UFO: Afterlight Critic Reviews

The game is just plain fun and has a terrific timeless appeal to it. This is the sort of title you could play through once or twice right away (even though it might take you three months), and then reinstall it again a year, two years, even five years later, and still have just as much fun.

Offers a captivating mix of genres. The shell game works very well, actual fighting is only OK. The weapons are not very cool, and team members should be able to defend themselves automatically. There is still no destructible environment or randomly generated battlefields, either. Come on, Altair!

Overall UFO: Afterlight provides a very worthwhile time investment as the reward you reap is a deep and intriguing strategy game with the kind of RPG elements that add a less geeky feel to it - a surprise hit with us.

A great game that you’ll find yourself unable to step away from because you have to research one thing more, or expand to one more territory.

Yes, you'll find sleeker interfaces and more engaging gunfights in titles such as "Silent Storm," "Faces of War," and "Jagged Alliance 2," but none of those games come with anything half as involved or absorbing as Afterlight's amazing strategic layer.

Though Aftershock might edge Afterlight for combat and UFO: Extraterrestrials might be a better X-COM clone for purists, Afterlight feels like the most thoughtfully designed and fun of the UFO titles to date.

In general, the game lacks a sense of autonomy, forcing you to do everything yourself. For certain things, that can be understandable, but for elements like being attacked in battle, you would really hope the characters would be able to shoot back sometimes.

Fans of the series are bound to love it and if you have enough patience, you too might uncover the gooey warmth at the heart of this initially cold title.

If the repetitive invasion missions could be handled by the AI, "Total War"-style, it would've been a definite winner in my book.

The engine is a lot of fun, but the campaign is a disaster, and it appears that Altar Games hasn’t learned anything since releasing UFO: Aftershock two years ago.

Ultimately though, the lack of variety in the battles and the time lost wrestling with a less than convenient base interface will dampen your enthusiasm.

While Afterlight is a definite improvement over its predecessors, it still lacks that je ne sais quoi which would push it towards "classic" territory. Despite an iconic sci-fi setting and competent execution, Afterlight somehow fails to really spark the imagination.

It may be an upgrade on its predecessors, but UFO: Afterlight still comes with some significant problems.

What really keeps me from recommending Afterlight, however, is the repetition of its bases. The relative simplicity of the fights, married to returning to the same locale time and time again, means the game is simply not thrilling enough.

Another major issue is the game's tragically stupid A.I.

Gamers the world over would thrill to play a soup-to-nuts remake of X-COM, updated with modern tech but otherwise essentially the same. In trying to mimic X-COM but also leverage original ideas, Altar's UFO series has succeeded only in highlighting its shortcomings - shortcomings particularly egregious in this disappointing installment.