Video Game / After the War

A third-person shooter developed by FX (who also did Dungeons and Drakensang).

The year is 2049: a violent nuclear war between China and America has turned the world into a devastated wasteland, where clans of human are forced to fight against each other. Furthermore, a mysterious "Portal" has appeared, along with eldritch energies, unreal scenarios and horrible alien monsters. While scientists try to discover the mysteries behind this alien portal, the clans in what was once Russia fight for their survival.

You play as Rodan, the son of one of the strongest clan leaders, who just barely survived an ambush set by his rivals. Used as a scapegoat, he must venture forth in this hostile world, gathering the mysterious "keys" with the help of Holeman, his right-hand man and Helen, a shady woman working with the scientists studying the Portal. Along the way he fights several foes with the use of guns, swordmastery and paranormal powers.

This game contains examples of:

• Action Commands: You can use them on certain mooks to bring them down, or on bosses to finish them off.
• Action Girl: Helen can take care of herself.
• After the End: Specifically, after a nuclear war between China and America, plus a gateway to an alien world.
• Anti-Frustration Features: One good thing of this game: checkpoints are almost everywhere. For example, after completing a difficult platform puzzle across a chasm, the game will save, allowing you to skip the puzzle should you fail again. After reaching a checkpoint you can also load from any of them.
• The Atoner: Possibly Helen and Girdon.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Worms: you have to smash their shells and then go for their soft, unprotected heads.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Sentinel.
• Awesome, but Impractical: All the powers except for Void: they're useful, sure, but they consume all the energy in one go and it takes forever to recharge.
• Bag of Spilling: You play the prologue with all your equipment on, but you'll lose it all in the following first level.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: The game encourages you to face gun-toting enemies with firearms and melee enemies with your sword.
• BFG: Plasma, Destroyer and the Device.
• Big Bad: Dr. Z. Subverted when he's anticlimatically killed by Yavik and in the end there's no real Big Bad at all.
• Big Damn Heroes: Helen's in the prologue appears just in time on a motorbike to take down some swordsmen and save Rodan. Also counts as Dynamic Entry.
• Blind Seer: The Oracles, two people who were exposed to the eldritch, space-twisting energies of the Portal and survived. They're blind, but they can see the future and knows everything. They also happen to be a young girl and an old man on a wheelchair.
• Blow You Away: The shockwave released by the Void power, though it's described as a sort of anti-gravitational field.
• Body Horror: The hybrids. Zombie Gait, tentacles poking out of their torsoes, elongated bone maws and bloody skulls in the back of their heads.
• Bottomless Magazines: Hornet and Dragonfly are energy-based, so even if you run out of bullets, you can still use them (though you must pause once in a while to let it recharge the shots).
• Cool Sword: Lone Wolf, Rodan's bionic sword. Thanks to its special proprieties, it can cover the following tropes:
  • Serrated Blade of Pain: The basic form.
  • Quick Draw: Is mentioned (and shown) that Rodan can draw the thing in his hand in less than a millisecond from its scabbard on his armlet.
  • BFS: One combo turns it into a medieval-looking broadsword which deals massive damage via spinning.
  • Dual Wielding: The King of Swords combo allows you to detach a secondary blade and use it in battle.
  • Whip Sword: The Dragon Tail combo, one of the longest and best attacks.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Gordin. Well, he's been living for God-knows-how in an abandoned lab with monsters and corpses...
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted in the "Incererating Trap" in the Oracles' pocket dimension: you see a bright, orange light flowing around the black platforms and turning them orange. If you step on them, you'll fry to death in seconds.
• Creepy Child: One of the Oracles. She's not malevolent, and yet...
• Deadpan Snarker: Greenman.
• The Dragon: Yavik to Z.
• Dirty Coward: Greenman: Unlike Mark, he fights you with a shotgun and energy shield, has no qualms about calling again and again for backup and when defeated begs for mercy.
• Dull Surprise: Rodan. His reaction to being told that he's the final key necessary to shut the Portal and must sacrifice his life is awfully bland, like "uh, kay, sure..".
• Eldritch Location: The Portal.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Device, an alien Ray Gun which can hurt the Angel.
• Enemy Civil War: Human enemies will engage combat with aliens if they see each other.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: There's a huge tower where the Portal is located. It must be accessed with the Keys, if you want to get there alive.
• Final-Exam Boss: In order to fully defeat The Dark Angel, you have to remember and use correctly all your sword-morphing comboes on the healing altars.
• Flunky Boss: Greenman.
• Gatling Good: Guns like the Zveroboy and Thunder are among the most useful. Then there's the Destroyer (a minigun), which you find just in time in a room with tons of monsters coming from holes in the ceiling and devices to destroy.
• Giant Space Flea From No Where: The Sentinel, The Worm (everytime), and The Dark Angel, the Final Boss, who's only vaguely mentioned in Mark's Diary.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Holeman in the third act and Helen in the fifth.
• Heel–Face Turn: Yavik, after finding out that Rodan wants to close the Portal.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rodan's sole reason to exist: he must gather the four keys to close the Portal and the shut it by sacrificing his life.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted: you can find several weapons, but during the gameplay you must stick to the sword, a light gun, a heavy gun and, occasionally, a rocket launcher/other encumbering situational weapon.
• Improbable Weapon User: Holeman's fighting style involves telekinesis and an handful of steel marbles.
• Jerkass: Greenman.
• Karma Houdini: Yavik killed Holeman, almost murdered Rodan and yet gets away scot free.
• Kill It with Fire: The Sentinel. Bullets will only stun it, and the sword will annoy it at most, so you're forced to push her in a giant furnace at the end of the corridor.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Happens to Rodan if he dies by falling or by getting smashed by the Sentinel.
• Messianic Archetype: Mark believes to be one, a sort of holy crusader who'll unite the clans in the name of the Portal, making him more like a Dark Messiah.
• Milking the Giant Cow: Dr Z and also Holeman. Both are LargeHams.
• Moment Killer: Just as Rodan and Helen are about to make up (or at least kiss), Dr Z calls her on the cell.
• Mook Chivalry: Oooh, averted so much: both swordsmen and aliens are veery vicious in that regard.
• Morph Weapon: Rodan's bionic sword Lone Wolf. It can turn (in a sort of realistic, mechanical way) in a double-edged broadsword, in two swords or in a whipblade.
• Our Angels Are Different: The one coming out of the portal is actually an alien, has huge black wings, a demonic, legless torso with fanged mouth and huge swords in lieu of hands. He can also shoot electrical bullets.
• Platform Hell: The Oracles' chamber and the Portal.
• Puzzle Boss: Most of the bosses will require lot of thinking and use of enviromental machines. Others tends to be much easier by comparison.
• Recurring Boss: The Worms and the Guardians.
• The Reveal: Rodan's father was the one who stole the keys from Z to prevent him from messing up with the Portal's energies. Oh, and Rodan is the fifth key and must kill himself in order to seal the Portal.
• Sand Worm: The Worms seems to be based on this, though they look more like caterpillars.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rodan eventually forces Helen to leave Z's side before he realize that she's The Mole, and she obeys.
• Self-Duplication: The Phantom power allows you to create a clone of yourself. Mark can create up to three clones.
• Shock and Awe: The Rapture power send a massive beam of electricity that can kill anything-but bosses.
• Spiders Are Scary: Some of the aliens seems to invoke spiders: the lesser specimens are basically small, shelled arachnids with sharp legs and flesh webs/cocoons. Another more complete specimen looks like a humanoid but has very spider-like details, including arachnid face, Spider Limbs on the back and crawling gait.
• Spy Catsuit: Helen wears a white one.
• Super-Scream: Sometimes, hybrids will let out a devastating scream that will damage anyone caught in the middle.
• Sword and Gun: Rodan, and also Mark (who carries a large longsword and a pistol).
• Time Stands Still: Time Warp. You can use it to give you an advantage in battle or to solve certain puzzles.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Helen. You can also call her with the cellphone to get some information about the game. Jarringly, you can do this even while she's with you, like, a foot away. You could just talk to her but nooo....
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Helen? Did you make it?