Universal Combat

Rating:
Summary: It's bad...
Review: I've played computer games for about 20 years, and this game is by far the most difficult to play. The 91 page manual is vague and does a very poor job of explaining how things are done. The 69 page PDF tutorial manual that I got with the 2.0019 patch cleared things up a bit. However, the interface is still nonintuitive, filled with three letter acronyms like PDF, and mainly for people who have memorized the reading material.
The gameplay itself is somewhat better. On the ground, it's a simple first person shooter that can be a bit fun if you know how to get into empty vehicles. I haven't seen any navies yet. Air combat is like a simplified flight simulator, but it's fun to shoot things. Flying a capital ship in space is very time consuming. It takes so much time to fly anywhere. Hyperspace jumps that shorten your trips take 2-4 minutes. The game desperately needs but doesn't have time compression. Repairs and crew recuperation require over 10 minutes of real time. The game designer wrote that it's best to do stuff like watching paint dry while waiting and waiting.
I gave it two stars instead of one because I do enjoy the times when I blow up the bad guys' spaceships and fighters. There is a large area of space to explore, and I like trying to increase my commander's level the same way I like trying to get the highest level in massive online role playing games. It's also somewhat emotionally rewarding when I finally figure out how to do stuff like order a shuttle to land a tank on a planet.

Rating:
Summary: Double Check System Requirements!!!
Review: Idiotically, I assumed that my computer had everything necessary to run this program. I've never had a problem with any other program until now; Vertex Shader 1.1 did me in.

Unfortunately, unless your video card supports Vertex Shader 1.1, you're wasting your money. According to the UC Forum, there is absolutely nothing you can do short of buying a new video card.

...

Rating:
Summary: Dabler of all and master of none
Review: OK let me first give you all a little bio of me before you read this review. I'm a old school gamer from way back (vic 20, C64, apple, Atari, Amiga, TRS80, ect.) I've played a open ended game called Elite for the C64. If your not familiar with this game let me break it down for you. You start out with a very basic ship and let loose upon the Universe. The game let you trade, raid and fight.

This game is no Elite. When I read the box for Universal Combat and read some reviews I thought wow a game that is full of depth and will let me roam space and find cool "areas of interest". I purchased the game and read the manual front to back and decided to pick the missions. OK I will warn you now, don't do the missions first do roam mode. The first mission slaps you into a Space carrier and informs you that you must go and hook up with a fleet and escort some poor alien race getting picked on by another. Now that sound simple enough so I look at the map and checked where I supposed to meet everyone. It was on the other side of the map and plenty of hostiles on the way there. Now being a Newb I got killed after 2 min into the mission. There is no tutorial in the game and the first mission is a lesson in frustration.

I did better when I picked roam mode. The problem with roam mode is that it lets you pick from a long list of careers and races. And each of them have a limitation to them. It took me awhile to find any info about any of this. The printed manual was no help. I did find what I was looking for in the Manual Appendix in the game file itself. Be warned that key commands cannot be changed and you will use Alt, Shift Ctrl a lot. But that isn't a problem, the one that is, is the Windows key, hit that one and bang the game is crashed. Save the game often. The only way to save is to use the Save & Exit option. That's right to save a game you must also exit the current game you where playing.

Now for the graphics and the issues I had. The graphics are good looking, for 1998. There is also issues with objects and your person. In FPS marine mode if you run into the building you will jump back 6 or more feet.. sort of a rubber banding effect. I attempted to land on a planet a few times and ended up crashing into the planet. INTO the planet not ON the planet. I was stuck in the planet and the only way out was by calling a Tow ship. I was on Earth at the time (my home base). The Tow ship towed me to another solar system!!!!

I need to wrap this up. There is a lot of stuff in this game. It just isn't implemented correctly to work. They are working of fixing some of the major bugs. But that will be it. Derek Smart is already working on a expansion for this game and is spending most of his time on that. Read the forums first before purchasing. Derek Smart is the "Supreme Commander" read his responses to people. Just as a side note: I did expect a lot out of this game and it has it, except for one... fun. This game is not fun, at least for me. I wish I could have played a Demo first.


Rating:
Summary: Dabler of all and master of none
Review: OK let me first give you all a little bio of me before you read this review. I'm a old school gamer from way back (vic 20, C64, apple, Atari, Amiga, TRS80, ect.) I've played a open ended game called Elite for the C64. If your not familiar with this game let me break it down for you. You start out with a very basic ship and let loose apon the Universe. The game let you trade, raid and fight.

This game is no Elite. When I read the box for Universal Combat and read some reviews I thought wow a game that is full of depth and will let me roam space and find cool "areas of interest". I purchased the game and read the manual front to back and decided to pick the missions. OK I will warn you now, don't do the missions first do roam mode. The first mission slaps you into a Space carrier and informs you that you must go and hook up with a fleet and escourt some poor alien race getting picked on by another. Now that sound simle enough so I look at the map and checked where I supposed to meet everyone. It was on the other side of the map and plenty of hostiles on the way there. Now being a Newb I got killed after 2 min into the mission. There is no tuturial in the game and the first mission is a lesson in fustration.

I did better when I picked roam mode. The problem with roam mode is that it lets you pick from a long list of carreers and races. And each of them have a limitation to them. It took me awhile to find any info about any of this. The printed manual was no help. I did find what I was looking for in the Manual Appendix in the game file itself. Be warned that key commands cannot be changed and you will use Alt, Shift Ctrl alot. But that isn't a problem, the one that is, is the Windows key, hit that one and bang the game is crashed. Save the game often. The only way to save is to use the Save & Exit option. That's right to save a game you must also exit the current game you where playing.

Now for the graphics and the issues I had. The graphics are good looking, for 1998. There is also issues with objects and your person. In FPS marine mode if you run into the building you will jump back 6 or more feet.. sort of a rubber banding effect. I attempted to land on a planet a few times and ended up crashing into the planet. INTO the planet not ON the planet. I was stuck in the planet and the only way out was by calling a Tow ship. I was on Earth at the time (my home base). The Tow ship towed me to another solor system!!!!

I need to wrap this up. There is alot of stuff in this game. It just isn't implemented correctly to work. They are working of fixing some of the major bugs. But that will be it. Derek Smart is already working on a expansion for this game and is spending most of his time on that. Read the forums first before purchasing. Derek Smart is the "Supream Commander" read his responses to people. Just as a side note: I did expect alot out of this game and it has it, except for one... fun. This game is not fun, at least for me. I wish I could have played a Demo first.

Rating:
Summary: If I could give 0 stars, I would
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: If I could give 0 stars, I would
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: There is, finally, a tutorial!
Review: The latest patch (2.12, from early August 2004) includes, in the 'docs' folder, a 60-page PDF which leads you by the hand, step-by-step, and shows all that this rather amazing piece of programming is capable of. As a game, it's not to everyone's tastes, to be sure, and the interface still needs major cleanup, but it's not terrible, either.

Oh, and you DO have to register to be able to download the patch. 3000AD had to send me a new registration code in order to be able to register (the one on the manual didn't work). A pain in the ass, right? Well, [e-mail] responded with hours of my emails, and I was up and running with the new patch and tutorial in hand 24 hours after I had bought the game. Much better service than I normally expect from a game company, I must say.

At the $19.95 street price, if you're interested in exploring one man's quixotic dream of what the ultimate computer game can be, you won't regret it. Just print out that tutorial first...

Rating:
Summary: Looks Very Interesting
Review: 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...

Rating:
Summary: Avoid at all costs
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Bad user interface and unstable game play.
Review: 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.