History VideoGame / UFOAfterblank

** The heavy armor becomes AwesomeYetPractical when combined with the portable turret. The turret has effectively BottomlessMagazines, can fire faster than any other weapon after it's been set up (so you always shoot first), has a higher DPS than any other weapon, and is effective even at extreme range. The turret can ONLY be used with the heavy armor, so using one limits your mobility greatly, but there's no better choice for defensive fighting.
* AwesomeYetPractical:
** Grenades. Get that Throwing stat up high enough, and make sure your grenadier can move fast, and s/he can solo many maps by zipping around chucking grenades and retreating before anyone can return fire.
** The Street Sweeper in ''Aftermath''. Only a little bit heavier than a rifle, fires grenades at sniper rifle range, ammo is plentiful mid-game and onward, and it has a ''burst fire'' option. Plus the blast radius is ''just'' right for room-to-room combat, letting you drop shots around corners or against walls to damage Reticulans but leave your grenadiers unharmed.
** Collapsible weapons in ''Aftermath''. Even if they show up late (marking final stage of mid-game), there is virtually ''nothing'' providing more firepower. Sure, they take time to set-up, sure, you must wear PowerArmor to even take them, but after those five seconds needed to place them, soldiers carrying them turns everything in their sight into a bloody mess. Even Deathbellows stop being dangerous. With proper set-up, you just can't loose fights, no matter what.

* {{Determinator}}: Humanity's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] in this universe. Every other race in the galaxy is more advanced, or more numerous, or simply more powerful, but humanity wins out every time because they ''[[HumansAreSurvivors just]]'' ''[[DefiantToTheEnd won't]]'' ''[[IWillFightSomeMoreForever give]]'' ''[[TheEternalChurchill up]]''.

* TheEternalChurchill: Can be played straight depending on player choices; [[spoiler:canonically subverted.]]

* Collapsible weapons in ''Aftermath''. Even if they show up late (marking final stage of mid-game), there is virtually ''nothing'' providing more firepower. Sure, they take time to set-up, sure, you must wear PowerArmor to even take them, but after those five seconds needed to place them, soldiers carrying them turns everything in their sight into a bloody mess. Even Deathbellows stop being dangerous. With proper set-up, you just can't loose fights, no matter what.

* BeeBeeGun: the Deathbellows. See also ''[[DemonicSpiders/TurnBasedStrategy Demonic Spiders]]''.

* {{Determinator}}: Humanity's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] in this universe. Every other race in the galaxy is more advanced, or more numerous, or simply more powerful, but humanity wins out every time because they ''[[HumansAreSurvivors just]]'' ''[[DefiantToTheEnd won't]]'' ''[[IWillFightSomeMoreForever die]]''.

* BeeBeeGun: the Deathbellows. See also ''DemonicSpiders''.

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

* {{Determinator}}: Humanity's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] in this universe. Every other race in the galaxy is more advanced, or more numerous, or simply more powerful, but humanity wins out every time because they ''[[UnstoppableRage just]]'' ''[[DefiantToTheEnd won't]]'' ''[[IWillFightSomeMoreForever die]]''.

* AlienInvasion: Well, yes. Noteworthy for a halfway plausible reason for to make the aliens defeatable, namely that [[spoiler: they're a doomsday cult on the run from a benevolent alien empire; they used a stolen ship and fled through the gateway to Earth (blowing it up in the process) in an ''unprecedented'' act of insubordonation. As such, they are limited to what they could make off with. In fact, their master plan is in part to put themselves in a position of strength before the authorities can crawl back to Earth at sub-light speeds and install a new portal into the solar system]].
*** Their plan was to [[spoiler: cover Earth with a giant mutagenic organism that would become sentient and near-godlike when it covered the whole planet; they intended to use this organism, the Biomass, to gain the upper hand against their pursuers, ''if'' they could control it]]. At least that's what they ''thought'' they were doing.

* OrganicTechnology: Inverts the curve set by ''X-COM'', as organic armor and weaponry becomes less common as the series progresses. Reticulans are so advanced that almost everything they build is a living organism, much like [[NightsDawn The Edenists]].

** 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]].

*** Somebody at Firaxis Games read this article; in {{X-COM Enemy Unknown 2012}} (the actual reboot to the game that UFO: After Blank was a spiritual sequel to), the invading Sectoids '''do''' fit their technology with self-destruct devices that go off when the user flatlines. Of course, they didn't think to trigger it when the user falls ''unconscious,'' which leads to hilarity ensuing.

* BiologicalMashup: Several types of Transgenant basically consist of alien chunks grafted onto human corpses.

* MultipleEndings: ''Aftermath'' is one of the rare cases where the "bad" ending is canon. The Council of Earth gives up the fight against the Reticulans (which one might argue they were winning) and surrenders the planet to them, while in exchange the aliens build a giant space station in orbit to house the Council, and a base on Mars, with 10.000 frozen colonists and a few scientists, as an vanguard to the terraformation of the red planet.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Some conventional weapons have Armor Piercing ammunition. The Warp Weapons take this further, since they are able to completely phase through armor.

* DroneJam: Expect some in any mission involving civilians in ''Aftershock''.

* ObviousBeta: Played way too straight in ''Aftershock''- on top of all the aforementioned Game Breaking Bugs and shoddy copy protection, 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)...
** ''Aftershock'' gets worse; its own uninstaller is nonfunctional.

* {{Game Breaking Bug}}s: If commentary on the [=~Let's Play~=] 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). ([[SomethingAwful The Goons]] seem to applaud ''Aftershock'' for getting rid of one user's [=iTunes=] processes, though.)

* DemonicSpiders: Deathbellows are probably the only Transgenant that will put the same fear in you as a Chryssalid would. I mean, [[BeeBeeGun Bees.]] [[MemeticMutation My]] [[KillItWithFire God.]]
** Deathbellows, for those not in the know, are giant, hollowed out slug-things with bees in them. The bees are their "ammunition", meaning once they fire, you can't do anything about the bees themselves, which will always hit, and don't particularly care if you're wearing armor. One shot will ''half'' kill a soldier, if you're ''lucky'' (otherwise, they're dead). The bees are fired at a quite frankly ludicrous rate for the damage they do, and the Deathbellows themselves are resistant to projectile, laser, and explosive weaponry (i.e ''90%'' of your arsenal). If you encounter a mission with Deathbellows, it's better to just abort and try again some other time.
*** As the indent above suggests, Deathbellows are surprisingly flammable though and their tendency to lay in wait around corners is easily their weak point as well. Once you have a trooper up to the highest possible speed, it's possible to scout around corners (carefully) spot there they are and then run back around the corner before they can react. At that point it becomes ridiculously easy to dispose of them using the prepared orders system to run around the corner, chuck an incendiary grenade near it, run back and wait till it's crispy.
** In ''Aftermath'' Reticulans packing plasma guns will feel this way in the early game. Lategame, substitute Microslug Accelerators.
** Beastman Matriarchs in ''Afterlight'' can rapidly enter DemonicSpiders territory depending on how they are armed, and what you have on the field. You will particularly hate Plasma Cannon and lightning throwers if you're relying on drones.
*** You're generally going to hate Beastmen no matter what. They can almost always see you before you see them (especially during night missions), they have better range and accuracy than you do, and they absolutely love to chuck grenades at you. If you don't have Heavy Suits or Life Support Suits, you're going to die. If you ''do'' have Heavy or Life Support, you're looking at a significant healing time for your soldiers anyway.
** ''Aftershock'' gives us Wargot Grenadiers. Their Frag Grenades are mostly harmless, but Incendiaries will put at least one of your soldiers in the sick bay for a while.
** Also from ''Aftershock'', the [[spoiler: Starghosts]]. What makes them so dangerous is that they can use mind control to capture an ''entire country'' if you fail to defeat them when they attack a province. And you [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard can never get the country back.]] '''Ever.'''
** High-level Psionics have [[MindRape powerful psionic abililties]] that can affect the accuracy of your troops at best, or make them start shooting at their allies at worst.

** If you're too aggressive against the Cult and wipe out all of their bases before researching their collaboration with the Wargots, you'll never be able to proceed past that point. Speaking of which, if you hold off on researching vital techs, you can quite handily prepare yourself for major upcoming events... though that might be a GoodBadBug for some.

* GameBreaker: It's pretty safe to say that the late-game Ball-Lightning Launcher from ''Afterlight'' radically alters the entire game and brings down the difficulty level. Up until that point, the Beastmen are still terribly efficient opponents, and can only be defeated by carefully avoiding direct confrontations and using [[AchillesHeel lasers]] and [[SquishyWizard mind control]] properly. The Ball Lightning Launcher allows a technician/soldier with Driver Training to generate an explosive "Lightning Ball" that can be guided for any distance and any amount of time, and detonated ForMassiveDamage right in the enemies' faces. And since the launcher has an in-built thermal imaging sensor that can tell you about enemies around the lightning ball, you can pretty much win any mission with a single soldier, provided he's got enough batteries to power the damn thing. In Aftershock, cyborgs who max HP boosting stats and implants have absolutely ridiculous health, more than any enemy can ever hope to overcome.

** There are also [[TransformersEnergon Power Cells]].

* ImmuneToBullets: Aftershock's Flatsters, which are large, dinner-plate sized crustacean-looking things. They're extremely weak to energy weapons, but essentially immune to non ArmorPiercing bullets, and still highly resistant to those. Fortunately they're little more than an irritation due to their exceptionally weak melee attack and hideously inaccurate ranged attack.

* ArmorPiercing: Some conventional weapons have Armor Piercing ammunition. The Warp Weapons take this further, since they are able to completely phase through armor.