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Universal Combat

Score: 55%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive
Developer: 3000 AD
Media: CD/1
Players: 1 - 64
Genre: Simulation

Graphics & Sound:

Though the developer's name is 3000AD, the graphics look a thousand years or so shy of this date. It's a shame, too, because the designs, though not stellar, are pretty stylish looking. Yet, with a lack of visual extras like shading or any type of interesting special effect, the thought that went into the design was completely wasted.

The sound is about as good as the graphics. The score is lackluster in that it sounds wholly unoriginal, and it doesn't do the music that it copied from justice. The sound effects are far worse, and will either be pleasantly quiet when nothing is going on, or will drive you mad when there is action. Your speakers will be full to the brim with mindless radio chatter and dinky explosion effects.


Gameplay:

The scope of Universal Combat lives up to its name. The universe is absolutely massive, with hundreds of worlds and star bases to explore, 12 different playable races, a Career and Caste mode that lets you look at the universe from any angle, and just about every type of fighting you can think of from first person shooting to capital ship battles. The Campaign mode offers 25 different missions, and there are also Instant Action, Roam, and Multiplayer modes as well.

Despite the wide range of features in Universal Combat, the gameplay is actually quite thin. Where features are concerned, it's dead on target (except there are no naval battles), but the actual content of those features is lacking. Each is basically a demo of some type of game that would utilize that element. For instance, the FPS aspect is nearly devoid of any action, and what you do get to see you have to take twenty minutes to get there by running across a planet.

The same goes for the flying aspect; most of it consists of boring, empty space to fly around in with an occasional, but brief, skirmish. The ambition of Universal Combat is blown way out of proportion when compared to what is actually in the game. The Career mode is a nice step, but it lands you in a virtually empty, huge universe. On the surface this game looks complete, but once you get under the hood you'll find nothing but cobwebs.

The Multiplayer aspect could have been the saving grace, or at least a step in the general direction of a saving grace. The only problems are that there is barely anybody online playing this game, and if you do manage to start up a game, you'll more than likely suffer a crash to desktop shortly after starting up.


Difficulty:

Universal Combat is hard in the same sense that learning a new language is hard. The amount of acronyms, hotkeys, and nested menus you have to learn and deal with is immense and far too complicated to offer any fun. What's worse is that you can't get by just knowing some of the stuff; every button you hit will affect something else, and unless you know what that something else is then you're out of luck. The controls themselves also make for a difficult experience, and coupled with the over the top AI in some areas, make this game a bit too much of a realistic challenge.

Game Mechanics:

If having no actual game to play is bad enough, add horrible controls to the mix and it's sure to make anybody break down and cry with disappointment. None of the elements combined in Universal Combat control very well; the FPS mode is sluggish, and any type of flying is hampered with a strange joystick configuration, and you can't change the buttons.

The icing on the cake for all of this is the hundreds of hotkeys, acronyms, and menus you are forced to trudge through in order to reign in any type of control on things. There is hardly anything intuitive about Universal Combat, leaving this game not only in a ditch next to the highway of good games, but poisoned, on fire, and shot in the head. If you don't want to know what this feels like, play something else and forget about Universal Combat.


-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications
AKA Andrew Horwitz

Minimum System Requirements:



1 GHz Processor, Windows 98/ME/2K/XP, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB Video Ram, 1 GB Hard Disk Space
 

Test System:



Windows XP, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce FX 128 MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, Cable Modem Internet connection

Windows Tsunami 2265 Windows US Open 2002

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated