UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Ildamos on March 17, 2012, 08:31:09 pm
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I've been playing this game for quite some time now (way back 2007 or so) and I felt it's high time to give it a review and the acknowledgment it deserves. I've also put in my honest feedbacks about the game's low points. I hope nobody will get mad about my 6.5 rating regarding its graphics but in order to be consistent, I had to give it that (I gave several AAA games average scores in the graphics department so it's not that bad).
Anyway, here's my:
Downloadable PC Full Version Freeware Turn-Based Strategy Game UFO: Alien Invasion Review (http://imbacore.blogspot.com/2012/03/downloadable-pc-full-version-freeware_6555.html)
It's a 5,000-word article so I hope I haven't meandered.
The gameplay is a solid 9.5 though. It's that jaw-dropping. Thank you to the developers who have painstakingly created this game for all X-Com fans.
EDIT: I've also created a UFO: AI album in my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.366486093383501.89907.180717828626996&type=1#!/pages/Imbacore/180717828626996 (If you like the page please Like it :) )
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thanks a lot for the review - it was a pleasure to read.
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thanks a lot for the review - it was a pleasure to read.
You are welcome!
Sorry for the very late reply but I got inundated with work. Glad to know my review was a pleasure to read!
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It looks like your review is based on the 2 years old 2.3.1 version? ;) Anyway nice review you wrote although iam a bit sad it doesnt feature the whole new sfx & revisted music play list i contributed to this project for 2.4. :D We also fixed some of the things you criticise, like the weapon sfx for the aircrafts.
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Nicely written ;)
What strikes me as odd in the base building aspect is that you need to have a dropship to recruit and equip soldiers in
YES! In this case, I consider best was system featured in X-COM:Apocalypse, with each solder having it's personal equipment and teams being created from independently equiped soldiers..
While the game has bugs they occur rarely enough that I don’t find them to be major issues.
I agree... But I must admit, that sniping ET's in parking lot in "bigcity" map isn't very exciting... ???
(Today i deleted ver 2.3.1. and try to dl 2.4)
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YES! In this case, I consider best was system featured in X-COM:Apocalypse, with each solder having it's personal equipment and teams being created from independently equiped soldiers..
Personally I think it may be better to allow players to make equipment templates for soldiers. They could then select a default template for each soldier, which would make it easier to change their gear. Equipment wouldn't be tied to individual soldiers, but would be assigned to them when needed, i.e. when they leave the base.
Managing equipment and soldiers could be made easier by allowing a player to create squads to which he could assign soldiers and equipment, so soldiers would first take squad equipment, and if there isn't enough, take it from the base's shared storage, but never any equipment assigned to another squad. Perhaps even make it so that a squad brings all their equipment along in the dropship when they leave, including any surplus left after everyone is equipped?
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Personally I think it may be better to allow players to make equipment templates for soldiers. They could then select a default template for each soldier, which would make it easier to change their gear.
I'd love that. Are there plans regarding this for the new ui?
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A little side note, I immediatly thought "halo" as well when spotting the plasma pistol, so I'm with you and your friends. On the other hand, I don't think it's too inappropriate, as I'm all about sharing, but if I were in the developer's shoes, I'd have a little respect towards legal consequences.
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I think the plasma pistols models are now almost 10 years old.
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Haha ok, I didn't want to imply that you deliberatly stole the model or something. But thanks for the reply. Funny how two independent studios get to a very similar model, but hey, we've had that in evolution several times ;) Gaming evolves! (No sarcasm intended)
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Well the design is obviously taken over from halo - no question. ;) Maybe someday someone will do a new model *me looks at trashman* :D Probably a design similar to the ship design is a good idea (claw look).
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I'd declare a claw look as awesome, for all alien weapons. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes, but I find the looks of the ships superior to the plasma rifle, for example. The sips habve interesting curves, paired with a slick green :)
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Meh...guns.. They must have the same funcitions, and thus, any gun you design will resemble SOME other gun out there.
Best not pay it any attention, as it doesn't deserve any.
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True but in fiction, you can just as well stick a poodle on a sword, have it throw some suspiciously green gunk, paint it purple and you could still call it a gun without most folks batting an eye all that much. Of course, it's gonna have an effect on the overall atmosphere and PETA's gonna bitch and whine but who cares about that.
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We should redesign the game so you have to fight against bunnys,rats and bears as the (P)rofessional (A)ttack (T)ask (E)nforcer Force.
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A game such as that will be additionally included in the collectors edition.
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Hello it has been a while. I got held up by the dayjob.
Thank you to Mattn for featuring my review. A thank you article was in order so I made one:
http://imbacore.blogspot.com/2012/06/imbacore-reviews-featured-on-two-free.html (http://imbacore.blogspot.com/2012/06/imbacore-reviews-featured-on-two-free.html)
About:
It looks like your review is based on the 2 years old 2.3.1 version? ;) Anyway nice review you wrote although iam a bit sad it doesnt feature the whole new sfx & revisted music play list i contributed to this project for 2.4. :D We also fixed some of the things you criticise, like the weapon sfx for the aircrafts.
Sorry about releasing a review prematurely but that was kind of intentional. This way with each new release, I could then make another article about UFO: AI's new features. I will play 2.5 don't worry. (If you have your own site I could even link to it and mention you as one of the primary audio creators. My website's definitely not IGN but hey, every little bit helps. ;D)
YES! In this case, I consider best was system featured in X-COM:Apocalypse, with each solder having it's personal equipment and teams being created from independently equiped soldiers..
I agree... But I must admit, that sniping ET's in parking lot in "bigcity" map isn't very exciting...
Glad you agree. There are some aspects in the game I found cumbersome (but overall they were minor flaws compared to the whole picture).
The sniping bits in BigCity was actually fun for me ---- it was tense seeing who would keel over first under a sustained barrage haha! What kills BigCity for me is the inevitable "Indian Pass-Thermopylae" action within the edifice. Though it's a nice diversion from the other maps. I just wish aliens would pop up in the landing area once in a while though.
Personally I think it may be better to allow players to make equipment templates for soldiers. They could then select a default template for each soldier, which would make it easier to change their gear.
Nice!
Well the design is obviously taken over from halo - no question. ;) Maybe someday someone will do a new model *me looks at trashman* :D Probably a design similar to the ship design is a good idea (claw look).
It does. Even the wife and several visitors commented "Halo!" when she saw the weapon.
Meh...guns.. They must have the same funcitions, and thus, any gun you design will resemble SOME other gun out there.
Best not pay it any attention, as it doesn't deserve any.
I could help out. But I can't do 3D stuff. T_T I think I have an Ortnok design in the Art section somewhere... I stopped as one of the devs said they will have difficulty translating my design into 3D. I think that was the time before Sitters. I'm not really sure though. It was too far back.
Thanks to those who read the review! Very much appreciated!
EDIT: If it's not too much of a bother AND IF you like the content, please like my Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Imbacore/180717828626996?sk=photos (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Imbacore/180717828626996?sk=photos) (UFO: AI and other video game screenshots along with updates regarding my site --- tweaks, PC news, etc)
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So sorry for necroing this thread but I found out my account had been deactivated due to inactivity. Ildamos here, and this is my new UFO: AI forum account.
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I see the SEO-friendly copy there (well done). As a bonus, did you know that SEs see image alt text as relevant on-page text too, and in the case of image anchors treat it as anchor text?
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I see the SEO-friendly copy there (well done). As a bonus, did you know that SEs see image alt text as relevant on-page text too, and in the case of image anchors treat it as anchor text?
Gdamn, guilty as charged. I'm going to edit all those repetitive keywords out. Because you know, Penguin and Panda.
But do read the review, aside from the keywords, I did pour my heart into that article. I tried to be as objective as possible too. (In fact I hit the game for its plasma rifles. So Halo. :D)
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>> I'm going to edit all those repetitive keywords out. Because you know, Penguin and Panda.
Meh, don't worry about it too much. Firstly, those penalties normally only attach to pages with a lot of incoming / outgoing anchor value on a single term matched to the same term on-page, not a range of terms like you have, and secondly editing content after being crawled / indexed can lead to yet other penalties. If the page isn't under a penalty now, don't change it, you're good.
>> But do read the review
I did, good review. I did notice a couple of places where you misunderstood a couple of mechanics, but tbh that's more to do with the game not always being very good at exposing information about how things work. A lot of that is fixed in later versions too, but there are still a couple of wrinkles in the game you just have to know about to use properly
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>> I'm going to edit all those repetitive keywords out. Because you know, Penguin and Panda.
Meh, don't worry about it too much. Firstly, those penalties normally only attach to pages with a lot of incoming / outgoing anchor value on a single term matched to the same term on-page, not a range of terms like you have, and secondly editing content after being crawled / indexed can lead to yet other penalties. If the page isn't under a penalty now, don't change it, you're good.
Ah. Thanks for the heads-up!
>> But do read the review
I did, good review. I did notice a couple of places where you misunderstood a couple of mechanics, but tbh that's more to do with the game not always being very good at exposing information about how things work. A lot of that is fixed in later versions too, but there are still a couple of wrinkles in the game you just have to know about to use properly
Thanks man! It's good to know the hours I poured into that didn't go to waste.
About:
"I did notice a couple of places where you misunderstood a couple of mechanics"
Could you point those out? I'm currently making a Let's Play UFO: Alien Invasion v2.5 YouTube series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8z5KevvdJP1cN5ePFe_HMgXQGsH8Nc5G) and I'm afraid I might make the same mistakes again.
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>> Could you point those out?
Sure.
1) You said aliens don't use plasma grenades in 2.3.1 - they would (I'm fairly sure), but only sometimes. The AI isn't very good at using them, and as you noted, it does vary between versions, as AI code is tweaked, as plasma grenade spawning is rebalanced etc. They still don't use them much though
2) Morale system - it does apply to both sides, but it's quite rare to see a PHALANX solder panic, unless a lot of bad things happen to them in quick succession (ie get wounded, and see multiple soldiers / civilians killed or wounded in their LOS, death of comrades), and that has pretty much always been the case. Aliens tend to suffer the effects more, because typically when you kill one, several will see it, and aliens can typically tank more shots than a PHALANX soldier so they get the wounded penalties more often
3) Walls stop shots - Walls stop *some* shots. Several weapons (sniper rifle, bolter and coilgun, mainly) have a specific through_wall_damage rating, because you very much can shoot through walls. Some wall materials are stronger than others, of course, and shooting through a wall costs damage potential, but it is one of the humans few advantages (try UFO floors in particular... fun times). The alien plasma weapons don't shoot through walls, even if the AI doesn't know that :D This, particularly, is an example of just having to *know* about it, I'm not sure there is anywhere within the game that makes it clear that capping things through walls can be a thing
There were a few other points, but they were to do with changes since the version you reviewed (strength / encumberance system, deprecation of the Heavy Weapons skill and max squad size, for instance), so not really relevant
For the LP, if you can get to grips with efficient use of smoke, and thoughwall shots when assaulting UFOs, you can save many PHALANX lives
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fiendly fire is very very bad for morale ;) so if you want to see your soliders panic use pistol and shoot them