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Looks Very Interesting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 19
Date: February 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The only Battlecruiser game I ever played was Battlecruiser Millenium. Universal Combat is the next game in that series, but the name was changed to kind of reintroduce the concept to the public.

Universal Combat will allow you to do a wide variety of things. You can fly and manage space ships, land on one of the numerous planets, drive around the planet or walk around, and blow up buildings on the planet. Planet surfaces in BCM where very! dull. In UC at least they have added some vegatation and animals to planet surfaces.

The multiplayer could be what makes this game really worth playing though. A multiplayer add on was supposed to be released for BCM but never was. This upset some people, including me. But UC is supposed to have multiplayer right out of the box!

I certainly hope the first person elements in UC are alot stronger then in BCM. Even if it was nothing more then a more fancy version of BCM, he added features, updated graphics, and multiplayer make this game a steal...

A complex blend of simulation, strategy, & imagination

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 15
Date: February 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Despite the political problems between the developer and publisher of this title 3000AD has managed to produce a well polished product.

My personal feelings towards this type of title is that it divides the game playing audience into two categories:

1) Those who like flashy graphics and a lot of action and want to sit and be entertained for a couple hours.

2) Those who enjoy a more long term and strategic experience and who want drawn out gameplay.

UC delivers both oddly enough. You can enjoy the instant action scenarios as a marine or fighter pilot and get a quick adrenaline fix. Or if you decide that you want to engage in a larger scale game than you can pursue careers as a ship commander for example. Either way you going to be entertained proportionally to the time you spend playing. To me this is the correct formulae for a successful game.

Graphics and sound in this game are very good and it is refreshing to be able to max out the graphics settings on a new title and still achieve a great framerate. Another nice change is that space feels roomy personally I found X2: The Threat actually gave me a sense of claustrophobia, which is an emotion one should not feel in SPACE.

There is a learning curve associated with this title but there are a few caveats to this. First if you want to play the FPS part the controls are no more difficult than any other FPS. Second, the Battlecruiser part of the game from a perspective of controlling your ship is no more difficult than X2:Threat. The real challenge comes in terms of managing your ship from a tactical and economic standpoint. This is what separates a novice that has played this title for a few hours from an expert that has really spent some time digging into the details.

The manual for this game is actually printed and over 10 pages in length ļ The trend these days has been to save publishing costs by making PDFs of the manual. A practice that drives me insane because I need a manual in front of me while I try playing. I am sick of buying a $50 dollar game and a $40 inkjet cartridge to print the manual. There is plenty of online documentation that details all of the objects that are represented in the game. PC career choices, manual revisions, story, and control details are also included as a set of easily printed hyperlinked webpages.

I have owned this game for 2 days and have played it more than X2 & Freelancer combined. For $20 the value per dollar of this game is very high. From a moral point of view I feel the developer did a better than $20 dollar job.

I will leave it to others to do a more technical review.

In summary this is a niche title and like an independent film you are going to either love or hate this game. One thing I can guarantee you is that as an "indie" game the developer has made design choices that are unorthodox when compared to a mainstream title. Like an "indie" film director these choices reflect a more risky and artistic statement rather something that a marketing firm has deemed safe and appealing.

A great game, tons of stuff to do.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: February 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, I picked up UC day of release and after playing it for many hours, I am prepared to write my "official" review on the game. So, here goes:

General/Summary: This game is huge. There is so much to do and so many ways to do it. Even playing for 15+ hours I have not even scratched the surface of all I can do and see. I have played as a Commander on a large Star-Cruiser, a small fighter pilot and a ground force Marine, and I am enjoying all facets. Being able to fight a small armada above a planets surface, then take the fight down to the ground is alot of fun and quite immersive.

Gameplay: As was said there is alot to do, which is great, the downside to this, however, is a very steep learning curve. Be prepared to invest a few hours learning the interface before you feel comfortable engaging multiple targets. Unlike some others, I do not feel the interface is bad, just complex. This doesn't bother me, in fact I view it has a challenge and it actually increases the immersion of the whole experience.

Graphics: The space graphics are great. The ships show plenty of detail and the planets, stars and nebulae are very pretty and well done. The planets, once you enter the atmoshere, are well done from altitude but start to show some problems as you get closer to the ground. At ground level they are pretty good, but not as good as most modern day FPS graphics. I have no problem with this as the size of the game and the amount you can do more than compensate for a lack of detail in visuals at ground level.

Sound: Sound is well-done, although sparse as you might expect from a space sim. The few voices are all well done, as are the sounds of blasters. Nothing to truly complain about, although I think the FP weapons could use a "meatier" sound, but that is just a personal preference. The music is very good and goes along with the feel of the game well.

Bottom Line: A very good game, has an immersion that I have found lacking in X2 and Freelancer. While some of the graphics are not as good as the above titles, and the interface has a high learning curve, the amount to see and do more than makes up for it. I heartily recommend the title for anyone looking for a very good space sim.

Horrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I first heard about this in 2004 and the idea for it sounded incredible and like it would be a lot of fun. When the game actually came out, I was so frustrated with it that I hardly even got the chance to actually play it. The instructions are very confusing and it feels like they have left things out. I had to go to the Internet and read fan sites to figure out how to play the game. The main problem however is with the user interface. It is incredibly poorly designed, and it is difficult to interact with quickly enough to have an enjoyable game.

This game might be fun if they took the story and gave it to another designer, but as it is now it's trash.

Forget the rules...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: April 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is what you need to do to appreciate this game:

FORGET ALL THE ESTABLISHED RULES OF MAINSTREAM GAMES!!!

Done that? Good.

Now, the most important thing to remember is to read the manual before you begin. That is what it is for. Unlike most (if not all) other games, the manual actually performs a function. Funnily enough, it tells you how to play the game.

Secondly, make sure you have the latest patch (which, contrary to 'a gamer from Portland', you are not required to register to download. I know this because I downloaded it BEFORE I registered). This will fix many of the reported issues, most of which are there due to development time constraints.

Thirdly, do not expect to just jump in this game and start blasting alien scum within ten minutes. If you do, you will hate this game and, unfortunately, have bought the wrong game for your particular tastes. You will need to spend time learning the control system and basically getting the 'feel' of the game.

Once you have done all this, however, you end up with a game that gives you a LOT. Certainly in the Roam mode, you are basically in the middle of an entire virtual universe where you can do just about anything. Whilst you are encouraged towards combat (as the name would suggest), you can just as easily become a peaceful explorer, trader or miner. What is rather unique about this game, and a very good thing, in my opinion, is the complexity. In most spacey type games, there is no real distinction between your ship and you. In this, you actually play a character as opposed to a ship, so, for example, you can send your AE (Alter Ego, your game character) into a shuttle, launch from your battlecruiser and use the shuttle to do some trading whilst you order your battlecruiser to attack an enemy starbase. The most complex I've had it (so far) is, on a planet, having a naval group giving covering artillery fire to a detachment of infantry marines assaulting a planetary base backed up by armoured cavalry whilst, at the same time, in space, having my carrier class ship attacking a starbase with support from two battlecruiser escorts and using its fighter wings as a guard against enemy reinforcements entering the system whilst my AE was using a shuttle to trade to raise some money and having a couple of drones on a planet doing some mining.

There are some negative points. The first is that yes, the graphics do look a LITTLE dated, but unlike most modern games, it is the gameplay that makes this game, not flashy graphics.

Secondly, there are quite a few bugs, but these are being worked out as I type. This is the only thing that makes me say that unless you are quite patient, you maybe shouldn't buy it....yet. On the other hand, if you are not quite patient, you are not going to enjoy this game anyway, as it requires an investment in time and brain-power to get the most of.

In conclusion, I would say this is a game you would either love with a passion, or loathe with a passion. If you like highly in-depth, complex games that give a lot of satisfaction if you give it an investment of time and energy, you are probably going to be the former.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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