UFO: Aftermath - PC Games

Combining real-time action/strategy with an element of resource management, Aftermath charts the course of a war on Earth between the survivors of a vicious alien attack and the little green men and their rather stouter minions. The player is placed in charge of the human race's last, best hope for alien destruction--a network of military and science bases aimed at destroying, capturing and analysing the alien threat.

Aftermath splits neatly into two distinct segments--the base organisation, planning and high-level overview where research projects must be decided upon and soldiers recruited and equipped. The second (and more engrossing portion) is the real-time combat sessions where a squad of up to seven player-controlled troops must search a variety of randomly generated geographic areas including deserts and built-up urban areas and wipe out any alien presence they find, capturing artefacts and technology for further research back at the lab.

This strategy segment runs in real-time with the option to auto-pause when aliens are sighted or when individual troops find themselves without orders. In practice this works extremely well, giving the player time to assess the situation, make considered opinions on where to concentrate firepower or even to run away in the face of overwhelming opposition--quality stuff! The camera is also equipped with full rotate, pan and zoom properties to allow the player to adopt views ranging from eye-in-the-sky to boot-level.

The gameplay is backed up with some lovely graphical effects and suitably eerie tunes that give Aftermath a unique flavour and the kind of tension usually reserved for survival horror titles. This is PC strategy-gaming at its absolute best and it deserves a place in the collection of any self-respecting gamer.