BIOS: Technology Means Business

It is the year 2054. Fifty years after the disaster. Fifty years after the surface of Earth became uninhabitable. Retreating to the flying haven of the Laputa the remnants of humankind clung onto existence. Then a revolt against the increasingly rigid and corrupt human leadership of the Laputa escalated into a conflict that destroyed the colony. Now, the remaining survivors flee once again. Can they reclaim the Earth from the unknown forces that chased them into the skies? Who knows, but it's up to you so save them!

Aftershock (Best Current Price: £17.99), like its predecessor (UFO: Aftermath), is a single player real-time strategy (RTS) game that involves researching new technologies, building up bases, and completing a good number of missions. Enhancing and expanding upon Aftermath, the game follows directly from one of the endings of the first title, where you agreed to hand over the earth to the alien scientists who are trying to change the planet into a giant living organism. The Council of Earth and their followers take refuge on an orbiting satellite prepared for them by the aliens, but not all the survivors of the original invasion were relocated.

The game starts many years later in their orbital home, with no sign of the aliens and a failing life support system - you must find out what happened to the earth and to those who were left behind on its surface, preparing for all manner of surprises along the way. You are put in control of the actions of elite ground troops, alongside the running and construction of an intricate network of interlinking bases from which to operate and expand the tactical manoeuvres needed to succeed.

Key new features includes small scale tactical missions, strategic resource and base management, as well as an enhanced SAS (Simultaneous Action System) and RPG style of gameplay. You can now eight your way through buildings, research and develop new items and technologies, and there's now an added diplomacy element between different races which may cause you to curb your slaughtering of everything in sight.

In Aftershock, your task is to locate, identify and neutralise the alien threat to earth. To achieve this you need to unify the various factions, which include Humans (naturally suspicious of outsiders), Psionics (human genetic stock, but they have highly developed mental capacity and power), Cyborgs (like the Psionics, Cyborgs are offshoots of humans), and Cultists (humans who have established a pseudo-religion). To bring the new territories into the fold, you usually have to fight tactical missions. To win these missions you have to bring in the best soldiers with the best equipment, which costs money. You also have to have raw material to construct buildings, carry out research, and to actually manufacture anything.

Unlike most other RTS game, you don't have to keep building your new base of operations. This means that you don't have to build and research technologies that you had several moments ago in your previous mission. Aftershock has done away with this totally by having one base throughout the entire game. Once you build a certain building or research a certain technology you will have it for the rest of the game. This means that you can concentrate on your strategies to beat the aliens instead of building up a strong enough base of operations to be able to endure their attacks - aka being on the defensive instead of the offensive.

Success hinges on your soldiers: they win the territory that feeds production and production churns out ever more sophisticated gear for soldiers to use. A soldier's properties are influences by his or her race, attributes and abilities. Race cannot be changed of course, but attributes can be increased during level-up and abilities can be gained through training. The performance of a soldier in combat is determined by his skills. There are fourteen skills and each of them influences a different aspect of tactical combat. The values of the skills are derived from the values of six basic attributes, which are increased when a soldier gains a level. Skills are secondary, derived from attributes and cannot be directly modified, but all calculations in game are based on them (chance to hit, chance to spot, amount of damage and so).

Playing Aftershock is a little different compared to traditional RTS games due to its SAS (Simultaneous Action System). The SAS is used to control your squad in combat. You have to plan a string of actions - go here, take the gun, fire at the enemy - for all your soldiers and then press the Run button. Only when you've done this will your orders be executed. Once you've completed your move, the computer then takes its turn. You can then review all your plans, amend them as needed and the run the game again. More advanced gamers may like to give their soldiers more than one order at a time to plan a sequence of orders.

A cool feature is that there are many ways in which to detect enemies and also many ways to be detected. All your soldiers are able to locate the enemy visually and aurally. There are other modes of detection that require special equipment: psionic, infrared, night vision, movement and heartbeat. Having said that, psionic is an in-born capability of Psionics, so they do not need special equipment for this. When one of your soldiers sees the enemy, it simply appears on the map. However, when the enemy is spotted in any other manner, a special marker is displayed on the map to identify the enemy's location. If you are able to identify the enemy, its position is indicated with a red exclamation mark. If not, the mark will be yellow. Clicking the mark on the map gives you vital information about the enemy so you can plan your attack.

Aftershock is a relatively innovative gaming environment, but it has some tragic flaws. The most noticeable is the sub-par graphics that look at least five years old. Compared to the outlandishly gorgeous scenes and characters in most modern RTS titles, such as Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War, Aftershock looks plain ugly. The camera was also shocking, and for most of the game we struggled to get a comfortable viewing angle. Audio effects are also basic, so don't expect room-shaking 5:1 surround sound and music. [6.5]