After the humanity lost the war for Earth, the search for a new home took the humans to Mars. Mars, the red planet, the one who people believed had water resources will be the new cradle of life. But this is not an easy task and the future is uncertain for the human race.
As you start the game, you are introduced to the tutorial where you have to defeat some enemies and learn the basics of the game.
After the tutorial you will get back to your base where you will meet your people. At the beginning you will have only humans but as you advance into the game, drones and aliens will join your base.
The tactical map of the game features Mars. Divided into territories, Mars is habited by humans, aliens and drones so life is hard and the fight for survival is a tough one.
Research
To increase your chances of survival, to develop new weapons, new suits and of course new facilities, research occupies an important place in UFO. At the beginning of the game, only four scientists can research for you. These four scientists will have to research technologies from different fields like: earth, planetology, martian tech. and so on. Some technologies will be easy to research while others will take more time to complete. To speed things up, you can train your scientist. As your scientists grow in levels, they will gain training points and will be able to learn new things. They can train in minor and then major Earth science for example, or minor/major medicine, allowing them to speed up research in that particular domain. Each technology has its own pre-requisites, so better look closely to each technology to be sure you research what you need. As you advance in research, new weapons, suits and facilities will be available for production, both for your base and the territories you control. So research is a very important aspect of the game and it may lead you to victory or defeat if you don't do it right.
Production
Most of your items will need to be produced in order to be used by your people. These items will be needed by your soldiers. Weapons, ammunition and suits are available to everyone during your missions, but medical or technical items can only be used by the technicians you have in your group. As they produce items, technicians will gain experience and will be able to train into weapon, suits, medicine or any other field, speeding up production. Technicians can also build base facilities so it's better to have at least one or two technicians with civil engineering specialty.
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Combat
To gain new territories, your people will have to either build a geological probe or fight the enemy and gain control over that territory. Each squad can have up to 7 members. Soldiers, technicians and scientists can be part of the team; and each member will bring different things to the combat. For example, a technician will be able to use medicines to heal himself or the team members if he is a medicine specialist. Like always, soldiers will be the main damage dealers. Each character has his own attributes. This will allow some to be agile, while other will rely on brute force. These attributes will have to be taken into consideration if you want to build a good party.
The combat can be sometimes interesting, sometimes dull. The game features a mix of TBS/RTS using a "pause on events" method. These pauses can be set into the game tactical settings. You can interrupt the game when an enemy is spotted, when you kill an enemy, when you are hit and so on, allowing you to play the game as you like.
At the beginning at the game you won't start with sticks and rocks but your equipment is somehow primitive. Some knives and some ranged weapons (pistols/rifles) can be used, but as you advance into the game you will get gatling guns, plasma rifles, sniper rifles, EM guns, chainsaw and much more, allowing you to make your team deal more damage. The suits have a double protection. For environment and for damage protection. Each suit is different and will have its bonuses and penalties. You can gain damage protection but lose movement speed. Further in the game, you will be able to attach add-ons to your suits, improving them or your abilities.
As you complete the objectives and you deal damage to the enemies, each of your character will gain experience. This way they will be able to train into different specialties like suit wearing, improving their ranged stats, melee stats, cover or stealth stances, allowing your team, to be deadlier in combat.
The problem with the combat is that sometimes is getting either too easy or too hard. This is most of the times a consequence of the research and production but sometimes you get into a mission and you get mechs equipped with deadly weapons instead of tiny drones which were no challenge for your team. The reticulans bring big guns to the battlefield and refuse to die as easily as the ones killed 1 mission before.
The game looks nice but a little cartoonish. You don't need a lot of resources to play the game which is OK considering most of today's games require quite a lot to play them. The sound does it's job but in the end you will turned it off.
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Gameplay: 81
UFO: Afterlight follows the alien recipe and manages to turn another episode into a nice experience. It has a high replayability as you can try to end the game using different tactics. Some missions are interesting, others are boring but overall the game keeps up in the chair to see what's next, what weapons will you research, how they perform on the battlefield.
Graphics: 75
Even with its cartoonish style, UFO looks good enough to give you a pleasant experience. The missions feature different environments, the characters look good in their armors, with the big guns ready to give a warming welcome to the enemies.
Sound: 74
The sound array is limited and after a short while you will turn the sound off. Too bad because it would be nice to have a better sound to complement the game.
Multiplayer: N/A
Hardware: 87
Game requirements allow almost anyone to play it, no matter what computer they own. Lots of settings, several bugs fixed with five patches and with the final patch the game runs on Vista too.
