Prologue
Few are the people that the name UFO means anything to them, and it's a shame – because we are probably speaking of the greatest tactics game ever.

I was lucky enough to be one of these men who actually played UFO: Enemy Unknown and UFO: Terror from the Deeps about 10 years ago. Thanks to my previous knowledge of the game I received a phone call from the admin about two weeks ago: "You are the only one I know who played it, so you are the only one capable of doing this review". I answered I don't have the time, that I have games waiting for me on the shelf still wrapped and untouched, and that I will probably hate the game, since I think it's ancestor was the best game ever, and you can't make sequels to the best game ever. Is it still my opinion? You'll soon find out.

Story
 Well, the story starts with a huge diversion from the original story: according to the new UFO series, the Earth is destroyed about 20 years before the UFO 2 period (that took place on Earth), so there's no straight connection between the games.

The story goes like this: aliens come to Earth and extinct almost all living things on it in order to turn our planet to a bio supercomputer (?!?). off course the UN and the coward leaders of Earth do nothing to stop them as they fear of causing an inter-plantar war (where did I hear that before?), but the few men who didn't believe the aliens intentions and sealed themselves in air-proof bunkers were saved and started fighting back. That's more or less UFO: aftermath's story. Eventually human kind and the aliens strike a deal and some humanity is taken to a huge hovering spacecraft orbits around the Earth (from which they will break free and reclaim Earth in UFO: aftershock) while the rest is taken to Mars to live alongside the aliens who ruined Earth (you really think so?). off course thing never work as you want the to, and before you'll understand what's going on you'll find more and more enemies crawling from every possible hole, and your military advisors offer you to betray the aliens who brought you to Mars (with pleasure!).

System requirements
 Recommended System Requirements:
 
 Operating system:Windows 2000/XP with DirectX 9.0c
 Processor:2 GHz CPU
 Memory:768 MB
 Video card:Nvidia 6600 GT, or ATI Radeon 9800 video card
 Sound card:Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ sound card
 Hard disc:5 GB free Hard Drive Space
 CD ROM:DVD ROM drive
What I can say is that I played with a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz and 512 MB RAM with Raedon 9800 pro GPU and still had to wait a long time while the computer loads the game. The game starts on the highest graphic level, so before you start playing it, you should make sure you're meeting your computer's abilities. If you ask me, 1 GB RAM and a better graphic processor then my will do just fine.

Installment 
The game installment went smoothly and with no special problems. UFO: Afterlight demands lots of hard drive space so in spite of the ease, it took me about 30 minutes to finish installing it.

Graphics
Well, here's the catch. UFO is a pure strategic game, what means that the game's point is to control your soldiers as they do the work. All of the game's graphic abilities, to my personal opinion, are useless. No need to invest in building or weird alien plants, no need in an auto-adjusting camera and all sorts of eye candies in this type of game. The camera drives the user crazy and the special effects on top of buildings/ plants won't be visible to the player while he runs the fight. The rich graphic surrounding often loads the computer and the player, not necessarily for a reason. Another thing that made some question marks was the maps fixation. It must be the map size (who are rich in graphic details) that the game hold a limited number of maps, what makes the fighting automatic in some cases. I just can't understand why a game 15 years old could hold a random map generator and such an advanced game can't.

Sounds
Here I can say nothing against the game. It is followed with a soothing theme that for some reason I didn't have the urge the turn off after a couple of hours – what means that someone put some effort in this field. The game sounds are available at any point, and the crew members provide feedbacks for each command (what is useless with the aliens who speak in their own weird language). The sound is effective and good, just as it should be.

Controlling the game
Remember the camera? This is where it will drive you nuts. At the least expected moments it will turn or change position, causing you to give odd commands to your men. This is maybe the place to tell a legend I once heard of UFO: the rumors have it that the game was originally created as a training device for US SWAT officers for tactic training. The original game had a wonderfully efficient way of controlling the camera and rotating it from the screen's control panel, what makes my point even more intense. Why do we need this annoying camera?!?

Well, that was my score with the cameras, and now to the game itself.

The game's control is made purely by using the mouse, when the keyboard is used only to gather the men, stopping the game and pressing enter after each mission. Since we are talking about an overview tactical game, it's all that's necessary. The game starts with a short and useful tutorial of how using your squad and buildings, but it holds no rational technologies tree, so I often found myself shooting in the dark when it came to research and development. Another thing that made me scratch my head was the weird resource control system. You can't find the traditional resource pool in this game, but instead you'll get only what your mines produce, and the more the merrier. The reason for that is unknown (I mean, if you stock your income for a while it should eventually fill a room somewhere, isn't it?) but you'll get use to it at some point.

The last thing I must say of this game is that it really wants you to finish it, now – I know it might sound a little unorthodox, after all, games are made to be finished, but UFO wasn't one of these games, when the aliens gave terror a meaning and dominated their weapons and surroundings to the extreme. The aliens here are way less effective and a sufficient time is granted to you do develop new weapons and fighting technologies, and to ascend your men's abilities on their way to taking over Mars and its moons.

Conclusion
With all of my time shortage, I don't regret a bit for playing UFO, after all – how often you get to play a game before it hit the markets, and a sequel of such a mythic series?

Maybe I'm getting old, and start looking in new games what I liked in the older ones, but I do think UFO: Afterlight holds a great potential. True, some of the things there didn't meet my expectations, but with a few adjustments we'll be looking at a best seller. Here is what I think should be improved in the game:

A. Get a grip on the camera. When its auto adjusted it’s a pain in the neck and when it isn't it's rather handicapped. I'd be much more impressed from keeping the graphics simple.

B. Return the turn based game and the sooner the better. The older versions of UFO were turn based when each side had its turn of moving. Now everybody shoots to all directions and the mayhem rules. It's uncivilized and somehow reminds me of apes playing chess.

C. Make it harder!!! Let us suffer on the battlefield, and face frenzied aliens that wouldn't let us breathe while they attack our territories on a daily basis. Make sure that by the time the next episode will be on the markets we'll be busy trying to finish the game.

D. The aliens aren't tough enough, make them tougher. I remember a time when finishing the game was only possible if constant saving and loading as men fell like rain and humanity was in peril. The aliens not only were tougher then, but they had much stronger weapons and a single shot could mean the end of your soldier's career. More over, the aliens knew how to camp to the extreme, making sure they'll catch you at the places least expected.

 
As I previously said, UFO has a great potential and I probably never reduced grade for a game because of advanced graphics until now, but if at least half of the changes I mentioned were done (and the camera must go), I'd announce it the game of the decade. Now all I got to hope is that the admin won't be too mad at me...

Grades
Sounds: 9
Graphics: 8
Plot: 10
Game: 8
Overall: 8.5