Amiga Mag HDD Backup/Amiga Mag HDD Backup.zip/Amiga Mag HDD Backup/Alexander.img.bin/Alexander.img/***AC March⁄April/**Done/Editorial 10.3&4 Archive.sit/Subwar & UFO/UFO.TXT

Text File | 1995-10-06 | 5KB | 96 lines

UFO
Rob Hays
    Flying saucers have returned, and this time they aren't just
sightseeing. No, that is not a line from a 1950's science fiction
movie, or a supermarket tabloid. It is the situation presented
in a new strategy game called UFO Enemy Unknown, distributed by
MicroProse.
    The year is 1999, and flying saucers have begun an invasion
of Earth. A multi-national force has been set up to deal with the
crisis, and you are in charge. At first, your force is minimal;
one base, with two interceptors and a troop transport. When a
UFO is detected, you must dispatch an interceptor and try to
shoot it down. If you manage to down the UFO over land, send in
the troops to capture or kill any aliens that survived the
crash. Once this is accomplished, you can salvage valuable Alien
technology from the crash site.
    If you do well, the grateful nations will increase their
donations to your organization. This will allow you to build more
bases, buy new and better ships and weapons, hire more soldiers
and scientists, and generally make your job easier. Do poorly,
and those same nations will tighten their purse strings. Soon
your funds are being depleted by maintenance costs and you
cannot replace destroyed weapons, or troops that have been
killed. Eventually you will be helpless to stop the invaders.
    Since this is a long-term fight for planetary survival,
scientific research and manufacturing can play determining roles
in the outcome. With every successful capture of a landing site,
you acquire out-of-this-world materials, power and navigation
systems, weapons, and more. Even alien bodies can yield clues to
help the fight.
    The central playing screen in UFO is called the Geoscape.
This is a globe of the Earth that you can rotate in various
directions, and zoom in on for a close-up look. Arranged along
the side of the globe are a series of buttons that provide
detailed information on such topics as funding levels, your
bases, and the time. The passage of time within the game can be
controlled from this screen, causing it to pass at rates of up to
one day per second of real time. This is handy when you are
waiting for supplies to be produced, or while waiting for the
next UFO to appear.
    When a UFO is detected, you are given the opportunity to
send an interceptor after it. If your interceptor gets within
range, a window opens to show a radar type of display. Choosing a
style of attack, such as aggressive or standard, determines at
what ranges your craft will fire. This part of the game is
basically automatic. Once you have chosen the attack style, the
UFO either gets shot down or it gets away.
    When your troop ship arrives at a crash site, the game
switches to the Battlescape screen. This is where you direct
individual members of your force in search and destroy missions
against the aliens. The battlescape screen is in 3D perspective,
and shows only what is visible to your soldiers. As they move
about, more and more will be revealed, but at first most of the
screen is black. Along the bottom of the screen is a row of icons
giving you control over all aspects of individual soldier's
actions. Bar graphs let you track health, energy, morale, and
time units available.
    This section of UFO is turn-based. You move your soldiers,
take any actions, then wait for the aliens to do the same. Most
of this time the screen will be black, since most of the aliens'
actions will be out of sight of your troops. Of course, any
action that does occur within your personnels' vision will be
shown.
    If you succeed in wiping out the invaders, an analysis of
your performance is given, along with an inventory of your losses
and gains. On the other hand, if the aliens appear to be on the
verge of destroying your squad, call for an emergency evacuation
and salvage what you can of the mission.
    As the game progresses and you accumulate information on the
aliens through research or interrogation of captured subjects,
the UFOpaedia screen will become important. This is a database of
all of the facts you have learned about your enemy. This will
remind you, for example, that to make use of the alien power
source your scientists have finally deciphered, you will also
need alien alloys and some of the alien element Elerium.
    UFO is supplied on four disks, and can be played either from
copies of these disks or installed on a hard drive. If you have
an A-1200 with a hard drive and only the original two megabytes
of RAM, the installation routine will prompt you for a blank
floppy, which it will turn into a special boot disk for the game.
The 128 page manual is full of screen shots, and contains two
excellent tutorials that will get you to the front lines with a
minimum of delay. An AGA Amiga with a minimum of two megabytes of
RAM is required. Games can be saved at any point, and up to five
game positions can be maintained.
    There is a programming quirk that caused some concern the
first time it happened, then became an annoyance. Every time the
game switches to or from the Battlescape component, it goes back
to the Workbench screen for a few seconds. Don't panic. The game
didn't crash, and will resume shortly. Also, many actions within
the Battlescape involving the mouse control seemed sluggish on my
A-1200 with some additional fast RAM, but the stock CPU.
    These minor gripes aside, UFO Enemy Unknown is an excellent
rendition of a classic science fiction theme. Are you up to the
challenge of saving the world?