Video Games Review

Thirteen years ago, a little game called X-COM: UFO Defense debuted, pitting players against alien invaders and charging them with creating a network of bases around the globe, shooting down UFOs, capturing and researching alien technology, and then using it against the aliens in turn-based tactical squad
combat. That’s the formula UFO: Extraterrestrials follows almost to the letter, falling just short of being a direct remake of X-COM.

But don’t get too excited—the second coming of X-COM is not yet among us. UFO is rife with shortcomings and bugs that make it inferior to its inspiration at almost every turn. Graphics are a major weak point. While all of the environments and aliens are rendered in crude 3D, your squad members are, inexplicably, 2D sprites. UFO also suffers from a shortage of tactical maps; X-COM uses randomly generated maps to keep encounters unpredictable, but you’ll know UFO’s maps like the back of your hand after a couple of hours. At least the environment is destructible.

In a bizarre design decision, your soldiers are all but immortal; even the most lethal alien weapons can’t inflict more than a month’s hospital stay on them. On one hand, this means you don’t lose your experienced soldiers easily (which is nice because green troops are nearly useless against late-game aliens), but if the aliens manage to incapacitate your entire squad on a mission or shoot down the troop transport en route, you lose the entire squad. Replacement troops trickle in only once or twice a month, leaving you almost completely defenseless. Game over.

That said, X-COM fans are sure to enjoy UFO. With some mods applied, this is the best X-COM clone to come along in a decade. And as sad as that is, it’s nice that someone’s still trying to recapture the magic.