Aftermath

Copyright : Alternative Software | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Another game that has been cloned to death over the past 15 years or so is the popular arcade hit "Missile Command" in which you had to protect your bases from the missiles by shooting them out of the sky.

Aftermath is very much the same game with exactly the same ideas only it?s on the Amstrad CPC and instead of being created by Atari Games it?s by Alternative Software, there are other difference but we?ll look into those in more detail in our review below.

Graphics

Aftermath is pretty much the same as Missile Command in every way, the graphics look similar with only slight changes to the bases and the pod in which you fire your weapons from. The colours are pretty basic with only red, green and yellow making any strong appearances throughout the game but this is also true of the arcade version of Missile Command which was also restricted to only a few colours.

Sound

The sound in Aftermath must contain some kind of bug as the annoying sound of missiles come flying down the screen in one awful looped white noise sound (turn your TV to a blank channel and you?ll see what we mean) and only a few bleeps make an appearance otherwise. Certainly not what we come to expect from Alternative Software or our beloved Amstrad CPC. Oh and they also forgot to add any music to the game which would at least have made it slightly different than the original which also didn?t feature any.

Gameplay

Gameplay is exactly the same as Missile Command, simply move the pointer left, right up and down while shooting your weapons at the oncoming missiles in the hope that you?ll actually prevent them from blowing your bases to pieces. If you keep this up for long enough you?ll progress to the next and more difficult stage which introduces new obstacles and faster waves of missiles.

The control system in Aftermath leaves a lot to be desired as the pointer is very stiff and you simply can?t move it around in time to stop all of the missiles from hitting at least one of your bases, if you?re using a good joystick on your real Amstrad CPC then you will stand a better chance but we certainly recommend against using the keyboard on this one as you?ll not get very far if you do.