History VideoGame / UFOAfterBlank

''UFO: Aftermath'' was followed up by the sequel ''UFO: Aftershock'', which actually continues from the ''bad'' ending of the previous game. The sequel then produced a sequel/simultaneous-quel of its own, ''UFO: Afterlight'', set on Mars as brave colonists attempt to terraform the planet into a new Earth while defending against a multitude of aggressors.

The whole trilogy can be bought on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} or without UsefulNotes/{{DRM}} from [[https://www.gog.com/en/game/ufo_aftermath GOG.com]].

* UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}: ''Afterlight'''s setting. Of course, by the end of the game, [[{{Terraform}} it's not]].

* ObviousBeta: Played ''way'' too straight in ''Aftershock''- on top of all the aforementioned Game Breaking Bugs and shoddy copy protection, its own uninstaller is nonfunctional and an important research item doesn't appear until you give the savegame a nudge in the hex editor or send it to the company to fix it. And since the company has been out of business for about four years or so (and is ''Czech'' at that)...
** SelfDeprecation: The dev team may have been aware of this. One of the hot tips for the [[EasterEgg graphics options]], instead of describing what a setting does, reads "[[SelfDeprecation Try this if all else fails]]. [[RefugeInAudacity It won't work either]]."

* RoadCone: ''Aftermath'''s aforementioned bad ending.

** There are also power cells called [[{{Transformers}} Energons]] in ''Aftershock''.

* ActionBomb: The Ballon Fish in ''Aftermath''.

* {{Game Breaking Bug}}s: If commentary on the LetsPlay thereof is to be believed, ''Aftershock'' is chock full of these. Known horror stories include saved games corrupted across an entire game profile, destruction of system files, and the uninstallation of anything running in the background, including Steam (currently the best way to get the After Blank games legally). ([[Website/SomethingAwful The Goons]] seem to applaud ''Aftershock'' for getting rid of one user's [=iTunes=] processes, though.) To top it off, because the company that made ''Aftershock'' went bankrupt and dispersed, no one has the rights to make any more patches after the current latest patch (which barely made a dent).

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: The Beastmen were kicked off of Mars and onto a distant planet after the green "Martians" invaded the planet in a Myrmecol mating ritual. When the human explorers accidentally activated the portals to said distant planet, the Beastmen JumpedAtTheCall to reclaim their old home in a [[OmnicidalManiac genocidal crusade]] [[KillEmAll against everyone on the planet]]]].

The whole trilogy can be bought on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} or without UsefulNotes/{{DRM}} from [[http://gog.com GOG.com]].

* RareGuns: All sorts of stock and not-so-stock Hollywood firearms can be looted as you expand or built by your people. As you'll learn, most of them aren't much help.
** ''Aftermath'' delights in throwing all kinds of weapons at you, though to its credit, you'll generally find rare weapons in the countries where they were developed (the Neostead shotgun is generally found in the southern areas of Africa, for example). By the time you get some of them, though, you're likely using laser or plasma weapons, making them impractical.
** ''Aftershock'' lets you build all sorts of projectile weapons. In the assault rifle category, you can make the [=AK47=], [=HK33=], [=M4=] and [=XM8=]. However, unless you're looking to do a lot of damage ([=AK47=]), the [=XM8=] is superior due to very high innate accuracy. Most other projectile weapon categories end up functioning the same way.
** ''Afterlight'' gracefully sidesteps the mess created by excessive weapon types: its real weapons are just as detailed, but since the game's set (a) in a scientific outpost, and (b) ON MARS, the base only has enough guns for half a squad, specifically an [=FN F2000=] assault rifle and a Desert Eagle pistol, both with limited ammunition. One of the first (and highest priority) research projects is for your scientists to study these weapons when they are not in use and develop blueprints they can manufacture, resulting in the Rifle and Pistol, and with additional research, the Sniper Rifle and the Shotgun, none of which are based on a classic Earth design (but no less effective for that).

* SequelDifficultySpike: In ''Aftermath'', you're almost literally thrown new recruits every week, and you'll likely have a hard time running out. In ''Aftershock'', you have to pay for new recruits, and the better your relation with a particular faction, the better (and more expensive) the recruit, but you're never likely to run out of meat for the grinder. In ''Afterlight'', you start with 12 potential soldiers. After about a month and a half, you get one extra soldier, and two weeks later, you get two more. In addition, 8 of those original 12 soldiers are also scientists and technicians. You'd better get used to protecting your people and quick.

* PoweredArmor: The Wargot

* BodyHorror: Transgenants, even their at their tamest mutations, are pretty hard to look at considering the severity of their physical deformities and alterations. The Morelmen and Cudgels are growing gigantic tumors that are overtaking the rest of their bodies, the entirety of the Danglefly's lower mass has been transformed into an insect-like creature while the human portion atrophies, and the [[BodyOfBodies Plectons]] are an amalgam of multiple humans fused together, kept stable by spiny protrusions acting as legs.

* OurZombiesOurDifferent: Before you get on to battling the aliens proper, the main enemies of the game are the Transgenants, results of the Reticulans' chemical attack when they first encountered Earth, essentially being a form of bio-weapon pre-programed by the aliens to attack their enemies and spread Biomass. Transgenants even at their basest forms tend to be [[BodyHorror even more mutated]] than the average pop culture zombie, and [[EliteZombie come in a variety of different forms]]. Some of the formally human Transgenants can still use weapons and utilize rudimentary tactics, but it's implied that this is less a sign of true intelligence so much as Transgenants following ingrained commands like a computer program.

* PoweredArmor: The Wargots in ''Aftershock'', and to a lesser extent, the Cyborgs.
** Also from ''Aftershock'', Heavy Armor.
* PurelyAestheticGender: Averted in ''Aftershock'' - cyborgs are AlwaysMale, psionics are AlwaysFemale, regular humans either.
** Also averted in ''Afterlight'' where the game actually handles men and women as different 'subraces' internally. Female characters have lower base strength and carry capacity than males, but on the other hand they have higher intuition and slightly smaller body size which makes them harder to hit.
* PsychicPowers: The Reticulans in ''Aftermath'' are terrifyingly powerful in the late-game because of this. Psychic Projectors allow mind control of your soldiers, and even the best kind of protection can't make them immune. Of course, once you begin training your ''own'' psychics, the tables rapidly turn. One high-grade Psychic and a spotter are all you need to kill a dozen Retties without firing a single bullet.
** Mind Control weapons are absent in ''Aftershock'', but show up again in ''Afterlight''. The Reticulan Expedition loves them, and use the one-psychic-army strategy to great effect. There's also a device that allows you (or the Martians) to hack and control ''robots'', in a similar manner.
** The aptly named Psionics in ''Aftershock'', who are a faction of human women that possess psychic powers because of a mutation developed at birth. Because the trait for these powers is fatal to males for some reason, there are only female Psionics.
** There's also the [[spoiler: Starghosts]], strange aliens that appear lategame in ''Aftershock'' that use intensely powerful psionic powers, and look pretty damn creepy as well. If you fail to defend a province from a [[spoiler: Starghost]] attack, they'll deploy a mind control device that will conquer the entire country, and you can never recolonize them.
* PowerCopying: Humanity does this in terms of technology. If an enemy fields a weapon against the humans and they manage to capture it they will figure out how to operate it themselves, likely within the span of a day or less.
** Then they take this a step further by actually taking the basic idea of the weapon and improving upon it. Aftermath has several good examples such as the Plasma Rifles which are utterly devastating at nearly all ranges. The Gray's mean while only have access to comparatively weak grenade launcher weapons.
** Warp weapons have an even better example. Reticulans mostly use pistol and rifle model warp based guns. Humans take the technology and make what's describe as a ''[[WaveMotionGun warp]] [[GatlingGood gatling gun]]''!
* RareGuns: All sorts of stock and not-so-stock Hollywood firearms can be looted as you expand or built by your people. As you'll learn, most of them aren't much help.
** ''Aftermath'' delights in throwing all kinds of weapons at you, though to its credit, you'll generally find rare weapons in the countries where they were developed (the Neostead shotgun is generally found in the southern areas of Africa, for example). By the time you get some of them, though, you're likely using laser or plasma weapons, making them impractical.
** ''Aftershock'' lets you build all sorts of projectile weapons. In the assault rifle category, you can make the [=AK47=], [=HK33=], [=M4=] and [=XM8=]. However, unless you're looking to do a lot of damage ([=AK47=]), the [=XM8=] is superior due to very high innate accuracy. Most other projectile weapon categories end up functioning the same way.
** ''Afterlight'' gracefully sidesteps the mess created by excessive weapon types: its real weapons are just as detailed, but since the game's set (a) in a scientific outpost, and (b) ON MARS, the base only has enough guns for half a squad, specifically an [=FN F2000=] assault rifle and a Desert Eagle pistol, both with limited ammunition. One of the first (and highest priority) research projects is for your scientists to study these weapons when they are not in use and develop blueprints they can manufacture, resulting in the Rifle and Pistol, and with additional research, the Sniper Rifle and the Shotgun, none of which are based on a classic Earth design (but no less effective for that).
* RoadCone: ''Aftermath'''s aforementioned bad ending.
* ScaryDogmaticAliens: The Reticulans came to Earth to conduct an experiment of epic proportions, and locals be damned.
** Their buddies back home aren't better. [[spoiler: While not exactly a HiveMind, their sense of unity and loyalty toward their own kind is so strong, that the dissidents who flew away on the Myrmecol are hunted down as an unprecedented abomination.]]
** The Wargots combine this with a BloodKnight hat.
* SealedEvilInACan: The Beastmen that came through the reactivated Martian gateways.
* SecondaryFire: There's the standard single shot/burst modes for most guns, and extra fire modes can be added by attachments in ''Aftershock''. Options include underbarrel shotguns, plasmaguns, grenade launchers and single-shot dartguns, for all your [[InstantSedation quiet]] [[TheParalyzer takedown]] [[PerfectPoison needs]].
* SequelDifficultySpike: In ''Aftermath'', you're almost literally thrown new recruits every week, and you'll likely have a hard time running out. In ''Aftershock'', you have to pay for new recruits, and the better your relation with a particular faction, the better (and more expensive) the recruit, but you're never likely to run out of meat for the grinder. In ''Afterlight'', you start with 12 potential soldiers. After about a month and a half, you get one extra soldier, and two weeks later, you get two more. In addition, 8 of those original 12 soldiers are also scientists and technicians. You'd better get used to protecting your people and quick.
* ShoutOut: The Reticulan's Biomass that they planned to use to turn the whole planet into a massive, nigh-godlike supercomputer with awesome psionic powers is all to similar to the Xenofungus from VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri.
** There are also power cells called [[{{Transformers}} Energons]] in ''Aftershock''.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: The Reticulans [[spoiler: or rather, the rebellious Reticulans]] are the first aliens humans encounter, and they succeed in wiping out 80% of humanity. They're the ''[[OhCrap least]]'' powerful of humanity's enemies in the series.
* SortingAlgorithmOfWeaponEffectiveness: Mostly averted, except in ''Aftermath''. Although there are always obscenely powerful weapons, most enemies have varying degrees of resistance to certain types of weaponry (projectile, energy, explosive, plasma, etc). And, as much as you might like outfitting all your soldiers with plasma spewing death blasters, you have to make all your weapons and ammo, and generally speaking, the ammo for advanced weaponry either has a higher cost or a longer production time, meaning you'll want to hang on to those old-fashioned projectile weapons even up to the endgame.
** ''Aftermath'' doesn't have this issue specifically because ballistic weapons are quite simply handed to you. The basic shotgun and pistol have limitless ammunition available, and every time you take over a base (and it's rare that you'll ''only'' take 1-2 bases a week), there's a stash of weapons and associated ammunition that you automatically loot and add to your storage. By the midgame, you can choose what weapon you want to use based strictly on how cool it is (why use a basic shotgun when you can use a ''Neostead''!), but that's also the point where you'll start regularly running into enemies that need something other than bullets to take them down. Conveniently, that's about when you'll have a good cache of laser weapons, which require manufacturing ammunition, but tend to be vastly superior to the mountains of ballistic weapons you've stockpiled.
* Main/SpacePeople: The Laputians.
* Main/StarfishAliens: While most of the sentient aliens are some sort of humanoid biped, there are some weird variations. The Martians are plant-like, the Beastmen look like an unholy cross between a gorilla and a praying mantis, the [[spoiler: Starghosts]] aren't even shown, but appear as ghostly psionic projections, and the [[spoiler: Myrmecols]] are enormous [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] that at first sight look a lot like asteroids.
** The alien's "pets", on the other hand, are positively bizarre: the Reticulans' Transgenants are hideous mutants made from [[NightmareFuel human corpses and/or animals]], the Beastmen's Rollers and Spiders are spike-sprouting footballs and dog-like insectoids respectively, and the [[spoiler: Starghosts']] battle-beasts don't even look like living beings.
*** Hybrid/parasite/etc. type Transgenant lifeforms are more of an "oops", an example of why exposing things to Reticulan Biotech without being very careful is a bad idea. The Biomass itself has it's own defensive systems that are even more "starfish" like. The Muckstar especially - a spiked ball that attacks with [[ShockAndAwe an electrical discharge]]. In Aftermath, it rolls along on spikes rising out of the Biomass. Why? Nobody really knows. In Aftershock, the Muckstars have adapted to float around on their own (seeing as most of the Biomass is gone) using gas-filled compartments.
* StarfishLanguage: While most aliens' languages have some sort of vocal component (Reticulans use both sounds and telepathy), the Martians' "spoken" language is extremely hard to decipher (being a complex interface of individual Martians' electromagnetic fields), and the process is portrayed rather realistically: first you raid a ruined underground city for their scientific records (which mostly consist of empirical facts about the universe and mathematics), then you learn how to write their language, and only after that can you nab one of them and communicate with him to learn their "spoken" version. After doing this, you can begin peace talks with them.
* VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck: [[AvertedTrope No]] [[KillItWithFire they don't.]]
** It depends, the flamethrower hits harder than anything other than a Warp Demolition Device, BUT you really need to micromanage that weapon. Its range is quite short, and worst of all its wall of flame effect can spill backwards. So it's quite easy to set yourself and any team-mates around you on fire.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: In ''Aftershock'', your Laputans start off with fairly weak laser weapons. In fact the 3 Earth factions - human, cyborg and psionic have better guns than you do. So one way to get the Earthling tech is to join a mission where one of these factions are fighting invaders and after winning, have your troops stab your friendlies until they fall unconscious or die and loot their equipment (works for everything except armour). If you want armour from other factions, then make allies with that faction and hire their people and then fire them after looting their stuff (this will hurt your relations with that faction while stabbing their people to death doesn't).
* VillainDecay: The Reticulans themselves. In the first game, they're extremely deadly due to their advanced technology, incredibly effective shields, and use of explosive weapons. In the second game, they're reduced to cannon fodder. In the third game, they're reasonably deadly, but even your basic armor protects against their laser weapons, and their psionic attacks are relatively weak (unless they get lucky with a critical mind control, which is relatively rare), and they're cripplingly weak to projectile weapons, which are among the first weapons you get, so they're still easy to kill. [[spoiler: Then the OTHER Reticulans show up, and you remember that the ones you've been fighting have been operating on a shoestring of supplies for more than 50 years. The Expeditionary Force is better armed, better equipped, highly dangerous, and immediately offers an opportunity for peace with you specifically BECAUSE they could easily kick your ass: the game would be almost impossible if you were forced to fight them the instant they show up.]]
* WaveMotionGun: Warp weaponry is the peak of Reticulan engineering. It uses a method the humans can barely comprehend to tear targets up by warping the space said targets occupy. As such, the Reticulans make them into Rifles and Pistols. The Humans, on the other hand, make [[BigFreakingGun Resonators]] and [[OverNineThousand Demolition Devices]], and then later, ''Warp Medkits''.
** Interestingly, the Warp weapons work on the principle of crushing inorganic objects to injure people. This introduces a crippling weakness to the weapons: targets that don't wear armor. No armor provides a startlingly effective ''90%'' resistance to Warp weapons. Of course, given the fact that not every Reticulan in a mission will carry Warp weapons, it's a brave soldier (or a stupid one) that doesn't wear armor against them. Or a [[ButtMonkey scout]].
** The Alien Microslug Accelerator is the single most horrifyingly powerful gun in the Reticulan Arsenal. If you see one, it's very likely that it's already been fired. If it's been fired... might as well start the mission over.
*** The Collapsible Plasma Gun is more powerful per-se (single-shotting any Green Alien Armor), but the fact that it takes long to deploy and that aliens use them for offense rather than defense really cuts down their effectiveness.
** Afterlight has the Warp Cannons, shipped straight from Earth via express-spaceship in please-handle-with-care-and-don't-disassemble cases, and the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Annihilator]] plasma beam weapon; the plasma supposedly has ''antimatter'' in it.
* WorthyOpponent: What the Reticulans eventually come to regard the humans as in ''Aftermath'', to the point that they actually offer humanity an opportunity to surrender instead of annihilating them. [[MultipleEndings Canonically]], humanity accepts.
** The Reticulans even base one of their late-game weapons designs, the Collapsible Plasma Gun, on human portable turret designs. The Glossary description for the weapon [[LampshadeHanging remarks on the irony]].
* ZombieApocalypse: "Nightfall" is essentially this. Any living creature that was killed by the spores was brought back to life as hideously mutated monsters dedicated to attacking the nearest unaffected human.
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