Universe at War -Xbox 360 – Review
Well, I’ve been one of those waiting for a RTS to come to a console that was actually playable I recently got universe at war for my birthday so I thought let’s see if it lives up to the hype machine Microsoft has been promising the world with its cross platform PC to 360 games so let’s see how this game lives up to its hype.
: Story:
Begins in the year 2012 when an alien race known as the Hierarchy lands on Earth to strip-mine the planet. Before their landing, observatories and scientists on Earth gave warning of aliens but the human race, as a whole, is not able to organize a unified military front against the alien forces. Because the Hierarchy has vast military experience from invading and destroying other planets in the universe, the human race is not able to withstand their forces When the Novus arrive on Earth, they expect humanity to be extinct and earth’s surface strip-mined, in accordance with Hierarchy standard operating procedure. However, the Novus find Earth mostly intact and the human military not yet entirely wiped out. Humanity owes its continued survival to the fact that Kamal Re’x the Abductor, the overseer in charge of the Hierarchy’s Earth invasion, has held back the bulk of his forces to lure the Novus into a trap. Kamal Re’x hopes to earn a promotion by wiping out the Novus expeditionary force. When the Novus arrive, Hierarchy forces are still fighting, and the Novus hope to achieve victory by engaging the vastly superior numbers of the Hierarchy in small groups.
: Combat:
The combat is very tedious taking down the big walkers is all about big groups and selecting a weak point. But it’s feels like your baby sitting the AI in the game a lot of time you can select them to attack the big walkers at let’s say the laser you then have to keep an eye on them because they’ll just randomly shoot at everything except what you really want done. Making combat very annoying and more trouble than it should have been in the first place.
: Gameplay:
The game plays well when it’s you’re not stuck babysitting the units to keep them on track with what you want achieved. Lot of micromanagement that has to be done. Building units and structures and fending off the enemies rushing toward the bases. Sometimes feels like your always defending more than really playing the game. You can build nodes that then lets you fast travel quicker but I found this annoying since when you’re building you are somehow always defending from an attack and the nodes get blown away so quickly. I did find a nice feature when you play as the invading forces you can use their walkers and add weaponry and make it to a mobile gun ship / mother ship which could be very handy especially with online play.
: Controls:
Like most RTS point and click using the LT and RT and bumpers to navigate the controls. I found these confusing as hell sometimes trying to command 2 army’s to take out 2-3 enemies coming toward a base were near imposable you have to really be on your game. Sometimes you just over whelmed with so much going on and flipping around trying to get everything organized. Commanding sometimes using the selection of just holding down A and browsing around isn’t too bad but choosing the wrong unit tends to happen a lot.
: Graphics:
The game design is very well done it looks great effects on the ground are really nice such as damage the walkers do while moving around. Very nice cut scenes with audio. I noticed a few hiccups with the graphics here and their. The game does have great lighting and nice details done to the cows and random people running and escaping from the invaders is a nice touch. But the frame rate issues were very noticeable when too much on screen the game becomes near imposable to play. Stack that with a long load time.
: Sound:
The sound is pretty good really Sega really stepped up and put a lot of detail in to it with the nice voice over’s in the cut-scene dialog. Units talk when moved just like any other RTS and each have their own unique sound. When the walkers come in the sound effects are really well done you can hear the laser fire and them walking over and crushing items as they walk a nice detail.
: Multiplayer:
It features multiplayer over Xbox live with play via a PC or Xbox 360 people. They have online a conquer the world play to take over the planet with leader boards as well. Pretty much that’s in most 360 games now days a pretty basic Multiplayer package for a newer game. The game has a Skirmish battle mode as well if you don’t really want to do the whole Xbox live.
: Final Thoughts:
I found the game a bit too much trying to be like command and conquer. The games Sci-Fi theme is nice but the micromanagement and always babysitting the AI really tends to get on your last nerve. The game could be very great if it didn’t have the very bad frame rate issues and the sloppy ai and the un-playable times when the game just bottoms out and slows down in the middle of a epic battle is just sloppy. This game had a lot of promise too since it’s got gaming for windows and then its 360 counterpart it could have been great but it was a little sloppy. The story is pretty neat at the start but then starts to get really odd once you get more in to it. I do like how they let you flip slides in the story and then give you both sides of the war that is being played out. I thought the game would be a lot more fun but it was more of the same old style ripped off from C&C except with a few little touches done here and there. Some stuff was done well other stuff just lacked. It’s one of those games it looks great but controls really hurt it since controlling units is confusing. If your really in to an RTS i would save the money till this is a bargain bin game because right now at full price it’s not worth the trouble.
7.5 / 10
Pro – Great looking game, lots of enemies
Con – Bad frame rates, baby sitting the AI is really annoying
2 Responses to “Universe at War -Xbox 360 – Review”
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Good Review
I’ve always loved RTS games on the PC since I got Red Alert: Cammand & Conquer like 10 years ago. The RTS move to consoles has been very crappy, and after playing one(i cant remember which one) at a local gaming store, I have pretty much steared clear as the experience was a total turn off.
From the review you wrote, I think the kinks that I was originally dissapointed with are still there. That sux but, no worries I can have enough fun playing my FPS’s till something unrealisticly good comes out.
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