UFO - Extraterrestrials

One would think that upgrading a classic game to run on modern systems would mean a slam-dunk success story – especially one with the cachet of the legendary X-Com series. Just think, everything is already there; just update the graphics and frim-fram whatever jim-jam it takes to run on XP or Vista. Think again. Change a hair on it and older players will descend like raptors; don’t make any changes and be accused of ripping off the public since the originals are easily modded to run on any system. Nonetheless, Chaos Concepts, along with publishers Matrix Games and Tri Synergy, have taken on this daunting challenge with UFO - Extraterrestrials.

Back to the Roots

The background story is the reverse of the original. In the 22nd century, Earth has colonized the planet Esperanza and has developed nine separate countries, each contributing to defense. Intelligence reports that Earth has fallen and aliens are coming to Esperanza with evil intentions. The player is in command of the Counter Alien Force and is charged with not only beating invaders back but also liberating Earth.

At this point, the first change in play appears. Players cannot choose their initial base. Going to the base reveals other changes. The interceptors cannot be modified to accept two rocket pods; a cannon mount is integral. Ammunition for the cannon and rocket pods is always available. A manned tankette is also provided and carries both rockets and cannon, which can be upgraded. Along with the interceptors, a troop carrier capable of carrying eight soldiers or four soldiers and the tankette is ready for action.

The base itself is composed of hangars, living quarters, labs and workshops. Players can build more of some of these facilities along with interrogation rooms and defenses if finances allow. Soldiers, scientist and engineers cannot be hired or fired as in the original. The latter groups come with new labs and shops while new soldiers simply show up. Scientist and engineers only draw salaries when working on a project. New bases are built in the various countries in order to insure a steady income and provide global defense.

Players begin with eight soldiers rated for seven characteristics and three skills. Characteristics include things such as strength, agility and combat actions. The three characteristics are health, resistance to psychological attacks and the all-important action points. Skill increases with experience where the player can choose what skills to increase after a successful mission. Skills will always increase eventually because soldiers do not die; they are just hospitalized. The only way to lose troops is to abandon them on a mission. Soldiers have names and individual portraits but the names are not as varied as in X-Com (Esperanza seems to have been settled by Anglo-Saxons).

Troopers can be equipped with weapons dragged to hands, shoulders, belt and backpacks from a list of armaments according to the soldier’s strength. In the beginning, the weaponry seems anachronistic for the 22nd century, as you are limited to pistols, shotguns, rifles and pineapple grenades. More advanced weapons become available soon via research and production. Armor is upgraded in a similar fashion. Notably absent from the inventory are flares, smoke grenades, proximity mines and the stun rod. Stun rockets being available from the beginning is a welcome addition.

The heart of the strategic level of this game is research with discoveries being explained as they come to light in the UFOpedia. The ten scientists in each lab can be assigned to any number of projects. The tech tree is enormous but progress has limitations. Spreading scientists over a number of projects slows progress but choosing only one leaves equally important work undone. Building more labs is costly in terms of initial outlay and salary. Bankruptcy is the fastest way to defeat. More importantly, new progress is dependent on the capture of alien equipment, corpses and leaders. The equipment and carcasses come quickly but the twelve vital leaders arrive only with large ships, months after the battle begins and aliens capture a number of countries. The arrival of these capital ships is triggered by either time or events.

Production suffers from the same problems. New equipment can only be produced after research; the small number of engineers in a workshop doesn’t allow quick results. Moreover, products cost money and resources as well as time. Building more shops increases speed but also adds costs. Again, players must balance the necessity of supplying their troops with financial realities. Some relief comes from buying and selling equipment on the open market but, in UFO: Extraterrestrials, the profit margin is slim. The most profitable items that players could sell in X-Com, alien corpses, aren’t present in the new game and artifacts are either unidentified or necessary for production. The race becomes one of equipping troops effectively before aliens occupy territory and cut revenue.

Winning...Until Exhausted

Action begins in the air on the continuous time geoscape. Time can be set at real, twenty minutes, one hour or one day. At first, a few alien scouts are spotted. One or both interceptors can swat them down, allowing ground forces to assault the crash or landing sites. The aliens soon pick up the pace by sending more and bigger craft at smaller intervals. The interceptors are then spread thin, often not being able to re-fuel before the next onslaught. Alien air attacks force new secondary airbases to be built, draining resources and making concentration against cruisers and battleships very difficult. The interceptors begin to be shot down, forcing more to be bought at ruinous prices. Players can intervene in air fights by clicking on crafts’ icons to assign one of three stances and re-direct fighters. However, gaps in coverage will appear and, even on the easiest of the three difficulty levels, the enemy will establish bases on Esperanza.

Although the aerial battle is vital, the war is won on the ground. Missions are divided into three types: landing/crash site expeditions, base attack and defense and terror raids. The terrains for these vary from flat desert to hilly forests and urban areas. Multi-storied buildings with elevators, labyrinth-like factories and bases and weird alien craft make each expedition visually different. Yet, flaws appear. The graphics are updated from the original but may not be as useful. Hills and folds in the ground are hard to spot even when zoomed in, inaccessible terrain is not readily apparent and makes judging line of sight difficult. Simply adding a tilt/rotate view function could have corrected this. The animation is not a great improvement over the older game. The fields are very large but the “edge of the world” can be easily seen by moving the cursor. Furthermore, troops always begin in one of the corners, limiting searches to 270 degrees each mission. No differentiation between day and night missions is made; a design decision that adds, along with the size of the map and corner starts, to the eventual tedium of play. Fortunately, persistent smoke is present and damage is well represented. Combat sounds are good but the eerie background music is missed.

The combat interface revolves around the 3D cursor. Clicking on either a trooper or their portrait encloses the soldier in the cursor. A green cursor indicates movement is possible and a small tab indicates the number of action points the movement would expend. Keeping track of these expenditures versus remaining action points is crucial, as the old function of reserving points for shots is gone. Hovering the cursor over a figure brings up tabs for kneeling to reduce vulnerability and increase accuracy or using the elevator. Firing and throwing is simply a matter of selecting a weapon, which creates a cursor showing a cross hair and the percent accuracy and action points for aimed, snap and auto fire. A gold bracket appears when the target is dead on. Sometimes, soldiers must switch weapons or reload. Oddly, these actions don’t cost points. Another strange change is the omission of timing the explosion of a grenade. By always going off in the turn thrown, troopers can’t take cover.

At first missions are delightfully tense. Whether the player opts for the eight-man pure infantry group or the tankette/trooper mix, the moment of debarkation from the carrier can be hair-raising if an alien has the ramp in its sights; crumpled troopers unable to fire can spoil a mission fast. Securing the landing area is more difficult than in X-Com because soldiers can no longer use the landing gear as cover. Moving out requires a tactical decision: grouping troops maximizes firepower but allows the aliens to hit everybody with rockets, corrosive gasses and easy beam shots. Spreading out too much allows troops to be picked off one-by- one. Therefore, the best tactic is either teams of two using over-watch or a loose skirmisher line rushing to vegetation or ground cover. Spotted aliens are shown on the map with a large bouncing arrow and small icons; a grey icon for an enemy not in line of sight and a red for a good shot. Once an alien craft’s door has been located, gather the group like police outside a suspect’s door – “New York Gas Company. We hear there’s a leak.” Without smoke grenades, busting in is dangerous, especially with green troops that can’t shoot straight. Grenades should be used freely, even though friendlies might suffer. Remember, nobody dies. Later in the game, stun weapons may be used instead to capture leaders. Tactics in buildings are similar except a flank guard may be left to shield the scout group.

Aliens are familiar and nasty. Floaters, crawlers and runners are still there using bombs, gas, rays and mind attacks with these critters popping out of the darkness during the player’s turn and during their own. They can destroy tankettes or wound soldiers, requiring a few days in the hospital if they cannot be cured on the field by medi-kits.

The “no-death” rule, lack of night and sameness of missions drain most of the tension from the game. The aliens come up with new weapons but these can be countered by research. Basically, players must play the same missions over and over again in hopes of capturing a leader. Sure, troopers can “level up” but, given the size of the fields, play consists of hours of tedium broken only by moments of discovery. Finance becomes too important because, if players choose to speed things up by skipping missions, the income penalties can be crippling.