.............CONTENT
.Home
.News
.Reviews
.Previews
.Features
.Fun Facts
.Wallpapers
.Forums



.............MISC.
.Advertise
.Contact
.About Us
.FAQ
.Legal
.Privacy Policy



.............AFFILIATES
.insert credit
.DigitalBackSpin
.Rock, Paper, Shotgun
.The Wargamer

	Universal Combat
	Developer: 3000AD Publisher: DreamCatcher Genre: Space Sim / First-Person Shooter / Strategy Players: 1 Similar To: X2: The Threat, Battlecruiser Millennium Rating: Teen Published: 04 :05 : 04 Reviewed By: Matt Hart Overall: 3 = Poor

Screenshots

- - - -

Universal Combat features one of the largest, most open universes in gaming. There are about 250 fully explorable planets, thousands of fully maneuverable ships, and race, caste, and career choices on top of that, making for a ridiculous amount of customization and exploration possibilities. Selectable game modes include the 20+ mission solo campaign, a roam action (in-game description: "no hints, no tips, no directions, and certainly no instructions as to what you can and cannot do."), instant action, and the brand new multiplayer.

Upon first starting Universal Combat, a first-time player will notice many things, none of them familiar. Unfamiliar acronyms, flashing interface displays, and menus, menus, menus populate every screen of UC. There are pop-ups with brief descriptions and directions, but unfortunately they aren't entirely informative. Making matters worse is the manual. While it's most certainly packed with information, the developers recommend that players have a firm understanding of the manual's contents before they wade into the game. The problem is that the manual is the most unreadable, soul-sucking bundle of papers ever released alongside a game, making it 80+ pages that read more like a Department of Defense report than a game manual. Additionally, the manual consistently refers to the manual's appendix for further explanations; however, there is no appendix in the manual. Rather, it's tucked away on the CD-ROM, making it unusable while playing the game, and the fact that it's hidden on the CD is undocumented at that.

And the state of the manual is a shame too, because it's most definitely needed to play Universal Combat. With over three full pages of commands to know and memorize (plus the hotkeys), there's no easy way to learn how to play the game outside of trial and error. Let me be absolutely clear: this game has one of the steepest learning curves ever seen in a game. A full week must be dedicated to the title just to become accustomed to all the functions and hotkeys the developers expect a player to know.

Luckily, this iteration of the Battlecruiser franchise focuses more on combat than previous titles. Once the game's obtrusive controls are learned and the initial learning curve is conquered, the campaign mode is a wonderful place to start - thrusting players right into the thick of combat - oops, sorry, I mean the thick of UNIVERSAL combat. Missions range from defending against a wing of enemy planes to attacking an enemy retreat to intercepting smuggled weapons, etc. Missions are varied, unique, and take place across any number of vehicles located on a variety of planets, all of which would be great fun, if the universal combat didn't universally suck.

As mentioned previously, Universal Combat allows players to jump into virtually every vehicle in the game and engage the enemy. This includes spaceships (of the fighter and capital ship varieties, along with everything in between), planes, ships, and ground vehicles in addition to your own two feet. Unfortunately, none of these modes is particularly well done and each one suffers from major flaws. For instance, aerial combat is modeled toward the realistic end of the spectrum. But planes hardly adhere to the laws of physics (which are apparently the same from planet to planet). Dogfights turn into marathon sessions as planes whiz by each other with hardly a second to pause and fire. This isn't helped by unwieldy controls that require five button presses just to ready a missile. Missiles are easily dodged, and machine guns require the player to be very close in order to be effective. But with the sketchy controls, enemy behavior, and sheer speed, it can be time-consuming to get kills. It is however interesting to see the enemy AI play tricks on you, often using one ship as a decoy while another sneaks in behind you.

Ground combat is even worse and buggier. Universal Combat has ignored the innovations and features made in the world of FPS games in recent years. As a result, the title is devoid of anything like terrain advantages, advanced movement controls, or for that matter, polish. An incredibly long time is needed to switch weapons, the character controls like a boat, the weapons are bland and boring, and the environment looks more like a first-grader's diorama project than an immersive 3D planetside. To further the frustration, your character can easily pass through buildings and trees like they weren't even there. Boy howdy, there's nothing like walking through concrete walls to make me feel like I'm really there.

Space combat is probably the best portion of the game, and even that is by no means good. With no time compression to speak of, space travel can take a very large time investment as your character navigates from one end of the universe to the other - I suggest having a Gameboy nearby. Far-off large structures like planets and space stations, although visible, are like the mountain on the horizon: it looks close but it still takes forever to reach. Space combat is fun however (once the controls are mastered); AI controlled wingmen respond accordingly and behave well (often times destroying the enemy before you do), and the opposition will pull out quite a few tricks to keep you from destroying them. Unfortunately, every ship in the game controls pretty much the same as every other one, meaning that a snub fighter turns and accelerates in the same way that the largest capital ship does - making the moment that you can finally get that capital ship a bit disappointing.

The game's modes are worth noting: Roam mode sets you on a planet surface without objectives (think GTA without the missions.) However, roaming is what players will do. I was able to walk around and try to find something, ANYTHING to do for about 3 hours before I gave up and went back to my campaign mission. The game's career system allows players to fill the role of a Marine, Pilot, or Commander that give the players restrictions on what they can do in the game. While commanders have full access to any kind of ships, marines must hitch a ride through space and are relegated to ground vehicles and FPS combat only - an interesting diversion.

Multiplayer is one of the heralded additions to this iteration of the Battlecruiser series, and I'd love to tell you about it. But, in all of my attempts to connect to an online game, I was unable to find a single server. I tried connecting all hours on the day, all days of the week to no avail. But it's in the menu; I guess someone must be playing it…somewhere.

Graphics: 3/10
Remember the early days of a little company called 3DFX when games were packaged with impressive video cards with names like Monster and Revolution. Well the graphics in Universal Combat look a lot like those games - games from 7 years ago. Starting at the planet level, trees, mountains, and buildings look archaic at best. Textures are blurry and the only water effect to speak of is the color blue, which to the developer's credit, certainly is the color of water. In space, things fare only slightly better. While the space backdrop is pretty, planets look like unlit blobs of round matter. Ships fare slightly better and even into the realm of "pretty" or "cool." Even space explosions are devoid of the flashy explosions, instead favoring a sort of transparent ellipse of some sort. I know graphics aren't everything, but they're most definitely something especially in the world of space sims.

Sound: 3/10
"Presentation certainly isn't Universal Combat's strong suit," I thought to myself when first seeing the game. However after hearing the game, that opinion became law. Special effects are either plucked from ye ol' generic soundboard (guns go "BOOM") or missing. The thrill of space combat is hampered by the lack of sound in space. I know it's a vacuum, but it sure is a boring vacuum. Not even the arming of weapon systems will produce a sound. On first impression, the voice acting was decent. However, the same phrases are repeated over and over and over. There is some orchestral music at work, and it's not bad, but it's most definitely the highlight in an otherwise drab aural experience.

Control: 1/10
Where to begin? First, let me mention the sheer amount of commands in Universal Combat. They take up some three full pages of the manual and utilize every combination of Shift, Ctrl, and Alt possible. After some 20+ hours of play, I was still at a loss as to how to perform a good 80% of the game's commands from the top of my head. Making matters worse is that none of these keys are remappable - omitting this feature is unforgivable in such a game. Once these hurdles are overcome, players actually have to grapple with the combat controls, which can best be described as sluggish. In fact, there's so many control issues, bugs, and glitches that I can barely even begin. On top of that, many vehicles handle remarkably similar despite the sheer amount of vehicles in the game. Boats handle like other boats, planes like other planes, spaceships like other spaceships, etc., making me question if they are in fact just the same vehicle with a different model. In the FPS mode alone, walking through building walls, frequent lock-ups, and unresponsive movement is the norm. Every single part of Universal Combat has an associated control problem - nothing works smoothly, and it's simply a chore to navigate any vehicle in the game.

Overall: 3/10
Regardless of the reason, Universal Combat isn't the game fans of the genre might have hoped it would be. Instead, it's a title that has an intensely complex system full of features that requires a life's dedication to learn, without polishing any of them. And while the title allows players to wage war in any number of situations, with over one thousand ships on land, sea, space, or air, there's simply too many problems to make this title enjoyable. The ridiculous learning curve, the lack of documentation, the poor presentation, the sluggish controls, and the lack of any kind of decent story should be enough to deter most players. On top of that are the bugs I didn't mention: the frequent crashes to the desktop, the flickering menus, the corrupted game saves, even the game's splash screen has the wrong title on it (the title was originally Battlecruiser Generations before it was changed to Universal Combat). There are already patches out with promises of more to come and they do fix some problems, but not all. There's no doubt that Derek Smart and his team at 3000AD are very ambitious and talented, but it's difficult for such a small team to pull together a project of this magnitude with good results. Rather than being a good budget game at a great price, Universal Combat is a terrible game at any price. For every feature that it promises, it fails to deliver in some aspect. Longtime Battlecrusier fans should be the only people to pick this title up (you know who you are). Everyone else, stay away - far, far away.

[ top ]