Caltrops - Gamerasutra - UFO: Alien Invasion

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by Ice Cream Jonsey 01/28/2008, 1:43pm PST

UFO: Alien Invasion has the potential to give you a good X-COM vibe. Unfortunately, there's some pouty, crybaby decisions on the part of the people who make the thing that is going to stop it from being a classic.

- You can only hire soldiers at the end of the month.
- You can't save, at all, during a mission.

They are pompous about it, too. It somewhat breaks the game. I like playing the work of indie game developers because of their unique ideas, but all anyone wants out of these games is a new take on X-COM. Or all the feature of X-COM, plus new things.

I don't even care about the indestructable terrain in UFO:AI. I'll probably keep playing, because the battles are so much fun, but anyone who leaves out the ability to save at any time out of their game is a petulant manchild.

The other weird thing is that, and maybe it was a coincidence, every one of my starting soldiers were white. It's not a game-breaker, but there was something fun about people of different races and backgrounds coming together against the aliens in the original X-COM. Except Arabs, who didn't get their own sprites and who all probably threw in with the Martians.

Someone's going to make a ton of money doing X-COM properly.

Silent Storm: many people hate the mechs.
UFO: Extraterrestrials: fans had to patch it
UFO: Afterlight: who knows
UFO: Aftershock: Starforce
Laser Squad Nemesis: multiplayer only

ICJ