IGdood presents a Let's Play: The UFO Trilogy - FINISHED IT ALL

[IGdood]

Can the game (and the other ones in the trilogy too, I suppose) play out differently depending on which sides you decide to ally with and destroy? Not just the canonical ending in the first one, like can you destroy one or another faction in 2, and do things go differently if you side with the renegade Reticulans (you monster) in 3?

As far as I know Aftermath is the only one with the good ending and the bad ending. Aftershock is basically a kill-em-all game so there's only one ending there. I don't know about Afterlight but whatever you do the goal is just to terraform Mars and none of the aliens are mentioned in the ending.

With mines, maybe Oliver will be more useful than mere demolition expert with dynamite.

A faster UFO is always welcome. Too bad there isn't a fuel-efficient UFO.

Sometimes I wonder why I research things even though I know I probably won't use them. Don't need rockets when I have a Warp Cannon.

Upgrading the base.

I like how the game thinks of explanations for everything.

Ohohoho

Scopes....hmm maybe I don't need that Beastman rifle.

If no flamethrower, this is useless.

I'll just produce some of these just in case.

Just realized, can't really get sneaky when everyone walks so slowly in this game. With heavy armor on even the ones who could previously run can only power walk.

Well at least special operations lets people learn how to take cover.

Alright, who has the bad b.o.?

Not sure if Tadeusz has enough time to apply stimulants when the enemies do so much damage...but okay

Tip for those who are going to play this game: check the base periodically to see if you can build new buildings.

Bet you were tired of reading all that text. Here's some renegade Reticulans getting killed.

I forgot Robbie wasn't repaired. Damn it.

Reticulans keel over if they get shot hard enough.

Pierre charges with his shotgun and opens up on unsuspecting motherfuckers

The Reticulans hit back with rockets. Fucking hell.

They shoot fast enough to stunlock before they can get back up.

It's up to Ute and Diego to carry this.

Today is not Claude's day, but he ain't dead. Not yet.

SHOTGUN

Miraculously Robbie manages to survive the ordeal.

I said that too soon. Robbie takes a rocket and dies.

Well that's one region down....5 more to go.

Better accuracy is always good.

And Robbie is back at level 1.

And he's packing heat.

Ooooh yeah.

These Reticulans won't see what's coming for them.

This terraforming business is working.

At least they won't rocket their own in the room.

Guy with the yellow-ish metallic gun is the rocketeer. He goes first.

REVENGE OF THE ROBBIE

[IGdood]

FOR MY PAST LIFE BLEEP

Harvesting ammo

The side effects don't make them worthwhile

FOUR GUNS

WE DO THIS FOR THE GOOD RETICULANS

Claude can't see shit in the dark, so the Reticulans sort of shoot him first before he can react

None of us can see shit in the dark!

Drones are extremely fragile in this game.

Meanwhile time to retreat. Damn Reticulans are actually outshooting us with rockets.

But knock them over and they're so dead.

These designated targets aren't any tougher than their peers.

Yes, I'm avoiding fights with the Beastmen.

Preggie here may be even more fragile than a drone, but psionic spotting makes sniping a piece of cake

This psionic spotting probably explains why Reticulans can target my guys so easily. Psionic weapons aren't the biggest danger to me now, only the rockets.

Good thing rockets don't go through cover, but grenades can go over it.

Sweep houses, snipe from afar rinse and repeat.

More research notes

The Beastmen finally attack, and we're forced to meet them.

The scenery is about to get chewed up.

The first squad of beasties gets shredded.

Mind control is fun business.

Shame about Pierre getting knocked over.

Hopefully the Captain doesn't break free of mind control.

If one more chief shows up I'm going to run out of Warp Cannon ammo.

Alchemist grenades are insufferably annoying, so it's good to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Unfortunately 3 captains (and that 1 guy who broke mind control) are going to flank.

Pierre will have to deal with them.

Fuck.

These guys really are annoying.

So that's the 4th chief.

Tadeusz and Preggie are busy healing. It's up to shotguns up close to send that chief to his doom.

Please stay away from me you damn Beastmen.

When the chief goes down, everyone else just sort of crumbles.

There's one captain who is a coward. Ute executes him.

New loot.

It's a shame drones lose their weapons permanently if they get killed. Otherwise I'd spam an army of drones

Too bad we can't use the Mechs. Oh well.

The Reticulans attempt a flank attack, but with Ute as rearguard it just doesn't work.

And someone is stunning Claude through the cliff walls.

Rocket Robbie is wholly inaccurate at midrange.

This may be useful but the Reticulans are nearly dead and nobody attempted mind control lately.

[IGdood]

Tonight's gonna be a bit of a long night. Got a lot of updates to post and putting a 100 pics per post takes me about an hour.

Yes we're fighting Reticulans again.

I'm starting to feel a bit bad that I'm essentially genociding entire villages.

If they called it a military base then I wouldn't feel so bad, but why village!?

NOBODY IS SAFE

I'd hide in my little mud hut too if some unknown sniper was picking off my friends and family

HARALD IS MAD

Farewell Renegade Reticulans.

Now it's time to settle into a long and hard war with the Beastmen.

I wonder if these excavation sites will yield anything more than a random cartridge or gun that I can't use.

These are new.

They don't seem to see me so the 2 snipers go to town.

Even with silencers, they still found us a minute or two later.

Good thing the Spider Robots just have an oversized lightning gun. They're as inaccurate as ever.

Good thing some of them are too dumb to get up to my level.

Obligatory buzzsaw shot.

Going to level 2, some of the mechs shoot green lightning balls of doom (read: explosive green clouds of doom)

And they actually hurt, but they're so slow even an unupgraded drone can get away in time.

Harald goes to retrieve the item while the others hold off the mechanized assault.

It's big, so he has to drop his dynamite.

Ute's out of bullets so it's down to a knife. A knife-wielding badass grandma against a fuckhuge bot.

Tadeusz gets in on the action.

Can only take 1

Martian drone spare parts completed, now we can have our own creepy crawlies and fairy floaters

A fast platform with double laser cannons.

A slow crawler with 2 machineguns.

Turns out that there's another renegade Reticulan region somewhere after I built a geosonde.

Will this let me use mechs!?

The Afterlight people learn about the Reticulan story from Aftermath.

Let's shut another hyperspace gate down.

I just realized that the Beastmen are called Beastmen because they're beastmasters. They send a fuckton of dangerous animals as a vanguard.

The levitating drone is extremely fragile but speedy. No comment on the crawling drone. Both are extremely inaccurate.

Rollers aren't too bright in choosing their targets.

And just to spite me, kill 1 Roller with a warp cannon and they send 3 more. The only flaming weapon in this game is a rocket and rocket launchers are too unwieldy in situations like these.

Chase 1 and let the other 2 cherry tap it to death

The tracked drones will get a lot better soon.

There's a lot more laser weapon modifications in Afterlight than in Aftershock.

The beasts shall know fear.

Well one bomb almost put levitating Marty out of action.

Pierre moves to flank only to find a Chief. Rocket Robbie disappoints the squad by missing and getting 2-shotted.

But Pierre, undaunted, shotguns everyone to death.

And ABOUT FACE! Enemy reinforcements from behind.

And now we're getting hit from both sides and the Warp Cannon is spent

Marty is destroyed. Well better Marty than Ute.

It was a bloody battle with Oliver almost buying the farm but he makes it.

Gotta replenish the weapons...

Better scopes? Hell yes.

Nope, no mechs for the player. This is just the equivalent of doing an autopsy.

Speaking of Martians...they haven't ventured beyond their own single region.

Edited August 13, 2014 by IGdood

[IGdood]

Gatling Tech hasn't been seen since the end of Aftermath.

Upgrading the radar sites to have automated rockets. Supposedly it lowers the chance of getting invaded, but I'm not really seeing a difference.

The Beastmen are attacking almost every day.

I haven't been posting every battle with the Beastmen.

Nice.

Sacrifice 3 guns for better defense? Nah...

DAKKA DAKKA

I just finished researching the heavy suit not too long ago...

What are the chances that I'll have researched the High Tech Battle Suit before I'm done producing the Heavy Battle Suits?

Robbie is back and ready for more....except he's underleveled once more.

The Martians finally attack! Let's see what these foes are capable of.

Some drones in the distance. Doesn't seem like there's much here...

Quad laser cannon Robbie can 2-shot most of these guys.

LITTLE GREEN MEN

Holy shit he's resistant to all bullets and lasers

He took down Pierre with 2 shots!

Took him awhile to die.

OH SHIT HE'S GOT A GLOWING POWER SWORD

They're also invisible until they're very close

Not dealing with you up close. WARP CANNON.

Oh shit there's more!

BZZZZT

*VREEEEM*

They've been masters of drones the whole time.

Their resistance to bullets and lasers is really annoying me.

The spider bots finally got off the hill, but they're being sniped.

Like the rest of the Martian weaponry, they have these long-ranged grenades that do heavy stun damage and moderate actual damage.

ROBBIE WILL WEAR YOUR HEALTH DOWN

Oh shit what technosorcery is this. Robbie is under Martian control!

Ute is out of bullets and pulls out the knife.

Surprisingly, Martians are weak to melee attacks. Two stabs in the gut is all it takes to kill them.

ROBBIE PLS STOP

Forget the spider bot. Get the martian that took over Robbie's circuitry!

*Shank*

The Martians brought animals but they don't do anything except pop when shot at.

A lot of new loot.

I feel bad for killing some innocent pets.

Diego trades his pistol for this monster.

Medium armor might be useful for Tadeusz.

The Beastmen attack! I post this because the terraforming progress can be seen on the battle map.

We take up positions and wait.

And there's a Chief in the rear.

That's a new one. Matriarch. Female "wife" of the Chief? They have unbelievably high dodge and are extremely resistant to bullets. Better yet, their gun is so powerful they can 4-shot my characters.

Look at those hit rates. They should be 78-93%!

And there's another one! Robbie seems to be doing a fair amount of damage.

Oliver stands right behind Robbie because these Matriarchs can pretty much 2-shot the poor drone.

That last matriarch there dodged the lasers and gatling shots from Diego. Since the other 2 are getting back up after being knocked down I realized they'll soon gang up on me.

I'm giving up this territory, I can't fight off all 3 at once. Tadeusz can't heal fast enough and the snipers can't do shit against them.

The Heavy Battle Suits are ready! Packing more trunk space and protection than the regular Heavy Suit!

What's better than 1 Warp Cannon? 2!

Oliver now has mines!

Loads of new research topics now that we have fought against the Martians.

I hope we can beat these new Matriarchs.

And I forgot to repair Robbie. Bad habit.

And there she is.

Meanwhile a spider detonates a mine to our rear.

It dies.

2 lucky criticals hit the next Matriarch.

Unfortunately a 3rd one lands a hit on Robbie.

AND ROBBIE DIES AGAIN

[IGdood]

Concentrated gunfire brings that bitch down.

Meanwhile an alchemist steps on another mine

The Chiefs don't stand a chance to the gatling gun.

Poor Robbie...

At least I won't need to make a new chassis.

And Robbie is back to level 1 again.

The only resource I seem to be short on at the moment is Chemicals.

This may be helpful.

So it's like an anti-Reticulan and anti-Martian armor with the protection from psi and EM attacks

The pinnacle of heavy armor!

The Artifacts are found while performing missions that involve retrieving items from Beastmen camps.

I wonder how big a role the Martians will play...

Plants are weak to being chopped. Martians are plants. Martians are weak to melee for this reason.

My wrist is hurting at this point in the update, but we're almost there!

Look at all that greeeeeen

They're attacking the base again. Time to defend it.

Oliver starts off the mission by covering our asses with mines.

I don't like it when Matriarchs pop out of nowhere.

Gatling Robbie is disabled (but not killed!) by that heavy plasma blob.

It seems that the only reliable weapon that can target Matriarchs is a psionic weapon. They also take moderate damage from it as opposed to only losing a sliver from bullets.

Also this Matriarch is green and looks even stronger than the red ones.

Bullets fly and Diego gets disabled. Fortunately Preggie kills the Matriarch but there's a Chief in the rear

Some alchemists show up late to the party (thankfully) and pay for it with their lives

More details on Martian lore

A gun that shoots giant buzzsaws. Also dat katana.

Looks like the off-planet missions are making a comeback.

Now these Matriarchs can't touch us! I hope...

Tadeusz looks kinda silly here...

That environmental protection rating is only a measly 4 though.

Truly badass

The Beastmen attack again. Time to test our new suits.

Turns out Matriarchs are also incredibly weak to laser weaponry. They die in 2 shots to an upgraded laser rifle. Wow, and all this time I was wondering why my bullets did jack shit.

Even with a force shield and a high tech suit the Matriarchs can bring down a character rather quickly.

They're also armed with paralysis bullets now so that makes things worse if they decide to shoot every character once.

Quad gatling gun just kills everything in 1 volley. Except matriarchs because they just giggle at you and dodge your bullets.

Well we can fly now!

There's no capture missions but we need to capture an enemy for this topic.

Magnetron?

Let's fly!

Mechs go down very quickly.

Oliver tests out robot controlling and hijacks a mech.

Too bad it lasts extremely short and the mech regains control after 10 seconds

Diego alone can solo 4 mechs at once with a shower of lead

[IGdood]

It wasn't any different from an excavation mission so there isn't anything special to show.

So...they're...not female?!

Oooh yeah

Looks like the moon missions aren't over yet.

Well, this is new.

The map is dark and consists of very narrow, twisting paths.

There weren't any enemies, only lots of mines.

I had to walk into their detection radius and let them explode while taking slight amounts of damage.

Robbie took too much damage because he couldn't see the mines in time.

Found this thing.

The moonquakes knock rocks over behind you so you have to keep looking for a new path. Tadeusz heals himself as he blows mines up.

And we make it back without incident

TL;DR the moons are actually made by the Martians

This research unlocks an upgrade option for terraforming stations.

A little too late for cloaking

SO...the Martians suffered from being victims of the Myrmecol of Aftershock? How'd they survive then? And did we just navigate through the husk of a dead myrmecol...?

What the fuck Harald!? You can't just retire....

She better be good.

>Level 5

Someone likes the Est archetype.

Enjoy your rest.

Looks like the Laputians will send a crew over.

Will we see cyborgs and human psionics?

What better way to level a new, weak character than a trip to the drones?

SHOOT 'EM ALL

Buzzsaw launch! Drone gets eviscerated.

Poor spiderbot couldn't even get a shot off.

Olga jumps 8 levels thanks to her doubled experience trait.

Let's take the fight to the Martians.

This is their one and only region, so let's crush them!

FIRE, FUCK, FIRE! ALL BARRELS HOT

A Martian misses with his plasma.

Olga charges with buzzsaw raised high

Olga saws that Martian into bits and goes after the next foolish one to reveal himself

Turns out that was the target aka the computer. She's tired of chasing so she aims...and launches.

*SCHWING*

That was rather anticlimactic. Well, now we gotta steamroll the last few Beastmen regions and upgrade our terraformer machines.

You're a big guy.

Preggie sees all and find out that "Boss" is immune to psionic attacks.

Ute can solo matriarchs now.

Boss does nothing except die to bullets.

This place is relatively unguarded.

Preggie continues to keep watch and even manages to kill a Matriarch

And the spiders start coming out the woodwork.

Tadeusz gets out of the way so Ute can show off her Matriarch 2-shot

Robbie destroys his boxes in tranquil fury. He reflects on all his past incarnations and their embarrassing deaths. He's as weak as a box.

[IGdood]

And it ends.

Not interested in Martian-style lightning guns but I'll research it anyways because I've got nothing else to research

Not sure who to capture but Preggie is set to stun.

Fire off some shots and the rest will follow.

Or maybe they smelled their doom approaching.

Things go bad when Ute and Diego are both paralyzed.

Tadeusz can't heal paralysis but he can try to keep them alive long enough.

A Chief lands a hit on Preggie because they either saw her as the weakest member here or they really hate psionics.

Also dem roller spikes.

Everyone stands their ground and ignores the roller whose attacks didn't do much.

Preggie takes control of a Chief who proceeds to shoot another Chief.

The Alchemist we have to capture is stunned and the previously mind controlled Chief is gatling'd.

More research stuffs.

A little too late for that, the Martians are gone.

I remember looting the acid grenade before....

The Laputians are here but no additional crew have joined. Bummer.

Tadeusz can't access Major Medicine for some reason so he can't use the advanced medikits and stimulants...

As the terraformation reaches an advanced stage flooding begins to render some areas inaccessible.

We need a shaman but the Beastmen are restricted to their single unconquerable territory.

Turns out one can play the game too well and lose out on technologies.

I had to let the Beastmen capture a region and then let the subsequent counterattack mission to be a capture mission instead of the destroy object/unit/everything missions.

In previous games if something fainted but was alive by mission's end then they automatically become living prisoners.

So green.

Time to kill the matriarchs.

The spiders in cages can deal heavy damage but the squaddies can't see them so I'll have to be careful.

For some reason these matriarchs are charging into the middle of the squad instead of shooting from afar.

The poor shaman tried to juggle between healing his stun damage and dealing little damage with his dinky pistol.

It didn't work.

Time to interrogate.

The Shaman knows terraformation for some reason

Then again the Shamans handle the healing in Beastmen squads so I'm not surprised we can gain some additional biological knowledge.

Flooding is getting really out of hand. Maybe it's the oceans forming?

With the pieces in place and terraformation at a very advanced state, the virus begins to fuck over the Beastmen and we can make our final assault.

Looks a bit like Earth.

Preggie hides behind a wall while everyone else forms a gunline.

They didn't stand a chance

Olga sets off the ring of mines, instantly killing a matriarch but getting heavily injured in the process.

There were very few enemies. I presume only the strongest Beastmen survived the virus.

This map is literally littered with the dead.

Olga remembers that Matriarchs are weak to lasers and pulls out the power sword. She beasts through the level with Ute. The other squaddies aren't even needed.

There's 2 peculiar matriarchs at the bottom of the screen that are slowly dying from something. Maybe the virus got to them. Preggie takes care of them regardless.

*SHAZAM*

Olga runs into a bit of trouble

It's almost sad to see how weak the Matriarchs are now. Maybe it's because I am using weapons they're weak to but they can barely lay a finger on us.

Also this mission should be harder but I guess it's just how the UFO series are designed...

Hooray, victory. we're greeted to a short statement followed by an ending cutscene of the colony leader embracing the rain on Mars.

It's a lot more boring than Aftershock's ending.

Well, damn that was a long ride.

Thanks for reading through the LP and for bearing with my boring captions.

It turns out that if I let the Martians take over my territories, eventually there will be a capture mission where you can capture a Martian. If the player has researched Spoken Martian Language, they can use their prisoner to communicate to the Martian faction and declare a peace followed by an alliance. The player will also receive 2 Martian characters for use. I guess I played too well and didn't give ground....or maybe the Martians waited until I was too strong before attacking.

Turns out you get this little gem if you dig deeper with the research: "The Beastmen look like they were invading at first, using Martian hyperspace portals, while the "Martians" are waking up from stasis because the humans tripped over their defense robots. It turns out that The Beastmen are the original Mars residents; the "Martians" actually came to Mars in a male Myrmecol many millennia before, defeated the Beastmen, and banished to some far-off hellhole using the portals. The Beastmen are now coming back, to brutally reclaim their old home."

As for thoughts on the series....I'm rather tired and can't put together a coherent paragraph but I will give my likes and dislikes for each of the UFO games.

Aftermath

Pros

Grimdark scenario - While the setting shows a very depressing Eastern Europe vibe (crime scene chalk, rundown buildings), it also shows a post apocalyptic land. The biomass spreading across the globe and dim lighting in the base clearing missions actually creeped me out.

Weapon Variety - The amount of guns and info on them is actually pretty neat, and you can really fine tune your characters by giving them guns that suit them.

Flamethrowers - If only I had these on Mars, then Rollers would be history.

Portable turrets - Gatlings are cool but these things were insane!

Cons

No aiming modes - NO matter how skilled a soldier gets, he always takes the same amount of time to aim as anything else, even the Reticulan he ran into rounding a corner. It means that someone will always get hurt and forces the game to emphasize on observation.

Clunky - The pathfinding is bad and it's very hard to tell if your character is placed at a corner or on a tile next to a corner so it's unclear if they can shoot at targets down a hallway.

Ridiculous endgame difficulty - Or maybe it was that challenge for a good ending, but endless microslug accelerators and rockets in a cramped space with barely any shooting room is not fun.

Aftershock

Pros

Skill Requirements - Certain skills required certain amounts of stats. While this forces a player to specialize characters and to put together a balanced team, it's rather realistic.

Cyborgs and Psionics and Humans - Maybe I just like the RPG-ish system of job classes, but cyborgs and psionics have some really flashy gear in the lategame.

"Empire" Management - The resource and building management was pretty fun and made me plan ahead on what to conquer and what to leave alone.

Weapon Customization - This was really cool especially with the underbarrel grenade launchers.

Story - The cosmic ritual with the myrmecol plot was very creative.

Cons

Crashing, Obviously released as beta - The crashing and the amount of enemies bugging out is pretty noticeable.

No alien squadmates - Where's the Reticulan love?

Endgame pacing - Some of the research topics take so many days that you'll find yourself defending the same old bases from Wargots and Starghosts for hours on end.

Afterlight

Pros

Character Backstories - They die just as easily as any other character in the UFO series but this time they've got personal biographies to get you attached.

Diplomacy - You can actually trade resources and negotiate peace with the different factions in game. In Aftershock diplomacy amounted to giving factions money to raise a relationship bar. Here they actually offer different things.

Ute Heinenmann - Fucking badass survivor from Aftermath.

Cons

Limited characters - You can't hire new guys at will. This makes even one loss from your elite squad a game-ending blow, and gods help you if you lose a member right when the game decides to up the difficulty by throwing chiefs/matriarchs at you

Difficulty spikes - Reminiscent of Aftermath with the microslug accelerators and warp weapons except this time they throw extremely powerful and accurate enemies at you.

Lack of specialization - Training points are the only things limiting your characters in their abilities and that no longer depends on their stats. Maybe that makes characters more flexible but I like the Aftershock system more.

Nerfed Drones - Well, they're more like glass cannons now.

Edited August 13, 2014 by IGdood