Universe at War: Earth Assault

List Price: $49.99 Discount Price: $26.99

Features:

• Unprecedented unit and faction customization give players the ability to change units and research in the middle of combat to overcome any challenge
• Unique multiplayer achievements that improve players' online avatars
• Unique multiplayer game modes
• Environmental destruction and manipulation in a persistent world
• Dual-layered gameplay featuring intense tactical battles and a strategic global mode where players manage resources, consolidate territories, and maneuver armies

Customer Reviews:

Pretty decent console RTS from the makers of C&C [Posted on 2008-04-25]
First off, any game that Petroglyph makes I'm down with. I pre-ordered UAW:EA and I usually don't pay games at the 60 dollar price point but I'm glad I did. These guys are the original C&C fans and they know how to make good in depth RTS games and I love to support such a great team. Unfortunately they sided with Sega which is not a publisher that I would care for. However overall this game is a ton of fun to play and the gameplay is great. The game is well balanced as with no patches at the moment and that is rare for many RTS games. I'd rate this game a 4 out of 5 being great but not perfect.

So a little of the story, Universe at War is a homage to Starcraft with three radically different races, you always feel like you are playing a different custom and culture when you play the Novus, Hierarchy, or Masari. The Hierarchy are an alien race moving from one planet to the next gobbling up the universe of life and now they have invaded Earth. Luckily the Novus are right on their trail and you find out that they have been fighting the Hierarchy for some time now. Later on you find where the Masari come into all of this but I don't want to spoil it for you and it is better to experience the story playing the game.

At first I played the game and had a bit of slow framerate issues and it happened to lock up on me twice. Then after checking out online references I found that there was a fix to this. In order to get smooth uninterrupted gameplay you have to clear your cache on your hard drive and turn up tactical speed, (speed when fighting in matches) which is located in the options menu of the game. After doing these two techniques, wow, the game runs smoothly and has never locked up on me since and I can't complain. A patch is in the works to fix a few things like allowing hackers to auto defend areas they are set to, fix the framerate issues from the start and mainly to add in the cross-platform playability.

One really nice feature here is how they made a PC RTS play and work on a console. The 360 controls are very intuitive but may be a bit of a learning curve to understand. The basics are the same, press A to select unit(s) and press A again to move them to that position. You can hold down the Right Trigger and this will blow up your map so you can see details and also allow you to order units using the minimap. I don't know how many PC games don't let you do this and it's a must in any RTS. Also all of your units are grouped in the beginning, all one type infantry, all one type anti-inf vehicles, anti-building vehicles, this type air units and your hero. It is all grouped for you so you don't have to make groups of similar units as you do in my PC RTS games or click and drag to select your army. The bumpers are used to select your research and your army. The LB allows you to scroll through the UAW themed circular interface to see what patch or upgrade you want to implement, what research you want to do, what super weapon ability you want to use. Accordingly the RB allows you to scroll through a similar interface and pick grouped units, the ones that have been grouped for you, and to also deselect those units. One advanced feature I found out was if you select all your units on the map and then hold down the RB and place the screen over the units you don't want, say units defending your base, and hit X you will deselect these units but not all of that unit type. Most of the people I've talked to about this game didn't know that and I find it is crucial to a good microing of your army. The controls are taught to you as you play the campaign so don't just jump into skirmish mode and think you can play.^^

Visually the game looks great, the graphics are top notch and you would have to have a high system PC to run it at the settings it is set for the Xbox 360. There are plenty of explosions and lush environments to make playing this on your TV or LCD monitor, (I play on the big TV in the living room and also on an extra LCD monitor in the den) a blast to look at. In audio terms, fans of Frank Klepacki can take a sigh of relief as the composer creates a slew of great sounding tracks for each race and the game uses an adaptive music system so it will change on the fly when you attack the enemy or it attacks you. I was really disappointed with C&C3 due to the repetitive dull environmental music they composed for it but you have the great electronic rock and roll sound you have come to love from Frank Klepacki in Universe at War. Also the game's voice overs are done well and the many other audio sounds of the game add great depth and feel to each race.

At the moment we're all waiting for Sega to ok the patch to allow cross-platform play as well as many other needed tweaks but overall the game is very fun to play and the amount of gameplay really adds to this fun. Playing as the Novus with their flow conduits and guerrilla warfare, the Hierarchy and their enormous Walkers that act as their movable assault bases, or the Masari with their enormous potential to harness nature and switch between light and dark mode all feel very different and not just different unit skins for each race. There is a 90 unit population cap, similar to Warcraft 3, and this is set in place to make games playable on the console, (the PC version also has the same pop cap) but to employ a good amount of strategy for the player to decide how and which units to use against their opponent be it AI or human. I can't really talk about the multiplayer as this option is not available to me due to the lack of broadband options for me, (only one I have is satellite which doesn't work well with games) but this game was created to be played against humans and with the real time strategy in mind. The single player allows you to play through the campaign of each race and to attempt to "Conquer the World", where you are taking place in a real time game of "RISK" fighting over one territory after the next. You also are given the typical skirmish matches with a ton of maps to choose which I haven't even delved into but will probably as I finish the scenarios conquering the world. Did I mention achievements yet?! lol

So overall this isn't the console RTS that will make people say yea this can be done on the console. It had a pretty rough start and the fact that when you make your units move to the location on the map the fastest by doubling clicking A, (instead of just hitting A), and your units move to that spot but don't stop and pursue any enemies on the way can cause some unrest in a few gamers. Personally I'm good a micromanaging since I've played RTS games on my PC from Dune 1 and it should be said that vehicles and air units will attack on the way but infantry will not. Really the game is a ton of fun to play, the controls are great and allow you to micro on a console, playing RTS games on your big TV are great, and the soundtrack for the game keeps you pumped and motivated to defend or take over Earth! Hope you enjoyed my review or it gave you a bunch of important info on the game. Don't take my word for it, give it a rent, you'll be glad you did.

[...]

Fun game. [Posted on 2008-06-08]
It is a pretty good game. The levels in it are very detailed and there are some awesome different units that you can be. The only reason I gave it a four star out of five was because whenever you zoom in on the units they seem to be kind of glitchy. Like if you were playing on the internet and it lags some. Other than that it is a very fun game that you can play for hours at a time. I'm very happy that I got it.

Great Game, but too limited!! [Posted on 2008-07-06]
I've always been a big fan of RTS based video games. Ever since the first C&C's, to Starcraft, to astonishing games like Rome: Total War, I have always loved the RTS. There are some RTS' that have stood out above the crowd for their unique game play. I believe that Universe at War is one of these games. It's not your typical ground unit, tank unit, flying unit, cut and paste RTS. Implementing giant walkers, a web of high speed travel, and an entire race with the duality to switch between light and dark.

The game play itself is solid, and I was suprised with the ease of learning to play an RTS on a console. In fact, the next time I was playing Supreme Commander on my computer, I was looking for the nifty 360 controls, such as the ability to select every unit of one type across the map.

As far as the cons, I have always hated an RTS where the unit cap is low. One of the downfalls of the x-box 360 is the low capacity of units. On any standard map you're only allowed to have 90 units. That sounds like enough, until you consider that even the builders are 2 units apiece. The larger units are 8-9 units, and any Hero you summon is garanteed to take up nearly 10 units. Therefore, you're faced with a small attack force. Having played several RTS' this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you could have 6 extremely powerful units, life would be ok. However, on this game, the enemy has powers and superweapons that could erase your entire attack force in a single strike. That poses a problem, because you can't afford to have back-up units because of the cap.

Also, if you play online, and there are more than 3 competitors, the unit cap drops to 60. With a cap of 60 my attack force consists of about 8 guys, it's pathetic, and almost not fun anymore. : \

I bought this game for X-box 360 instead of the PC because my buddies PC can't run it, and he already owned it for the 360. It's still fun to play online, and I can tell that it's a great game with very few flaws. However I will say that I think any RTS is best left on a computer where we can truly experience commanding an Army, not 8 units.

-Justin Castaneda

Still Not as Fun as a PC Game [Posted on 2008-07-18]
I too have played very many Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games over the years, from Warcraft, to C&C, to Starcraft - even to recent games like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander.

This game is GOOD - it's well thought out and it is VERY innovative - I'll get to that soon. But the issues are and will continue to be hardware limitations of the Xbox console. I find it hard to believe myself - the Xbox uses three processors and it can't do any better than this? At default game speeds the game play lags ferociously in larger battles. A review above suggested bumping up a game setting - doing this makes battles more manageable, but then makes "light" gameplay occur too fast - units move much quicker when the graphics aren't taxing the system, and the gameplay seems too accelerated. Another limit is the view size of the screen - many times you feel like your view of the action is limited by being too close to the ground. Large assault groups can quickly outgrow the view of the screen, making it very difficult to keep an eye on things. Even so, some units - especially within the Novus faction - are so incredibly small that they can get lost behind their own buildings, and smaller units can be nearly indistinguishable. This can be especially frustrating when trying to hastily issue build commands to construction robots in the heat of battle. Lastly, the voice acting of the in-game characters is attrocious. It doesn't affect game play, but makes you remorse having to turn up the volume to follow a story line!

All that being said, the game is very creative - flat out. Universe At War does things I've never seen in an RTS. Novus is so far my favorite, with the concept of "Flow" being very unique, and quite powerful, in my opinion. The Walker units created by the Hierarchy are scarily ominous and devastating. I had spent very little time as the Masari, but their differences between Light and Dark modes of operation are extremely unique. Some very dedicated "thinking" went into this game - especially to keep the gameplay balanced between factions. And despite all the challenges and issues and gripes, it's a lot of fun. What isn't fun is having to repeat missions over and over again because instructions weren't clear or the game crashed or ran so slowly that the unit you wanted to live didn't live because it couldn't accept your commands quick enough.

The issue still remains that the limitation of a game console controller makes playing an RTS game very challenging. Whereas I agree that they made the controls MOSTLY intuitive and streamlined, the challenges of controlling units and issuing build commands with a console controller presents a challenge and learning curve that PC users simply don't face. I have yearned for a console-based RTS for years, but I fear that this is simply "as good as it's going to get."

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