Gamernode: Reviews - Universe at War: Earth Assault

Universe at War: Earth Assault

• Universe at War: Earth Assault...
• PC
• Petroglyph
• Sega
• December 15th, 2007

Jeez, all of these RTS games are beginning to pile up on my shelves. While I've known about Petrogylph's history in the RTS genre, I haven't played the developer's debut game Star Wars: Empire at War.

At first glance, Universe at War: Earth Assault is your typical base creating, unit amassing and resource gathering RTS game, but underneath the conventional gameplay tactics are three unique and finely crafted races. Unfortunately, the game's campaign is rather generic and doesn't offer much in the 'new' category.

Petroglyph certainly spent their time fleshing out these races. You have your pick of wildly crazy and gigantic walkers (the Hierarchy), flying anime-inspired robots (the Novus) or the traditional ancient mythics (the Masari). Fortunately, humans are not the focus and it's pretty funny and campy how Petrogylph uses humans and Earth as the background for the three-pronged attack by these races.

Take the Hierarchy; they utilize large walkers that can be upgraded with either firepower or unit production -- in a sense, they act as mobile bases. These hefty machines tower over everything and you can definitely see how Petrogylph spent time detailing these hovering beasts. While Supreme Commander had its share of mammoth beasts and units, Universe at War offers a more stylized and unique portrayal of these walkers.

Throwing a somewhat different spin on resource gathering, each alien race gathers its own resources differently. The Novus, for example, are very quick with resource gathering and since they're so quick, one gameplay tactic is just to swarm their bases rather than trying to take an attrition warfare approach. As for the Hierarchy, they automatically generate resources through their mobile bases.

Another highlight is the game's visuals. Powered by a modified version of the Alamo engine (first used in Empire at War), Universe at War looks pretty spectacular. With a game like Supreme Commander, your hardware will definitely chug when the gaming gets massive, but with Universe at War, all the textures continue to look crisp and fine as the war goes on. It's definitely neat to see the Hierarchy's walkers just walk through forests or over mountains with ease.

Unfortunately, I found the single-player campaign to be a bit lackluster. One of the main faults was the overly generic and pretty predictable storyline. The campaign suffers from some rather horrendous boring aspects, which may turn-off players. It's kind of weird how the campaign plays out; there's a risk-styled 'conquer the world' set of missions near the end of the game, which feels a bit rushed. Fortunately, the appeal is definitely there for multiplayer since your imagination can run wild on what to do.

The game also suffers from pathfinding issues. It ranges from some rather annoyingly long walk-paths to units just randomly roaming around the area; that can get especially annoying when units have to guard areas to complete objectives! I also found that the voice-acting was a little spotty in some areas, especially in the tutorial, ugh.

Universe at War offers a lot of variety in its different alien races, which will certainly leave strategy gamers feeling entertained while playing the game. Unfortunately, the game suffers from a bland single player campaign and some spotty pathfinding issues. Other than that, its strategy gameplay, unique races, and interesting combat gives a lot to enjoy.

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