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UFO: Afterlight reviewed by Softpedia


Slaughter

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Softpedia has a very early review of UFO: Afterlight ready for your reading pleasure. They are very pleased with the third instalment in the UFO: After series, and you can read why in their Afterlight review (contains mild spoilers).

 

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Complex research tree, custom made weapons (old Earth technology based weapons proved most efficient – I guess it’s the Martian conditions), using the feats available no two characters will look alike, great voice acting, a captivating story and a great quest for the well being of humankind. This is what UFO: Afterlight promises. Your gameplay experience can only be hindered by the rather long loading times and maybe the often events that pause the game at every step (till you got used to them, anyway). The bottom line is that the game really got a hold of me. There are tons of things to do, things to build, technologies to research and it’s only up to your imagination of the number of tactics to apply on the battlefield. Thumb’s all the way up for the Czech development team of Altar Games. Now please excuse me, I still have an autopsy to attend to in my Martian Pathology Department. Oh, oh! Did I mention the irritating Mechwarriors? Neah! I’ll let you discover them by yourselves. Just a clue – watch out!
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Well that did the reviewer miss out on.

Are all your graphics card screen resolutions shoud be available.

In my case using an 4:3 LCD monitor I can have any resolution from 800x600 to 1280x1024 with the appropriate refresh rates as well.

As for supporting widescreens I don't know since I don't have one of those....

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Yes, as long as you choose "Windows XP SP2" compatibility mode it does :)

 

I tried that but it still would not run. It generates an error message within a second of clicking on the desktop shortcut. :) Any other ideas? :)

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Not really, but knowing the error message and that you have a useful video driver installed would help. I also have Vista, but it runs like syrup (most likely due to lack of a decent video driver). I think George at the ALTAR forum are better suited to help however. Do you run Vista at all your systems?
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Not really, but knowing the error message and that you have a useful video driver installed would help. I also have Vista, but it runs like syrup (most likely due to lack of a decent video driver). I think George at the ALTAR forum are better suited to help however. Do you run Vista at all your systems?

 

Both my Core 2 Duo systems run Vista, but an older Pentium runs XP. The XP system runs the demo fine.

I have a third C2D system that I've been meaning to set up for over a month but haven't made the time. That one will be a XP system, since Vista is not ready for prime time.

 

The error mesage is very basic:

 

"UFO.exe has stopped working

 

A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify if a solution is available."

 

No further information is provided.

 

Do you know a good program to collect system info? It's a pain to try and give a complete system spec listing, but I'll give it a try:

 

Vista 32-bit RC2

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard

Intel C2D 6300 overclocked to 3.15 GHz

2 gigs of OCZ Gold PC8000 ram running at 450

Nvidia 7800 GT running the drivers updated by Windows Update (8/22/2006 driver date, version 7.15.10.9746) - I tried using the latest Nvidia drivers on their site but those would not run Sword of the Stars correctly.

The PC was buikt to run Folding@ Home 24/7, so it is otherwise very stable.

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Start->Run... Dxdiag is always a good way to collect info in XP (just save the report it generates), but I haven't tested with Vista yet.

 

As for the problem you get, another user reported the same at the official boards and that XP comp mode worked. I don't think the graphics drivers MS offer through Windows Update is worth much, so the NVidia ones are probably a better choice. Odd that you couldn't run SotS with them though. I'll give the demo a spin in Vista and see if I can make it work.

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Yeah, drivers for Vista are lacking indeed!

 

I tested the demo on Vista, and using XP SP2 comp mode worked. I had to use it however, or I got the same error you did Mike. I use the Final Retail version of Vista Ultimate however, and not the beta.

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I played the demo and really loved the new soldier avatars. The spacesuits with the semi-reflective screens are beautyfull.

I almost pre-ordered the game from play.com.

 

BUT then i remembered the fiasco with the numerous bugs of aftershock (i had pre-ordered the collector's edition back then) and decided thath the prudent thing to do was to wait untill after the game was released and the first reviews were out.

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Well my overall impressions are positive, but still, I'd say I'm one of the many "enthusiasts" that can bare with some pretty bad flaws just to play something that's even remotely close to classics like x-com or jagged alliance. :)

 

For instance, Altar' still obviously don't know (or mind) all that much about how to design a good user interface and how information flow really should be working. Even I, with the little knowledge that I've gathered at the University's basic courses, can tell pretty easily what's wrong and what shouldn't have been.

 

But I can live with all that, as long as it's enjoyable and doesn't crash on me :)

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Well my overall impressions are positive, but still, I'd say I'm one of the many "enthusiasts" that can bare with some pretty bad flaws just to play something that's even remotely close to classics like x-com or jagged alliance. :)

 

For instance, Altar' still obviously don't know (or mind) all that much about how to design a good user interface and how information flow really should be working. Even I, with the little knowledge that I've gathered at the University's basic courses, can tell pretty easily what's wrong and what shouldn't have been.

 

But I can live with all that, as long as it's enjoyable and doesn't crash on me :)

I can live with all that as long as the game is enjoyable, doesn't crash, and doesn't take long minutes to load even the crappiest-designed battlescape scenario.

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