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| Danger! Danger! Display Overload! | “So I wanna shoot something... So.. that’s 5.9 times the square root of... carry the two...” |
You will have to endure a long and arduous learning curve in order to be able to play this game even remotely effectively and thus enjoy it. It is incredibly dense, packed with features and options and things to fiddle with. Those who are not planning to quit their day jobs in order to learn to pilot their ship may have some trouble getting anywhere. I certainly did.
When you start playing this game you get a bit of a Superman moment going on... “Is it a shooter? Is it a strategy game? Is it a combat game? No! It's a bloody mess!” A professional aircraft controller would probably have a hard time monitoring all the displays that you need to keep your eye on and understand in order to play this game well.
Universal Combat: A World Apart truly does try to do it all, the problem is that no-one can play it all at one time, so the overall effect of this game is a little like trying to shower whilst driving, just doesn't work.
I wanted it to work though, I really did. You can just feel the potential oozing out of this game as you struggle to hold the brick like manual open with one hand and attempt to figure out why the second display on the left bottom corner of the screen is flashing, all the while attempting to steer the ship with controls that can only be referred to as stodgy. The reason for this is that you have a very large ship. Apparently, in space, where there is no friction and no air and whatnot, a large ship turns like a mule. Who knew?
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| The Simple Stuff: A Big Gun | The Fun Stuff: Battle! |
3000AD Inc have gone for a realistic feel in this game, with space being allegedly realistic in size. This fact alone demonstrates the over ambitiousness of the developer. Hello, space is bigger than the human mind can comprehend, we don't know if it's expanding or contracting, or both, we don't know what it looks like from the outside, or if there even is an outside. Even Stephen Hawking doesn't know, but 3000 AD has attempted to tell us. Apparently what the reality of space amounts to is a very slow moving ship. Space was never supposed to be that dammed slow. Seriously.
This makes things both confusing and kind of boring. Which is what you go to work and school for, it's certainly not the reason you play games. Perhaps 3000 AD Inc. should re-name their company “Missing the Point Inc.”, It's more original and catchy, and certainly sums up some of the more irritating aspects of this product.
To be fair though, there are those in this world who can shower whilst driving, and enjoy it too. For those people, this game is like Mecca. In terms of actual gameplay and stability, it is very well engineered indeed. It has a massive free roaming universe, with the capability to land on a number of strange planets and explore them. There are both single campaigns, where you run off on your own to fight some battles, or from your position as a battle ship commander you can coordinate wars. You'll need to assign duties to the staff on board your ship too.
In this game you are Commander and Grunt, you also have access to a wide array of ships which makes things more interesting, and to top it all off, there are also tools available with which to create your own missions. Of course, it boasts a multiplayer mode also, but that presents a bit of a problem in itself because if your friends can play it better than you it means they are smarter. This is definitely a game for advanced gamers. Newbies need not apply.
Another thing to remember is to watch out for the AI. Your enemies are devastatingly efficient as you flounder about trying to find the right control to kill them, assuming you can pull enough people from various details around the ship to run it effectively.
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| Float like a butterfly, sting like a... wait a second.. where the hell am I? | Get ready to land and explore! |
This is technically a very good game if you are a technically minded person who is prepared to put some work into your gaming. If you're looking for an instantaneous gratification fix, you're severely out of luck.
In all other respects, UC: AWA can be described as solid with decent graphics, decent music, some decent voice acting. It is nice to see a game in which these elements play a supporting role rather than being the main selling point.
If you do chose to pick this one up, prepare to go into gaming hibernation as you pore over manuals and experiment with endless controls, click between screens and get lost and confused. To sum it up in one handy catch phrase:
Universal Combat: A World Apart: A gamer's game.
UNIVERSAL COMBAT - A WORLD APART VERDICT
If you do chose to pick this one up, prepare to go into gaming hibernation as you pore over manuals and experiment with endless controls, click between screens and get lost and confused. To sum it up in one handy catch phrase:Universal Combat: A World Apart: A gamer’s game.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Realising that if I ever decide to become a techno hermit and leave humanity, that I could do so for several years and immerse myself in this game and never run out of things to do.
