Universe at War

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I understand this game has been out in the States for a while now, has anyone here bought it?

I am quite tempted to get it when it comes out here, but I would like to hear some opinions on it before I do - the demo is very limited and only has a couple of campaign missions, and according to reviews the campaign is the weakest part of the game.

So what is it like? I would mostly be playing it on LANs and the 'world campaign' singleplayer mode - so I'm not so bothered about the retarded Windows Xbox Live lock-in the online multiplayer has.

[SylasGaunt]

Different is a good way to put it. It tries to do a lot of new things and I had a great deal of fun with it before getting sucked off to another game. The sides are different in some quote interesting ways to the point that they even upgrade differently for the most part.

Novus- The weakest faction offensively, but also the most mobile thanks to their power transmission network (think power lines). You build one and it creates a field in which Novus buildings will remain active (you can actually build anywhere you like IIRC but you won't get any juice unless you're in range of a tower). Those things are also cloaked so you can do thinks like set up sub bases way the hell off the beaten track quickly since instead of building their own plant you just build a power line. What really makes them nasty though is the fact that Novus can transmit it's units over these lines meaning they can concentrate force in response to an attack anywhere on the map that's within their grid in seconds.. or sneak build those lines right up towards your base and vomit up an entire assault force.

Heirarchy- Odd in the RTS sense in that their bases are mobile.. and their combat units. The alkers are hideously powerful combatants when properly kitted out and you build your bases on their backs essentially aside from the initial landing zone. Therefore it's quite possible to stomp your way into an enemy base while manufacturing an army on the go.

Masari- Closest to the traditional RTS archetype generally. Pretty nifty in that every one of their units is essentially two units with the light and dark modes. Light mode stuff tends to handle ranged stuff better, shooting from farther away and having an increased sight range. Dark mode has more damage and units begin accumulating dark matter armor (think protoss style shielding). The changes can be extreme to with for example air units becoming ground bound and such. They're good if you like building up a base and heavy defenses and they've got a superweapon not too different from the particle canning from C&C generals.

Oh and there's the fourth side in humanity.. which just tends to get raped horribly but then you only use them for the first couple missions while desperately trying to kill single Heirarchy infantrymen with multiple squads of soldiers.


It's not the most revolutionary RTS game out there but it's got the guts to try new things and the gameplay is pretty solid and the game's got a ton of references in it from the Mirabel hero unit from Novus who looks a lot like the Weissritter from Super Robot Wars (and attacks with anime style heavy beams and missile barrages), to the Novus heavy fighter that pulls a Death Blossom for it's special attack.

[Shinova]

It's extremely cheesy but I got used to the cheesiness after a few campaign missions. When the Novus first appeared, I was like, "Anime robots!!" and the cheese and corny factor hit pretty hard after that. The Masari too are pretty cheesy. Hierarchy not quite so, although their leaders totally give off the evil conquering greys from space feel. Very cartoony, but interesting.

Novus flow conduits rock.

[SylasGaunt]

I love that one skill the big floating grayish Heirarchy hero has where he flings everything caught within the AOE into orbit for easy harvesting.

[defanatic]

I thought the teams were supposed to be sci-fi cliche's. :S

It's fun, but it's a little bit buggy though, and they've missed out on some important features an RTS should have.

[Zac Naloen]

I thought the teams were supposed to be sci-fi cliche's. :S

It's fun, but it's a little bit buggy though, and they've missed out on some important features an RTS should have.

What sort of features?

[SAMAS]

I thought the teams were supposed to be sci-fi cliche's. :S

In a word:

Hierarchy: Classic Sci-Fi (WotW, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, etc..)

Novus: Anime Sci-Fi (but the Ultra High-Tech stuff like Vandread, Dirty Pair, etc..., rather than the gritty Twenty Minutes Into the Future stuff like Gundam and Macross)

Masari: Mystic Sci-Fantasy

[defanatic]

I thought the teams were supposed to be sci-fi cliche's. :S

It's fun, but it's a little bit buggy though, and they've missed out on some important features an RTS should have.

What sort of features?

Erm... Things like consitent auto-repair. There are a bunch of units in the game that can repair, but only one will autonomously start repairing things around it.

Build queues are tiny, 5 for most, 15 for one particular team

And some of it is rather cluggy, like trying to select things just after moving the screen via the minimap may result in you looking at another location entirely.

I like it though, it just needs some ironing out.