DPG

I've met the new reticulans, but haven't talked to them much. The original one's are proving to be an annoyance, and when I have the beastmen beaten back I'll take them out. I have a few laser cannons and rifles, and the warp cannon is proving very useful. Most of my guys now have good levels of training and can match the beastmen at long range firing. I have met a wide variety of beastmen, can't remember the names but some have green armour and some yellow, red beastmen are rare now. I'm hoping to build those smell maskers so they can't find me so easily and some add on's for the rifles.

So far I have managed to hold the BM's back by pushing them out of my territory and taking out their gates. I now have about 2 thirds of the northern hemisphere and my terraforming stations have made the globe a nice greeny hue for large parts around my territory. I have just built my second lab and production facility and now my technology is on par with the BM'S (shotgun rules at close combat). I have not gone to war with the reticulans yet, want to make my own weaponry more powerful. Overall I am a little worried as the martians have awoken but havent done anything yet, and I need to upgrade my weaponry quickly to meet them.

I managed to position myself allright by accident and killed a few of them whilst retreating. It was difficult and most of my troops were badly injured, however I've now managed to go up against them a few times and win. They are beginning to get a bit sneaky, however they are also fairly slow and cumbersome in the open, get the high ground or some cover and you can wipe them out before they can retreat.

Neither have I! The other two crashed like mad, this one hasn't yet! Apart from an issue the first few times I loaded it up when the screen was inexplicably too big for the monitor ( i couldnt see half of what was going on ) which corrected itself suddenly, it's run smoothly. And the long loading times for missions haven't been bad at all. The AI can be dumb, however the beast men have begun to retreat when under fire and tried flanking more. The maps themselves are very good, would just prefer them to be a little larger sometimes. The variety of weaponry is also a lot better, with a wide selection to pick from, rather than it take ages for you to develop them.

The maps are a little small, and can get very crowded. The AI can be dumb most of the time, marching straight at you. However, the r & d is a lot more expansive, and there is a lot more going on with different races and different events. I prefer it a great deal to the other two, a lot easier to get to grips with and much more fun to play without hammering at your monitor as it crashes yet again or trying to decifer what certain graphics are supposed to be.

I've been playing afterlight a little bit this weekend, and have to say I have enjoyed it. A lot easier to use than its predecessors, and graphics even though not realistic look far better and easier to use.

Me too, however I won't be able to play it either.

I've seen thats the general opinion. I bought it at a shop, basically because I thought it looked cool. EU would have been a better choice, but I didn't know that it existed.

6 for me. It felt like aftermath.2, with no real sense of a whole new game. It was also incredibly slow and clunky to load, with an outdated graphics engine and poor normal missions. I think the publishers made them rush it out to make some cash. New one looks very good though.

I purchased both aftershock and aftermath, found them both rather badly finished. Aftermath was buggy and slow, also felt like it had been rushed out. Aftershock felt like aftermath with a few upgrades. After seeing the new game and its features, I'm hoping that finally the programmers have been given the scope and time to create a wholly new game rather than a cheap sequel. It does look like they've been given this, and so I've pre-ordered it from play (only £18!). I always liked the story and background, but the limited graphics, slow loading time and repetitive missions began to grate on me after a while. This new one looks a lot more polished and like they've taken on board critics advice and implemented it rather than ignored it and soldiered on. I also prefer the new cartoony graphics, may look less realistic but the old system meant everyone looked the same at a distance and never looked that real anyway. Limited camera movement frustrated me as well. At least this way they look more individual, stand out more from the background, will be able to show more emotions and the weaponry will look more impressive. Also, whereas the aliens did look good during the last two games, I think the new one's will look even better, and hopefully even larger than before.

When I was younger, bearing in mind I'm 23 now, I purchased terror from the deep. It had been out for about a year and a half by the the point I got it, and I was very excited! I liked the old UFO show by Gerry Anderson, not that much though as I was more of a Captain Scarlet fan. I loved the game, but pretty much always sucked at it. Kept forgetting to switch weapons so would end up with a torpedo launcher on land etc. I also hated constantly having to go on terror missions that would end up with a few baddies hiding away in cabins or somewhere equally annoying. I still however purchased apocalypse, and loved that to. I found it much easier to play, and managed to finish it a couple of times. Managed to avoid enforcer and interceptor as they both looked like hurried cash in's.