- Jan 29, 2005
- 5,201
- 214
- 106
Well I'm back from playing Universe at War: Earth Assault since the past four hours, non-stop.
It just so totally surprised me.
But yes really I am. I didn't expect such a fun game. It's a sleeper hit to me, because when I first saw the trailer I told myself "alright, fancy presentation, perhaps a decent story made out of déjà-vue science-fiction context (aliens wishing Earth is no more, yet again), and those guys made Star Wars: Empire at War, which wasn't necessarily very bad but nothing very addictive either". And I took a chance, yes I bought it out of nowhere, glancing at the titles I might have missed at the store, I saw that one not far from the games running on the engine that's responsible for it (although now modified to noticeable extents), which I named above, along with its expansion pack.
I bought it, arrived home, and left it there on my desk for a couple of hours, not in a hurry at all (I would have had if only I knew ...). Then after a nice meal, come back to my PC, install this "probably flop but not so expensive flop" game that "I might enjoy for a while so why not giving it a try", that kinda game, which I fully expected. Oh boy I was wrong. Well, the main menu left me so-so, thinking "oh no ... not another Console-to-PC port ?!", phew ... no, it's not, however it does have such looks.
It has a mind bogglingly simple interface for a PC-only-minded game. It annoyed me a little but no biggie, I adjusted the settings and moved on, and I thought "man and the music is actually GOOD ?! because you know I think John Williams might have been irritated by the music that was made for EaW and FoC outside of the intro, and since both games run on the same basic engine and from the same developers and perhaps from the same music compositor well ... let's not expect much", but nope, the music is perhaps not Jeremy Soul-quality but it's far from being a disappointment (the music is faction-dependent AND situation-dependent too, meaning that out of combat it's more calm, atmospheric, generally speaking, and once you engage the enemy some more action/adrenaline-pumping music kicks in).
I'm very satisfied by the story as well! Another surprising element of the game. It's certainly not on the scale of complexity of The Matrix or the variety and depth of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars or even Star Trek epic types of stories, but given its déjà-vue context as I said I thought it could have EASILY been much, much worse. Haven't we seen SO many aliens (hostile ones, or perhaps both) on Earth wanting us dead in video-games and movies and books too ? I thought "ok ... well, if it's fun then the story can hmmm ... well it can suck, who cares, if it's addictive to play". But not only is the game-play addictive but the story of the campaign so far where I am gets more interesting and even intriguing the more I progress in it.
And that story spanned three VERY unique races (uniqueness comparable to StarCraft or Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, and completely at the opposite of Supreme Commander which, as you guys must know, was disappointed regarding the differences, at least visually, between each factions). So when looking a the units, their buildings' architecture, their colors, animations, and the way they operate in general is all very different. It helps adding depth and credibility to the otherwise generic, fast-food story of "let's save the world once more".
And the graphics are not Company of Heroes' type, but it can easily rival and surpass (in my opinion, to some extent yes) Command & Conquer 3 and/or the likes of The Battle for Middle Earth II (which both run on the same engine by the way). If you consider that Universe at War: Earth Assault runs on a modified Star Wars: Empire at War engine, which I thought wasn't anything extra ordinary (although acceptably performing and featuring decent capabilities for its own purposes back then with EaW) then I must say that Petroglyph made quite a pretty darn good job right there optimizing it. Not only does it seem so far to be able to take more of the "lots of units at once" type of action on-screen, but the textures work has been noticeably improved, and the color palette has been increased, a very welcome addition over the repetitive browns, pale greens (mostly seen on land maps) and grays of Empire at War. Granted however, the context is different, and the main world is Earth, not an alien world, so we know that colors on Earth are abundant and diverse. And the polygons count has also apparently increased, from what I've seen so far. Those Hierarchy Walker models I think have more polygons on them alone than the total amount you'd see on-screen on a land battle skirmish in Empire at War (expect maybe for the AT-AT which was a nicely rendered model I must say).
And, another VERY surprising element about it was the A.I. I've rarely (not "never", I said rarely, I know the A.I in CoH is good too) seen any A.I in a RTS game trying to take cover dynamically as the terrain and environment changes, but I see it regularly in Universe at War (for example, those little Hierarchy scouts you'll face early in the campaign will always try to keep their distance properly, and if they meet an object on their path they will go "on the other side" and that way eliminate possible angles of fire for you). There ARE however those predictable moments where SOME (really it's not all of them) specific units will have obvious path movement-related issues, where for example going from point A to B and taking the shortest possible route to go to point B will result in moving erratically in all directions from point A as if the unit was completely out of control of itself, and then suddenly it starts to move on to point B properly. But, overall, the A.I is decent, and perhaps even good. Honestly I have rarely if ever seen decent A.I like that out of the box, in a vanilla version of a game (as far as RTS'es goes mind you), without any mods at that. Good job right there Petroglyph.
And ... well, I could go on and on about it. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's not ... it's not hmmm, maybe not a "blockbuster" title, but I when bought I thought "it might have potential, who knows, I did liked EaW for a time". I'm saying it again guys, Universe at War is a good game enough to be worth a try, if you can, but please, if not buying it do consider giving it a try you might well end up being pleasantly surprised as I've been so far.
My overall score is a solid 8.5/10, and I still haven't finished the game nor even explored everything in the skirmishes.
It just so totally surprised me.
But yes really I am. I didn't expect such a fun game. It's a sleeper hit to me, because when I first saw the trailer I told myself "alright, fancy presentation, perhaps a decent story made out of déjà-vue science-fiction context (aliens wishing Earth is no more, yet again), and those guys made Star Wars: Empire at War, which wasn't necessarily very bad but nothing very addictive either". And I took a chance, yes I bought it out of nowhere, glancing at the titles I might have missed at the store, I saw that one not far from the games running on the engine that's responsible for it (although now modified to noticeable extents), which I named above, along with its expansion pack.
I bought it, arrived home, and left it there on my desk for a couple of hours, not in a hurry at all (I would have had if only I knew ...). Then after a nice meal, come back to my PC, install this "probably flop but not so expensive flop" game that "I might enjoy for a while so why not giving it a try", that kinda game, which I fully expected. Oh boy I was wrong. Well, the main menu left me so-so, thinking "oh no ... not another Console-to-PC port ?!", phew ... no, it's not, however it does have such looks.
It has a mind bogglingly simple interface for a PC-only-minded game. It annoyed me a little but no biggie, I adjusted the settings and moved on, and I thought "man and the music is actually GOOD ?! because you know I think John Williams might have been irritated by the music that was made for EaW and FoC outside of the intro, and since both games run on the same basic engine and from the same developers and perhaps from the same music compositor well ... let's not expect much", but nope, the music is perhaps not Jeremy Soul-quality but it's far from being a disappointment (the music is faction-dependent AND situation-dependent too, meaning that out of combat it's more calm, atmospheric, generally speaking, and once you engage the enemy some more action/adrenaline-pumping music kicks in).
I'm very satisfied by the story as well! Another surprising element of the game. It's certainly not on the scale of complexity of The Matrix or the variety and depth of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars or even Star Trek epic types of stories, but given its déjà-vue context as I said I thought it could have EASILY been much, much worse. Haven't we seen SO many aliens (hostile ones, or perhaps both) on Earth wanting us dead in video-games and movies and books too ? I thought "ok ... well, if it's fun then the story can hmmm ... well it can suck, who cares, if it's addictive to play". But not only is the game-play addictive but the story of the campaign so far where I am gets more interesting and even intriguing the more I progress in it.
And that story spanned three VERY unique races (uniqueness comparable to StarCraft or Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, and completely at the opposite of Supreme Commander which, as you guys must know, was disappointed regarding the differences, at least visually, between each factions). So when looking a the units, their buildings' architecture, their colors, animations, and the way they operate in general is all very different. It helps adding depth and credibility to the otherwise generic, fast-food story of "let's save the world once more".
And the graphics are not Company of Heroes' type, but it can easily rival and surpass (in my opinion, to some extent yes) Command & Conquer 3 and/or the likes of The Battle for Middle Earth II (which both run on the same engine by the way). If you consider that Universe at War: Earth Assault runs on a modified Star Wars: Empire at War engine, which I thought wasn't anything extra ordinary (although acceptably performing and featuring decent capabilities for its own purposes back then with EaW) then I must say that Petroglyph made quite a pretty darn good job right there optimizing it. Not only does it seem so far to be able to take more of the "lots of units at once" type of action on-screen, but the textures work has been noticeably improved, and the color palette has been increased, a very welcome addition over the repetitive browns, pale greens (mostly seen on land maps) and grays of Empire at War. Granted however, the context is different, and the main world is Earth, not an alien world, so we know that colors on Earth are abundant and diverse. And the polygons count has also apparently increased, from what I've seen so far. Those Hierarchy Walker models I think have more polygons on them alone than the total amount you'd see on-screen on a land battle skirmish in Empire at War (expect maybe for the AT-AT which was a nicely rendered model I must say).
And, another VERY surprising element about it was the A.I. I've rarely (not "never", I said rarely, I know the A.I in CoH is good too) seen any A.I in a RTS game trying to take cover dynamically as the terrain and environment changes, but I see it regularly in Universe at War (for example, those little Hierarchy scouts you'll face early in the campaign will always try to keep their distance properly, and if they meet an object on their path they will go "on the other side" and that way eliminate possible angles of fire for you). There ARE however those predictable moments where SOME (really it's not all of them) specific units will have obvious path movement-related issues, where for example going from point A to B and taking the shortest possible route to go to point B will result in moving erratically in all directions from point A as if the unit was completely out of control of itself, and then suddenly it starts to move on to point B properly. But, overall, the A.I is decent, and perhaps even good. Honestly I have rarely if ever seen decent A.I like that out of the box, in a vanilla version of a game (as far as RTS'es goes mind you), without any mods at that. Good job right there Petroglyph.
And ... well, I could go on and on about it. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's not ... it's not hmmm, maybe not a "blockbuster" title, but I when bought I thought "it might have potential, who knows, I did liked EaW for a time". I'm saying it again guys, Universe at War is a good game enough to be worth a try, if you can, but please, if not buying it do consider giving it a try you might well end up being pleasantly surprised as I've been so far.
My overall score is a solid 8.5/10, and I still haven't finished the game nor even explored everything in the skirmishes.
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