(Youtube link the bottom of review)
UFO Aftershock is the second of the three and in my opion the best of them. Aftershock follows on after the first, the Biomass has taken over and colonies of mutants are appearing, both friendly and unfriendly. Aftershock follows more of a story line with side missions of helping other fractions for rewards such as territory and favour.

The weaponry is far larger than Aftermath, bringing in alien weapons to begin with, to then creating various human weapons, to stronger energy weapons. Each of the human weapons can have customisations such as stabalisers, scopes and muzzles to improve them further.

Soldiers can be trained still, but furthermore the player now has input into what stats are enhanced, meaning that if you want to create a squad of Snipers, you're not waiting for the right soldiers to come by with the right traits, but with the investment of time can make them yourself. This offer a great deal more personalisation to squad development.

Two new troop types have been added aswell appearing as Psionics with telepathic abilities and the Cyborgs who can manipulate inplants that enhance stats.

Combat is a lot easier, however when moving troops during live play, can often lead to difficulties as the actions switch to any character whose finished an order, or pausing for various reasons. This is a decent RTS that rivals most recent releases and for a game nearly 10 years old, it has fantastic playability and easily 60-100 hours of gameplay.

The full screen issue I would say is not a problem. I play on a 22" and have some small black lines down each side, but it doesnt take anything away from the game. There are fixes and patches on the news link where the developer of fix has commented for anyone who needs really wants full screen.

Check out my video below for the first 15 minutes of play which show you a number the features discussed above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvPGWLqKo6A

This is, by no means, a bad entry in the UFO saga. but it's one I cannot recommend.

It's a pretty solid game, with plenty of emergent storylines that will make you love the game, like the old UFO games. The fact that's in real time shouldn't matter, because you can always pause the game to give your orders.

There's also an implemented class system, to customize your squad, and, while the "base building" part is less than optimal, it's still decent, even if it's decentralized.

So, with that much praise, why not recommend it? Well, because it's full of bugs. Game breaking bugs at that. And most of them won't happen until you have invested 40+ hours in the game.

One of the most notorious bugs is the fact that after a certain point, autosave fails to actually save your ganme, no matter what the UI tells you. But that's not game breaking... since you can always quick save, which, if used in the tactical map, will make your game crash on loading.

But nothing beats the fact that there's a type of mission that CAN literally make you lose the game, due to a bug. Basically, by the end of the game, an event ocurs, and your bases CAN be invaded, in such a way that they get lost forever. To prevent this, you need to kill a certain unit, in that area. BUT sometimes, the game will forget to spawn that unit, forcing you to basically forfeit the area. And this CAN happen in your bases. so, technically, if you're unlucky enough, you CAN lose every single base to this bug, losing the game entirely.

I cannot recommend in good faith a game that contains game-breaking bugs.

There's also a myriad of minor complains, such as the in-game encyclopedia being all but useless, the inability to sell or destroy excess crap, forcing you to pan over pages and pages of inventory that you'll never use, the unbalance of getting certain weapons in under 5 hours, and STILL using those weapons in the end game, the completly overpowerd-ness of psionics due to having their poers activating pasively (such as confusing your units every time they're hit by any other unit), The fact that drones, that you research quite end-gamy, are pretty much useless, the fact that your units can spawn on the map at points where they cannot walk AT ALL...

It's a pity, but the game is too full of bugs to be recomended. But, if you feel brave enough to stomach the bugs... you might enjoy the game.

I remember seeing this game for sale in places like Wal-Mart and Best Buy when it was new, never seen a copy sell before, and I learned that the game had STARFORCE which was debatably a very destructive DRM method at the time. I read reviews and learned the game had quite a few bugs. Well, a decade later, the DRM's removed and a handful of bugs are patched, the game's very playable. How is it? Well...

Graphics: They've aged pretty well for a game from that era, to be honest. Lot of stuff looks great, the aesthetic doesn't do much that's displeasing unless it's intentional, such as for cultists and mutants. Ragdolls were fairly new at the time and they generally added proper weight to the models in this game. Only gripe I have is would've liked a skybox that resembles the skies seen during loading screens. Not a big deal.

Sound: Guns sound like guns, explosions sound like explosions, lasers sound like typical lasers in media, and usually distinguishable from one another. Soundtrack is pleasant enough that it doesn't exactly butt in. Voice acting isn't bad either! Minor complaint, all of the soldiers really sound as though they're sick of your crap.

Story: Not much to say that isn't spoiling the major plot points that you uncover, but seems pretty well-written and thought out. Gist is humans escaped earth on colossal space colonies/prisons? called Laputas, they decided to try and reclaim the earth, and they find it's a total mess.

Mechanics: Without referencing other games, which is often lazy, on missions it's a squad-based real time strategy that you can pause and speed up/slow down as needed. Outside of missions, it's a lot of base management, politics, resource balancing, and land grabbing as well as development. And I'm talking a LOT of base management, it's really quite complex, not for the feint of heart, but pretty rewarding how much depth there is. Using other games as reference, missions play similar to Fallout Tactics or X-Com 3: Apocalypse's missions.

Buyer Beware: Probably the biggest issue I'd like to mention is that it's buggy. I recall it being buggier in the past, not sure how buggy it is at this point, but there's content that's in the game that doesn't work like what it says on the tin.

Overall: Quite enjoyable, and quite fun, bugs aside. Might be a little needlessly complex for some, the price is absolutely right as well. If you enjoy this one, you may enjoy the somewhat less complex UFO: Afterlight, which takes place at the same time, granted the visual aesthetics are a bit different.

A little old but very nice. Took over, in spirit, where the original XCOM left off. I really like the customizable soldiers, weapons and armour. I really like the ability to alter and adapt soldier load out.

Another great crunchy classic tactical game. More weapons, better training system, and some more enjoyable missions than the previous game. If you enjoy strategy games like X-Com you will probably enjoy this series too!

This game... I love this game! The beginning is a bit tough, but the mid-game is really fun!

You start with 4 squad members with average skills. They miss a lot and need to be close to their target in order to hit most of the time. As you complete missions, your squad members gain experience which will gradually increase their performance. Experience is spent on stat points which increase an array of skills which will directly and quickly benefit each squad member. When enough stats are gained, classes become available. Most classes will net your squad member a few benefits, and can be trained up to lvl 3. Each squad member can have 3 classes maxed out at lvl 3.

As missions are completed and time passes, more and more territories are explored and made available to you. Bases need to be connected together using tracks in order to gain resources, and some facilities will boost those resources gained. Missions can be triggered automatically, or you can "ask" for a mission to be plotted in a single region of your choice at a time. Most missions consist of defeating most enemies on a battle map, capturing a marked enemy, rescuing a civilian or escorting several civilians to a specific spot on the battle map. Once the objective is complete, you can complete the mission even if there are still enemies remaining. This game will make a tactician out of you!

There are many strategies in battle and out of combat which will guarantee replayability. What facilities will you build in which city? Will you focus on research early on? Will you manufacture armor and weapons as soon as possible? Which research will you start first?

The game has some bugs which are annoying at times, but still manageable. Sometimes you won't be able to complete a mission because of an enemy outside the map or in a spot you can't reach. The game will sometimes crash when rearranging squad members. Using the unofficial 1.3 patch and widescreen resolution fix, this oldy is a goody.

I give this game a good 9/10. I have completed it once (about 60 hours of gameplay to capture every territory possible) and have started another playthrough. Much fun! I especially love how enemies sometimes fly when you shoot them with shotguns at close range or snipers!

Game is amazing, but not patched to the last 1.3 version. Better use the retail one.

This is the sequel to UFO:Aftermath and although it tries to be much better game, it isn't. A lot of the extra complexity causes glitches (like equipment sharing across different squads). There are fatal bugs. The worst crime however is that it just goes on too long. As soon as think you're near the end you find yourself with a whole sting of repetitive missions to endure, and that happens twice.

It's strange how I keep coming back to this game despite it's age

There is nothing like the UFO series nowadays

Given how old it is this is a fun little nugget in the vein of old school XCOM, easily worth $5