically, such as when spotting, or being spotted by an enemy. This lets you give orders without having to rely on your reflexes when your team is under fire.
I personally feel its a good thing because when you are simply rehashing the same game over and over again it quickly leads to stagnation. The developers held onto that original feeling and spirit of the Jagged Alliance games, and used new ideas and mechanics to give the players the best control they could give over their team.
I have not yet completed the game, as it only just came out. (I'm not /that/ good.) From what I have seen however, it is very much the remake that the original deserves and so much more.
The ultimate question, is it worth it? Yes, very much so. You can while away the hours with tactical planning, training militia, and selecting your weapons. The destruction and mayhem you can create is amazingly cathartic, and in the end you're leading a band of psychopaths across a country, cutting a bloody swathe through enemy soldiers.
Lock and load; it's time to overthrow a dictatorship.
E-Tank
(Edited by Nathan 'Miles' Davis)
Fortunately, the Jagged Alliance series has returned with the latest title, Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. This latest title brings back the fun of ordering around a mob of bloodthirsty mercenaries in the attempt to save the people of Alruco. The developers have worked to try to capture the same spirit of the original, and I feel they have succeeded. The mercenaries are varied and you'll have fun reading their background information and dossiers. Many of them have bonuses and penalties based around their psyche, for instance a model turned mercenary has a huge morale boost when fighting naked.
The types of weapons are varied including but not limited to pistols, SMGs, shotguns, rocket launchers, rifles, etc. Each character has his or her own skillset, mechanics can pick locks and repair guns, medics can inject morphine and use medkits, demo men can use C4 to blow open weakened walls to gain entrance. All can generally point a gun at something and pull the trigger until whatever is on the wrong end of it is dead, just tends to miss a lot more than the dedicated soldiers.
The interface is intuitive, the buttons often having a very clear definition of what they do, and if you have a question the game offers tooltips. The mechanics are very well put together, giving you all the information you need in a firefight, such as line of sight and a general idea where your merc will be shooting to help avoid friendly fire. My one complaint is that your mercs can't peek around a corner in order to fire from cover, but you can find the usual waist high barricades to duck behind in a pinch.
The graphics are beautiful, showing great detail that usually would not be needed in a strategy game like this. Gunfire shatters concrete, digs holes in ground, and of course puts holes in your enemies. Each bullet clearly shows an impact with effects depending on the terrain hit, helping you see how close, or how far away the shooter is to their target.
What will probably be the most controversial, especially to people who grew up playing the original Jagged Alliance 2 is the change from pure turn based strategy to a mixture of real time and turn based. The 'Plan and go' system allows you to pause the action, selecting mercs individually to tell them where to go, set way points, and tell them when to fire. You can set options to let it pause automatically, such as when spotting, or being spotted by an enemy. This lets you give orders without having to rely on your reflexes when your team is under fire.
I personally feel its a good thing because when you are simply rehashing the same game over and over again it quickly leads to stagnation. The developers held onto that original feeling and spirit of the Jagged Alliance games, and used new ideas and mechanics to give the players the best control they could give over their team.
I have not yet completed the game, as it only just came out. (I'm not /that/ good.) From what I have seen however, it is very much the remake that the original deserves and so much more.
The ultimate question, is it worth it? Yes, very much so. You can while away the hours with tactical planning, training militia, and selecting your weapons. The destruction and mayhem you can create is amazingly cathartic, and in the end you're leading a band of psychopaths across a country, cutting a bloody swathe through enemy soldiers.
Lock and load; it's time to overthrow a dictatorship.
E-Tank
(Edited by Nathan 'Miles' Davis)
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