User Reviews (1 - 11 of 25)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

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...

Avoid at all costs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: February 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is horrible! It has frequent crashes, sub-standard graphics, and an impossible to decipher interface. The game crashed on me 4 times in a row within 5 minutes of starting it up. The graphics are nowhere near games like Homeworld. It's almost impossible to figure out or remember what keys do what in this mess of a game. Avoid like the plaque, throw it out even if you got it for free...your time is worth more than the suffering.

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.

Bad user interface and unstable game play.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: February 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is the first game in my life that I ever come across that failed to perform the normal routine of installation in this new millenium (where on earth is autoplay?). Launch the game, went to fullscreen logo, got bounced back out to small window,1 went back to full screen again..... it is annoying. Launch the game. Setting up a new game is not at all intuitive. Took a little bit to figure it out what kind of information does the game wants from me. The graphics were gorgeous (with the exception of user interface). I have no idea what is my mission. I press ESC. I was too disappointed no options menu show up. I had enough at that point. Uninstall the game and chuck that game on my shelf. I was thinking of returning it. I went all over the websites and search for reviews, no reviews yet. I am a game developer myself and a gamer. When I talk about production point of view and consumer point of view, there will not be love for this game. Thank you for reading this.

My honest opinion about UC...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: February 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game a few days ago. It was a classic story that just made me want to buy the game: Game developer with a great deal of pride fighting his greedy publisher. the developer was a complete underdog in my eyes. Heck, I was about to send him directly a 20 dollar money order to make up for the way his publisher treated him.

Then I loaded the game.

UC loaded fine, but when I went to run it the problems began. I received a codec not found error, then after I continued through I received an error stating I had a debugger running? Well, I went to the developer's website and forums for aid only to find new registrations were closed and I could not post for support. I did read through the posts, and what I found was a bit disturbing. Everyone walked on eggshells in how they worded their posts, and the developer would routinely insult and berate his customers. He seemed to not like people who couldn't figure out problems themselves. I did not feel comfortable at all and left.

I resolved the problem myself, as it was a conflict with the DIVX 5.1 codec. (thanks to google.com. ;) ) I entered the game, and I was very dissapointed with what I saw. The game has a *very* steep learning curve if you didn't play a previous battlecruiser game. The manual seems to be organized well, but it is laid out in a manner that requires a more in-depth study to figure things out. Anacronyms fill the game, and rudamentary definitions are provided for them. There are NO IN-GAME TUTORIALS. Up until recently there weren't any out of game tutorials until the developer rushed to create a PDF file along with the demo. The graphics aren't bad, but they are far from current technology. I would gladly accept the graphics as is if gameplay wasn't so awkward. The user interface is horrible. it is not intuitive, there are graphic glitches with the GUI(flashing poly's, misplaced indicators), and there are layers upon layers of awkward menus that take you away from the main screen. This would all be fixed with a customizable user interface similar to a lot of the online MMO games where windows could be positioned and layered. The game crashes to desktop regularly. The feedback system from your crew in commander career mode is poor. It took me a few hours for everything to sink in as to who was telling me what. Allied crafts don't always do as they are told. sure it may be a touch of realism, but there isn't any feedback as to whether it's "as designed" or a glitch. This game is rife with glitches. This game touts air-sea-land-space combat. the physics engine for land is based on the space engine. flying a craft in the amosphere feels like flying in Zero-g. It's not a flight sim, it's not a true first person shooter. The shared engine for all combat modes needs a better physics engine to make each mode enjoyable and realistic. I found no entertainment in any profesion besides commander. Perhaps multiplayer is a different story, but I didn't try MP.

Some die-hards out there will really love this game as I suspect there is a redeeming value underneath the very rough appearance. However many will not stay long enough to find it. I am still playing the game, or attempting to... it crashes to desktop a lot. in a two hour session, about 4 times.

Oh, and this all was verified with the new patch. the latest 2/10/04 patch did little to help the game stablity.

This is a niche app, and a budget category game. There are lofty dreams by the developer for this game, but in my opinion it has a very far way to go. Casual gamers looking for a fun story driven space game, do not buy this. Hardcore space combat fans might love it if they are willing to wait on the fixes for the glaring errors, crashes, and glitches. But I'm not rating this from the perspective of a die-hard, but from a casual gamer and consumer. I think dreamcatcher did right by making this a 20 dollar game, and even at that I don't think it's right to release a game with so many bugs and stability issues.

Needless to say, I no longer feel as if I should send the extra 20 dollars. Infact I'm seriously considering contacting my state attorney general to see about getting my money back on this game, as it does not deliver as advertized.

Universal Waste of Time

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 46 / 49
Date: February 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having played (and really having come close to liking) every game in the Battlecruiser series and having followed the development of Battlecruiser Generations, I thought perhaps this time around Derek Smart and company might get it right. But, alas, it was not to be.

Being a devoted grognard, traditional wargamer, and military studies aficionado, I can tolerate a steep learning curve and less than obvious interface, all plastered over a hardcore simulation. But Universal Combat failed to live up to any of the developers' promises or my expectations. Thank god the publisher had the presence of mind to realise this was a budget title. If Derek Smart had his way, I'd be about $29.95 more ticked that I bought this game.

Right from the rocky start just trying to get the program installed, to the option controls that don't respond or revert to previous settings, I realised I had been promised a ship and a star to sail her by but had chugged off in a lemon once again. And then the game continued to perform like a "champ" throughout, frequently crashing, misplacing interface elements, and otherwise dying in its own misery.

The game manual is as convoluted as all the other battlecruiser titles, riddled with acronyms whose definitions are buried in pages and pages of small type. There is some semblance of organization to the thing, but the biggest problem is that there is no connection between using the bogglingly complex interface and actually accomplishing something with the systems simulated in the game.

As in the more poorly executed Battlecruiser Millenium, the ground, sea, and air combat modes seem to be included as pure gloss. None of these modes function well or gave me any reason to come back for more. Most annoying was the complete absence of any sense of physics, especially on the ground. I've seen graphics driver demos with more realism.

To Dreamcatcher's credit, the graphics are far superior to any other game in the Battlecruiser series. However, the problem is that Dreamcatcher seems to be developing all the graphics for games in the series with a 2-4 year shift back in time. While occasionally pretty, I couldn't help feel that I was playing an old game, even though the brand new box was sitting right on my desk.

The ultimate flaw in the game itself was the total absense of any sense of progress. After many crushing engagements where my ship (pick any class, type, or purpose) was routinely destroyed before having built up enough resources to repair it or refit, I began to succeed in ship to ship combat. But beyond that, there was absolutely no sense of having any kind of impact on the game world. It seems the game developer expects one to gain a sense of accomplishment from figuring out the game interface and pretending one is involved in some kind of greater conflict. The convoluted campaigns seem to have no ultimate point. While you can, as promised, go anywhere you like and do whatever you want within the large scope of the game, what you do matters little and has no identifiable outcome. There is nothing to draw one in on any side or measure effect; playing one ship, exploring a planet, or fighting any one battle is pretty much like another, and none of these gives any sense of having accomplished anything.

The final straw for me was the developer's support. Let's get this out right now: Derek Smart is mad at the publisher for cutting the price of his game, so his development team is not going to support it. The site is filled with Derek's diatribes talking this game up as being the biggest masterpiece of mixed gameplay, massive scope, and rewards for everyone, and explains how angry he is that his work of art is not universally loved and appreciated except by his fans who understand him and what he is trying to do. In place of support, he condescendingly criticizes those who say anything different or can't solve their own problems. The theme here is that it is not the game or the developer who have failed; it is everyone else - the players, the publisher, the market. Don't expect to find a solution to Universal Combat's myriad problems here.

Bottom line: This game could have filled a niche that is empty in the industry - a game with huge scope, complexity, and challenge extending beyond mere shoot-em up. Instead, this game is a barely functional shell that promises everything but delivers little.

When Good Ideas are done shoty

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: February 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been watching the progress of Universal Combat for a long time. Now that i finally have it i can say this. If you are looking for a stable well put together game that mixes planetside and freelancer, you will be thourghly sadened.

No one will like this game. Those that like the slower pace of the BattleCrusier Games, you will find that this game is unplayable. The game is buggy and terrible.

I know the amazon blerb says physics engine but this is not true. There are animations for the deaths, not physics based, and more importanly, the game has no way for you to go into bases. There is no crash ditection! your character can "go through" bases, trees, vehicles, its terrible.

The graphics are way past dated. They resemble Quake 2. The information that you see long distance about objects ubstructs the screen. The text has a background so you can't see verywell.

The learning curve is off the roof, this is hampered by the fact that alot of things don't work properly. When colliding with anything your character lays down. And if you go through something, you start to sink into the floor.

This is the shottiest game i have ever seen.

Idea wise its great, but the steap learning curve and gameplay issues kill this game.

Alot of the originally proposed ideas from Battle Cruiser Generations never made it in. The half assed job done by 3000AD is evident when you start the game and the startup image is of Battle Cruiser Generations, not universal Combat.

Please do not get this game, your throwing your money away!! Get the demo from 3000ad.com and try that, if for somereason you like it then get the game. But for those looking for a tribes/planetside/freelancer crossover game don't get this!!

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.

Yikes!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: February 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played and enjoyed Smart's Battlecruiser Millennium Gold, and hoped this would be a solid update in the series. Boy, was I wrong. This game is a mess - incredibly buggy, the graphics are a little better than BMG but not by much, and it lacks the stately, thoughful pace of previous games that allowed the player to immerse himself (or herself) in the Battlecruiser universe.

Please, save your money. If you want to play a game where the concept worked much better, buy a copy of Battlecruiser Millennium Gold. It's a bit dated, but thoroughly enjoyable.

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.

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions