UFO - Aftershock worth it?

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-01-29 04:51pm

I sorta liked UFO - Aftermath that is untill the aliens got mega onshot kill weapons and interuppts up my squads ass.

three aliens crumbstomped me and I quit that game, so not to be pissed again I am looking for advice on the sequel.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-01-29 05:10pm

Well, its better in that regard. There are still situations where a sniper who you could not see in any way targets you and kills you in two shots, or even better makes one of your men panic and start killing his teammates (especialy funny when they have weapons on auto) but its much more managable then Aftermath. The problem is however that the game has way waaay too much filer missions between each achivement (story advencement, tech advencment, even manufacturing of equipment) and the missions are very similar on only a dozen or so maps so it gets kinda boring pretty fast.

Plus there is the thing I menitoned in the thread about turn-based games - most of the time the best course of action upon spotting an enemy is to simply tell all your men to blast him to bits - this is especialy true for enemies sporting rocket launchers or snipers. There is almost no cover available on the maps and even if you get into cover it seems that the targeting algorithm is based primarily on distance and that cover has very little to do with the chance to hit.

Meh, dunno, its fun in the begining but the tedium of having to do 5 or so missions before the next useful thing will happen on maps all of which you see in the first 3-4 hours of playing while the tactical game is, for the most part, "move as a group, once enemy is spotted, blast him with everything you've got" exists.

Overall, I'd say its better then Aftermath, however it's still not in XCOM-quality territory.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-01-29 05:25pm

I just got this game a week ago. I've got an SG-1 themed group.

But really, it's a lot better than Aftermath. Far superior graphics, more storyline stuff, better strategic mode. Tactical mode has less weapons, but the combat system is less awkward than Aftermath.

It's no X-COM. But nothing is these days...

And moving as a group isn't the only thing you do, once the enemy breaks out hand grenades. They're a bit less cheesy on the RPG spam, and the difficulty curve's better.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-01-29 06:36pm

At least they fixed the bug where for no apparent reason (in Aftermath) the game would display UPSIDE DOWN.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-01-29 07:33pm

I enjoyed it for a few days. It's all-round better than Aftermath. However...

I think it's lame. Its horribly easy, the 'cultists' are literally unstoppable (if you take all their sectors THEY GET THREE OF YOURS) and the idea of conquering all of Europe to have the resources to produce nice guns is laughable. Lets not forget the timescale: after taking Paris, you can fill it with gun factories in 10 hours. Then all Europe to the Urals will take you maybe a week and a half.

The tactical bits are improved, but of course it suffers from Gun Inflation like all games of this type. It doesn't have the fucking annoying shielding bullshit like the first one, though. There are only four or five different variants on missions, however, and each sector only has one (small) map. Missions (especially being constantly attacked by the culties) get old really, really fast. It's actually advisable to push the culties back to one sector and block them in, but that means you'll be putting up with their bullshit attacks every eight or nine hours. Bah I say.

At least you don't lose if the Swiss die, though.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-01-29 08:47pm

NO

The game includes Starforce copy protection. Say no to such invasive unstable POS which runs long after the the game has stopped running.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-01-30 04:46am

ggs wrote:NO

The game includes Starforce copy protection. Say no to such invasive unstable POS which runs long after the the game has stopped running.

DOes that thing come on games in the UK? I've never seen it over here.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-01-30 06:48am

ggs wrote:NO

The game includes Starforce copy protection. Say no to such invasive unstable POS which runs long after the the game has stopped running.

Unfortunatly, more and more games are using that protection since it is the only one that works somewhat. "Somewhat" beacause it still can be bypassed, however, it is pretty much outside the realm of novice users (software bypass is unstable and unreliable, hardware is either annoying or you have to buy an add in card to make it work).

A word of warning if you dislike this protection, Heroes 5, a pretty anticipated game here, is going to be using it, among others.

Rightous Fist Of Heaven · Post by **Rightous Fist Of Heaven** » 2006-01-30 09:24pm

mmar wrote:
ggs wrote:NO

The game includes Starforce copy protection. Say no to such invasive unstable POS which runs long after the the game has stopped running.
Unfortunatly, more and more games are using that protection since it is the only one that works somewhat. "Somewhat" beacause it still can be bypassed, however, it is pretty much outside the realm of novice users (software bypass is unstable and unreliable, hardware is either annoying or you have to buy an add in card to make it work).

A word of warning if you dislike this protection, Heroes 5, a pretty anticipated game here, is going to be using it, among others.

Starforce 5 has been cracked, several times at that so no it doesnt work any more even though it takes a bit longer while to crack it.

Anyway, Aftershock is a nice game. Enjoyed playing an hour or two here and there in order to avoid the boredom of the game repeating itself hitting me. Where I'm now though the game is a bit too easy. My Alpha team is a friggin team of killing machines that chew through ANYTHING without much problems. Two snipers with Barrets and some nifty attachments on them can take down Wargot power armour at best with 3 shots, and usually both of them firing one round is enough to drop any Wargot trooper. All of my Alpha team, excluding two scouts, have Heavy Armour and are pretty much maxxed out in attributes. Missions are pretty much just running through a map and bothering to shoot anything that gets in sight.

Fun game despite its repetive design and some glitches, the boredom however strikes very fast and this doesnt have much replay value.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-01-31 03:24am

Rightous Fist Of Heaven wrote:
mmar wrote:
ggs wrote:NO

The game includes Starforce copy protection. Say no to such invasive unstable POS which runs long after the the game has stopped running.
Unfortunatly, more and more games are using that protection since it is the only one that works somewhat. "Somewhat" beacause it still can be bypassed, however, it is pretty much outside the realm of novice users (software bypass is unstable and unreliable, hardware is either annoying or you have to buy an add in card to make it work).

A word of warning if you dislike this protection, Heroes 5, a pretty anticipated game here, is going to be using it, among others.
Starforce 5 has been cracked, several times at that so no it doesnt work any more even though it takes a bit longer while to crack it.

Actualy, it does. The problem is, it was cracked after months for a few games but it was not cracked as a system. Even there, if the game follows the Starforce's recomendations (protecting even the demo and such) it's unlikely to get cracked. BTW, I belive UFO and most games which are considered (practicaly) uncrackable are protected by Starforce 3.5-3.6 (the earlier versions weren't cracked so much as a way was found to emulate them universaly thus making it pointless), which requires the previously mentioned methods to bypass (the newest versions are almost impossible to disable with software, unless you have one of the hardware configs that make the software way possible) - and those methods are pretty unpalatable to novice computer users, which is pretty much the entire point.

Anyway, while the developers (or more correctly publishers) do sometimes act like lemmings when copy protection software is concerned, do you honestly think that a lot of them would be transfering to Starforce for their new titles while singing praises about it's protection in the forums (UFO, X3, HOMM5 to name a few) unless it really offered a genuine advantage over other systems?

P.S. I'm purposly leaving out details while discussing the protections so that I don't run afoul of the forum rules. Anyone interested more in them can pretty easily find a forum for it.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-01-31 03:33am

No, my research indicates that many, many SF-enabled games run from virtual drives just fine, no executable cracking required. The very newest version, which to my knowledge isn't used in any games atm, is unbroken however. I can state with some confidence that the 3.5/3.6 SF system has been totally defeated in a transparent way by the newest virtual drive soft.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-01-31 11:57am

That is exactly what I said. Bypassed =/= cracked. It can be bypassed using virtual drives, however with some rather large annoyances (or some money investment).

The system as such has not been cracked, excepting a few games which got cracked mostly because of unprotected demos, at least thats the party line coming from Starforce. Judging from the fact that most games rely on the bypass method, I'd say there's some truth to it...

Rightous Fist Of Heaven · Post by **Rightous Fist Of Heaven** » 2006-02-02 08:24pm

Uhh.. just so you know mmar, UFO:AS has been cracked. Two months after the retail release sure, but cracked nonetheless without playing around with virtual drives.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-02-02 08:33pm

Further, I used the term 'transparent' deliberately. No money spent (how the fuck you'd even do that is beyond me) no 'annoyances'. Install software, mount image, done. Cracks are always more convienient, but I'll buy Starforce games now since they're far less irritating since I can stash the disks like everything else.

UFO:AS is still lame, though

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2006-02-03 03:40pm

Scroll down to where I3thHouR makes his first post and begin reading. Interesting information on StarForce contained herein.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-02-04 04:40am

Stark wrote:Further, I used the term 'transparent' deliberately. No money spent (how the fuck you'd even do that is beyond me) no 'annoyances'. Install software, mount image, done. Cracks are always more convienient, but I'll buy Starforce games now since they're far less irritating since I can stash the disks like everything else.

I'm guessing you have a Nforce3/4 based motherboard right?

That would be the "one of the hardware configs" that can use virtual drives without issues. Not everyone is so lucky.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-02-04 08:58am

No, I do not. It's not fucking based on hardware, try to understand what I'm saying. It's transparently defeated by the virtual drive soft. I'm not unplugging my IDE opticals or anything.