Developed by a skeleton crew of three at UK based studio Games Faction, this Arcade RTS game was the winner of the PAZ10 Indie Game Competition at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle… Which is all well and good, but how does it actually perform?
The look of the game is described by Games Faction as retro-futuristic, which might sound contradictory, but basically means a cross between Star Wars-like outfits and lasers and a heavily stylized graphic world that is heavily reminiscent of some earlier versions of WoW.
You control up to four squads through a hero, a powerful character with high damage resistance and special powers that develop through the game. The squads follow the hero, which gives you interesting opportunities both for individual action and full-blown battle mayhem. The hero has the power to use spell-like attacks that protect the squad soldiers, while soldiers also watch the hero’s back, and this is just one of the features that works to give some added depth to what could be a very simplistic game.
What I particularly like about Aftermath is that it offers great flexibility, letting you choose the level of difficulty as you go along. It is about choosing the beginners setting at the start of the game, but about deciding how many soldiers to take on a mission and how well to equip them. As you get more confident and experienced, you can up the difficulty simply by the choices you make, and this gives you a more immersive and seamless gaming experience.
The game does seem to offer something for everyone, with action-packed battles in which you can either employ complex strategy or simply indulge in some random slaughter, and classic RPG exploration that rewards you with hidden treasures. If you don’t enjoy the tedious business of exploring and base-building though, Aftermath lets you get straight to the action from the start, and as you go along you gather points.
The points system itself is interesting, as it mixes an arcade-style high score table with a system that lets you use those same points in much the same way as WoW gold, so you can ‘buy’ over 100 different types of weapons, power-ups, defensive gear and special attacks in the style of many RPG games such as Lord of the Rings.
All in all, an impressive effort for an Indie game, and good value for the fun.
