|
Universe at War: Earth Assault (PC DVD) | 
 enlarge
| From: Sega
Category: Video Games
List Price: £34.99
Buy New: £0.79
You Save: £34.20 (98%)
New (19) Used (5) from £0.79
Rating:  6 reviews
Platform: Windows Xp
Genre: sci-fi-strategy-games
Media: Video Game
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060138433700
ASIN: B000V5AWSE
Release Date: January 25, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW Item Will Be Dispatched Via First Class Post. Orders Are Usually Sent Within 24 Hours Of Order Being Received. We Are One Of The Largest Games Retailers In The UK, Established Since 1996.
| |
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews:
HALF A GAME FOR HALF THE FUN December 23, 2007
NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit)
38 out of 42 found this review helpful
I am a avid RTS fan ever since the father of all, the original DUNE by WESTWOOD. And I have played most of them, from the gather-&-build version (such as the COMMAND & CONQUER and AGE OF EMPIRE series) to the action-oriented approaches (such as SUPREME COMMANDER and WORLD AT CONFLICT).
Under this light, UNIVERSE AT WAR was weighted and measured - and found wanting.
Graphically it is comparable to C&C-TIBERIUM WARS, with the explosions, and toxic clouds more impressive than the units. The later are a bit cartoonist - but, one could argue that this adds to clarity. Zooming-in is adequate, whereas, contrary to SUPREME COMMANDER (where zooming out turns the game to a combat of ...colored tiles), UaW retains its battlefield feeling even if all zoomed out.
Later into the campaign game (and similar to EMPIRE EARTH 3 and RISK) there is also a tactical overview map in which troops get moved, territories claimed and super-weapons get launched.
RTS games are sensitive to faulty faction balancing: UaW suffers no such problems. There are three factions: the Hierarchy, the Novus and the Masari - all alien (yeah, the humans are toast). Every faction has its unique units (with their own strengths and weaknesses) and research bonuses. There are 12 technologies available (across three tech-trees), but one can have...only six of those available at a time (luckily these options are editable).
Where the game looses its first rating star is its buggy gameplay: units are slow to get assigned into groups, they seem reluctant to follow orders and there is no way to set up patrol paths for sentries. All very annoying during a fast-paced Real-Time strategy game!
On this note, one cannot help but mention (once...more) the AI cheating: no matter where one decides to hide his base and how stealthy his units are, the AI opponent will find them out and pound them with a disproportionate number of firepower.
Multiplayer is through Microsoft-LIVE - a more than spectral manifestation of the usual corporate greed: in order for all the game features to be available online, one has to pay for a Gold...subscription. In effect, buying a game that is advertised to include a multiplayer will only get you far LESS than a complete onLine game. Thus, justifiably, the second rating star was withheld for the lack of half the multiplayer game.
I should had waited for STARCRAFT II...
 So so sega... December 22, 2007
Marius Johnsen
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
Well I was looking forward to this game, so I imported it from the US. I was mildly dissapointed. The campagin was fun, nice videos and so on. It was however waaaaay to short.
A fresh breath was however that there isn't any human faction, just alien kick-ass.
To get access to all the features online, you have to PAY for a gold subscription, first RTS i have played so far that you have to pay to be able to use all features. Thank you M$/$ega.
Good but no cigar January 28, 2008
Lewis Binns (York, UK)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Well, first up, this game does have all the features you'd expect from a bunch of ex-westwood coders. Lots of flashy explosions, clouds of toxic stuff and so on. It's also got some real "war of the worlds" - and I mean the book here - bad guys. The walker units are HUGE and a refreshing change to the usual base-building.
I've only played a little of the campaign, watched the humans' tanks get toasted by a single walker which then got fried by a bunch of robots. Looks quite well put together though.
On the other hand, in the "scenarios" mode, played out on a strategic map, with battles occuring whenever units clash, is also fun, except that other than the units that are left there's no persistance to the areas (unlike that old WOTW game) which is a shame as sometimes all you need to do is kill an enemy commander when they're attacking, and you wind up building defences for nothing.
Haven't played the online game. And won't. I refuse to pay an anuity for a game I've already shelled out for - if they want me to pay by the month to use it, make the install free. It's almost like buying a house and continuing to pay rent !
And that's why it only gets three stars.
Rather like the star wars empire at war. February 13, 2008
Andrew Powell (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Just got this game after seeing the trailer. It looked rather good but after starting to play you can see it is a slightly improved engine of petroglphy's, which was used for Star Wars Empire At Ear. Even down to the action/battle camera mode, which star wars had in it. (limited camera movements and zoom don't help either)
If you have ever played Star Wars Empire at war you would know that the space battles were great, but the ground battles were rather poor. So like a few reviewers have mentions, it is only half a game; as you only get ground warfare.
The graphics are slightly better but it still feels very much limited and star wars like.
Also the unit caps in Skirmish modes are quite limited so you cant build huge armies.
So in all a limited game that doesn't make you feel like you want to play it for long. Back to playing Medieval 2 and Dawn of War - they seem to be at the forefront of strategies.
Good RTS, rather buggy. January 31, 2008
Mr. Gareth Davies (UK)
Having played RTS games since Dune 2, i'd rather looked forward to this title. Some good names behind it and it's taken plenty of time getting here, but I dare say it all seems a bit "old school".
The campaign is pitifully short (the Novus "campaign" took less than 2 hours), missions are lacklustre at best. While there are some interesting gimmicks the actually number of units a side are rather low. Units are unresponsive, setting control groups takes a good 2-3 tries, default shortcut keys are terrible. "Micro" unit control really doesn't matter.
The game has a Dawn of War style "world map" mode, which provides some longevity over the campaign mode and I dare say plays almost identically.
Windows Live is a terrible counterpart to the Xbox version, it's slow, ugly and costs money (although if you already have a xbox gold account you're "covered" on the PC too). But it does seem to work...
... when the game isn't randomly crashing. While I assume it works fine for the fair proportion of users, for me at least it crashes all over the place (loading / mid gameplay etc.). The "best" one being it can't load autosaves (and a fair few normal saves). So when it randomly crashes you're usually forced to reload your save from the end of the last mission.
Official word is they have a fix for these issues, and after a month of release stateside, still haven't released it (and shipped the EU version with known crash bugs).
The game IS entertaining, but the PC version at least takes a lot of hoop jumping for mediocre payoff. If you have a 360, chances are that will run better (and if you're only interested in single player, rent it for it's tiny campaign mode).
Maybe in a few months (or it's first expansion) it will be a true contender, for now if you have a limit buget (time or money) there's far better games available. But if you're an RTS addict, it does provide some new tricks and ideas.
|
|
|
|
www.ebay.co.uk
Copyright Thalasar Ventures
| |
