User Reviews (11 - 21 of 25)

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Just like burning $20!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: February 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When I researched this game online, it seemed like the holy grail. Finally a game that let you have some FPS fun before you hopped in your space ship and blasted off for some air & space battles. I figued battlefield 1942 meets homeworld 2. I bought it as soon as it came out.

Ah, but how quickly the dream became a nightmare...

After popping in the game (and having crash upon installation) I fired it up, cranked up all the graphical options (the beast can handle it, trust me..) To my surprise, there wasn't even a basic tutorial. I figured I'll just check out the options for the key-asignments. Well folks, hope you have no plans for changing them because there are very few keys you can change. So I whip out the manual, read it, start playing....

First of all, the graphics look like an unreal tourniment mod I played back in 2000. Only the mod was more entertaining. For the hyped "physics engine" I can only say this, bulls!@#! This game doesn't even know what collision detection is. I mean come on, Quake had it down. The user interface gave no thought to the user at all. As you can read about in other reviews. Getting from place to place will take a long, boring time. Final thought, buy some socks instead, you'll have more fun.

It's bad...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played computer games for about 20 years, and this game is by far the most difficult to play. The 91 page manual is vague and does a very poor job of explaining how things are done. The 69 page PDF tutorial manual that I got with the 2.0019 patch cleared things up a bit. However, the interface is still nonintuitive, filled with three letter acronyms like PDF, and mainly for people who have memorized the reading material.
The gameplay itself is somewhat better. On the ground, it's a simple first person shooter that can be a bit fun if you know how to get into empty vehicles. I haven't seen any navies yet. Air combat is like a simplified flight simulator, but it's fun to shoot things. Flying a capital ship in space is very time consuming. It takes so much time to fly anywhere. Hyperspace jumps that shorten your trips take 2-4 minutes. The game desperately needs but doesn't have time compression. Repairs and crew recuperation require over 10 minutes of real time. The game designer wrote that it's best to do stuff like watching paint dry while waiting and waiting.
I gave it two stars instead of one because I do enjoy the times when I blow up the bad guys' spaceships and fighters. There is a large area of space to explore, and I like trying to increase my commander's level the same way I like trying to get the highest level in massive online role playing games. It's also somewhat emotionally rewarding when I finally figure out how to do stuff like order a shuttle to land a tank on a planet.

Universal Combat

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game would be great if it had a tutorial on it and a manual that actually told you how to play it, the maker has a good vision but he alone only knows how to play the game.

Do not buy this game and you'll be very happy and still have $20 in your wallet.

There is, finally, a tutorial!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The latest patch (2.12, from early August 2004) includes, in the 'docs' folder, a 60-page PDF which leads you by the hand, step-by-step, and shows all that this rather amazing piece of programming is capable of. As a game, it's not to everyone's tastes, to be sure, and the interface still needs major cleanup, but it's not terrible, either.

Oh, and you DO have to register to be able to download the patch. 3000AD had to send me a new registration code in order to be able to register (the one on the manual didn't work). A pain in the ass, right? Well, cat@3000ad.com responded with hours of my emails, and I was up and running with the new patch and tutorial in hand 24 hours after I had bought the game. Much better service than I normally expect from a game company, I must say.

At the $19.95 street price, if you're interested in exploring one man's quixotic dream of what the ultimate computer game can be, you won't regret it. Just print out that tutorial first...

DO NOT BUY!!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When I started to play this game it had terrible graphics and the game commands are very complicated. I am glad that my friend opened it before I did, because I am returning it right now! Its horrible!

MindFever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I heard that the reviewers who gave the previous release a 5 star rating (Battlecruiser Millenium: GOLD) were all devoted fans or even "orchestra" of Mr. Smart.I would really suggest all of you to check to a website like gamestop or something like that before geting a somewhat objective review of the game.
The thing that is the most ridiculous is that all of Mr. Smart's devoted fans are talking the same garbage about X2 and Freelancer ("...it has ONLY good graphics.The immersion sux...blah blah blah" ... something like that). So please, read the reviews on a more objective site.
I was a customer of his (in the past years) but my status totaly changed when i challenged my opinions on his forums.Does "Fascism" ring a bell? In a democracy you can speak up - negative points of view are flamed and people get banned (even not being able to DL a patch afterwards - stay away from the forums)

About this game: Its quite a potential that all other developers had picked it up before this game was up.Just look E.V.E. ONLINE - now THAT's a game.X3 shows much promise. Its the depth that lacks and the broken promises that Mr. Smart (not so smart anyway) made years back. (Like transporting to other ships, a "WORKING" interface,far better graphics,able to controll SEA vehicles...etc.).The thing that frustrates me most is how he gets away with that :) In my opinion,flaming others because someone doesnt like the game is self-explainatory. Its just toping the fact that the game is done pretty bad for these day's standards - no excuses !!! WE ARE THE ONE'S WHO BUY IT !!!

Graphics:old and poor (no spatial effects like debris and a real feeling of SPACE.There is only a bitmap of nebulae and thats about it).The shielding effect is the only one i liked most - and the spaceship's design is impressive but not unseen in other games.
Sound:bad and boring.
Gameplay:Has huge potential.Its a verry complex game but lacks depth and a sense of having a part in the UC universe.AIR SEA SPACE LAND ... well ,SEA missions do not exist - no SEA carriers to play with and thus being in command of such :).Good if you love going to planets,discovering (dead) "new" places on all the globe.The idea of a "nuclear" war is somewhat cool,but dissapointing.Its nice to play for about a few hours,but then it gets really boring - no NPC interaction leave everything to your immagination.The idea is great,but Smart's work is not so SMART :)

I hope i didnt hurt ANYONE's feelings :)

Cheers!

If I could give 0 stars, I would

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: April 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Other reviewers have done a fine job of hashing out this title's many bad points so rather than restate the obvious I will just confirm (again) that this title is worthless. I have a very high tollerance for mediocrity in games and can usually find SOMEthing to like about even the most abyssmal title; this game is an exception. I still own pretty much every game I've ever bought, and I have never taken one back because I didn't like it, no matter how bad it was. Once again, this game is the exception.

Do not buy this game, for any price. Unless perhaps you can find it for 99 cents in a few years on some dusty little shelf in the back of some store, it might make a nice coaster. Though even for 99 cents, you can probably find something better to spend your money on. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with this game and a computer, I would sooner rig a pulley to drop the monitor on my face than have to play it.

Horrible.

Oh what could have been

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Universal Combat could have been the best thing since sliced bread. The scope of the game is absolutely unreal. You can pilot a capital ship, opt for a fighter, cruise around in a transport, defend ground installations in a tank, man a SAM silo, orchestrate combined-arms attacks on enemy installations and much more. On top of that, many of these things can be done in a single saved game. A single character can pilot both large and small craft (in space, air and ground) with relative ease and continuity. This flexibility and diversity of available options could have made for a thrilling game that seamlessly and elegantly rolled together all imaginable forms of combat (from hand-to-hand to cap-ship to cap-ship and any other intermittent combination). Unfortunately, every individual aspect of the game is sub-par (or at the very best, average).

Space-borne ops are the most clearly developed, but even then the design, balancing and interface have a greater affinity for the author's own idiosyncratic preferences than any standard principles of human-computer interaction. While there is an elegant continuity between the capship, fighter and shuttle aspects of the game, there is a haphazard restriction on capabilities between ships and many common activities made difficult by an unnecessarily complex or restrictive procedures. Personnel/Security management abroad the capship is interesting, but actions get bogged down in a clunky UI.

Planetside operations are not very well developed at all. There is tremendous breadth on even a single planet, but not a great deal of depth. Many city structures serve no other purpose than to take up space, and while attacking a defended city may be challenging, the lack of interactivity with different parts of the city leaves one with a "why did I bother" feeling. Complex, ground-based operations are disappointingly difficult due to the idiosyncratic UI - while you can plan a complex op, changing strategy in the middle is absolutely unwieldy. The first-person mode is unforgivably weak, playing more like something from 1996 than anything modern.

The quality of Universal Combat is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. The connection, combination and continuity between the different elements is awe-inspiring. However, when I played this game, I experienced each individual part in succession rather than "the whole," and the aforementioned flaws in each individual part make gameplay frustrating as you go from one shortcoming to the next. The game's steep learning curve (a sure sign of pride amongst BC3k fans) is partly a natural consequence of the game's scope and complexity, but mostly due to the game's idiosyncratic design and clunky interface.

They don't get much worse

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: June 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game, hoping that it would provide me with something fun to do whenever I had free time. Yes, the prospect of engaging enemies in major battles for control of numerous spaceports and bases on 4 different theatres of combat appealed to me. So, between this and spending $39.95 on Joint Operations, I chose this.

What was I thinking?

This game freezes often, and I can't even find the "Quit" option. Apparently, the developers wanted to make it a puzzle just trying to figure out how to move your ship or fire your guns. You can't do anything in this game, it crashes, freezes, you can't control it, and in the campaign you dont even know what to do. The best part is that you can't even save or load or go to an options screen. This waste of a CD should be taken out of every store in the world. Trust me, I enjoy all sorts of games from Hearts of Iron to Raven Shield to Battlefield 1942 and Starfleet Command III - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME OR ANY OTHER GAME MADE BY DEREK SMART.

This game is not worth even $1

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: April 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

1,000 words are not enough to describe everything wrong with this terrible game. If you can actually get it to run on your PC, which 90% of gamers will not accomplish, you'll be pulling out your hair in frustration wondering why you bought it.

To say Universal Combat has technical problems is a HUGE understatement. It's the most bug filled game I have ever played and prone to random crashes. Looking at it funny will make this game crash. If you want to download the patches you are FORCED to register your game at the "official" website. It's just another hassle associated with Universal Combat. I couldn't even get the patches to work.

Let's say you actually get the game to work. The interface is horribly designed and extremely difficult to learn. It feels like it was released 5 years too early. This game requires a real PhD to figure out how to play it not the fake one Derek Smart has. Prepare to spend the rest of your life learning how to play this game to enjoy all the features.

The game just feels terrible when you're playing it. The graphics are way outdated and look like you're playing something made for the PSone. The controls are bad and really sluggish. I honestly don't see how anyone can give this game a 5 and recommend people buy it. There are a ton of better games out there released before and after Universal Combat. I suggest finding them and staying FAR away from this one and Derek Smart.

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