Customer Reviews

Universal Combat

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Having played (and really having come close to liking) every game in the Battlecruiser series and having followed the development of Battlecruiser Generations, I thought perhaps this time around Derek Smart and company might get it right. But, alas, it was not to be.

Being a devoted grognard, traditional wargamer, and military studies aficionado, I can tolerate a steep learning curve and less than obvious interface, all plastered over a hardcore simulation. But Universal Combat failed to live up to any of the developers' promises or my expectations. Thank god the publisher had the presence of mind to realise this was a budget title. If Derek Smart had his way, I'd be about $29.95 more ticked that I bought this game.

Right from the rocky start just trying to get the program installed, to the option controls that don't respond or revert to previous settings, I realised I had been promised a ship and a star to sail her by but had chugged off in a lemon once again. And then the game continued to perform like a "champ" throughout, frequently crashing, misplacing interface elements, and otherwise dying in its own misery.

The game manual is as convoluted as all the other battlecruiser titles, riddled with acronyms whose definitions are buried in pages and pages of small type. There is some semblance of organization to the thing, but the biggest problem is that there is no connection between using the bogglingly complex interface and actually accomplishing something with the systems simulated in the game.

As in the more poorly executed Battlecruiser Millenium, the ground, sea, and air combat modes seem to be included as pure gloss. None of these modes function well or gave me any reason to come back for more. Most annoying was the complete absence of any sense of physics, especially on the ground. I've seen graphics driver demos with more realism.

To Dreamcatcher's credit, the graphics are far superior to any other game in the Battlecruiser series. However, the problem is that Dreamcatcher seems to be developing all the graphics for games in the series with a 2-4 year shift back in time. While occasionally pretty, I couldn't help feel that I was playing an old game, even though the brand new box was sitting right on my desk.

The ultimate flaw in the game itself was the total absense of any sense of progress. After many crushing engagements where my ship (pick any class, type, or purpose) was routinely destroyed before having built up enough resources to repair it or refit, I began to succeed in ship to ship combat. But beyond that, there was absolutely no sense of having any kind of impact on the game world. It seems the game developer expects one to gain a sense of accomplishment from figuring out the game interface and pretending one is involved in some kind of greater conflict. The convoluted campaigns seem to have no ultimate point. While you can, as promised, go anywhere you like and do whatever you want within the large scope of the game, what you do matters little and has no identifiable outcome. There is nothing to draw one in on any side or measure effect; playing one ship, exploring a planet, or fighting any one battle is pretty much like another, and none of these gives any sense of having accomplished anything.

The final straw for me was the developer's support. Let's get this out right now: Derek Smart is mad at the publisher for cutting the price of his game, so his development team is not going to support it. The site is filled with Derek's diatribes talking this game up as being the biggest masterpiece of mixed gameplay, massive scope, and rewards for everyone, and explains how angry he is that his work of art is not universally loved and appreciated except by his fans who understand him and what he is trying to do. In place of support, he condescendingly criticizes those who say anything different or can't solve their own problems. The theme here is that it is not the game or the developer who have failed; it is everyone else - the players, the publisher, the market. Don't expect to find a solution to Universal Combat's myriad problems here.

Bottom line: This game could have filled a niche that is empty in the industry - a game with huge scope, complexity, and challenge extending beyond mere shoot-em up. Instead, this game is a barely functional shell that promises everything but delivers little.

I played and enjoyed Smart's Battlecruiser Millennium Gold, and hoped this would be a solid update in the series. Boy, was I wrong. This game is a mess - incredibly buggy, the graphics are a little better than BMG but not by much, and it lacks the stately, thoughful pace of previous games that allowed the player to immerse himself (or herself) in the Battlecruiser universe.

Please, save your money. If you want to play a game where the concept worked much better, buy a copy of Battlecruiser Millennium Gold. It's a bit dated, but thoroughly enjoyable.

I've been watching the progress of Universal Combat for a long time. Now that i finally have it i can say this. If you are looking for a stable well put together game that mixes planetside and freelancer, you will be thourghly sadened.

No one will like this game. Those that like the slower pace of the BattleCrusier Games, you will find that this game is unplayable. The game is buggy and terrible.

I know the amazon blerb says physics engine but this is not true. There are animations for the deaths, not physics based, and more importanly, the game has no way for you to go into bases. There is no crash ditection! your character can "go through" bases, trees, vehicles, its terrible.

The graphics are way past dated. They resemble Quake 2. The information that you see long distance about objects ubstructs the screen. The text has a background so you can't see verywell.

The learning curve is off the roof, this is hampered by the fact that alot of things don't work properly. When colliding with anything your character lays down. And if you go through something, you start to sink into the floor.

This is the shottiest game i have ever seen.

Idea wise its great, but the steap learning curve and gameplay issues kill this game.

Alot of the originally proposed ideas from Battle Cruiser Generations never made it in. The half assed job done by 3000AD is evident when you start the game and the startup image is of Battle Cruiser Generations, not universal Combat.

Please do not get this game, your throwing your money away!! Get the demo from 3000ad.com and try that, if for somereason you like it then get the game. But for those looking for a tribes/planetside/freelancer crossover game don't get this!!

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.

I bought this game a few days ago. It was a classic story that just made me want to buy the game: Game developer with a great deal of pride fighting his greedy publisher. the developer was a complete underdog in my eyes. Heck, I was about to send him directly a 20 dollar money order to make up for the way his publisher treated him.

Then I loaded the game.

UC loaded fine, but when I went to run it the problems began. I received a codec not found error, then after I continued through I received an error stating I had a debugger running? Well, I went to the developer's website and forums for aid only to find new registrations were closed and I could not post for support. I did read through the posts, and what I found was a bit disturbing. Everyone walked on eggshells in how they worded their posts, and the developer would routinely insult and berate his customers. He seemed to not like people who couldn't figure out problems themselves. I did not feel comfortable at all and left.

I resolved the problem myself, as it was a conflict with the DIVX 5.1 codec. (thanks to google.com. ;) ) I entered the game, and I was very dissapointed with what I saw. The game has a *very* steep learning curve if you didn't play a previous battlecruiser game. The manual seems to be organized well, but it is laid out in a manner that requires a more in-depth study to figure things out. Anacronyms fill the game, and rudamentary definitions are provided for them. There are NO IN-GAME TUTORIALS. Up until recently there weren't any out of game tutorials until the developer rushed to create a PDF file along with the demo. The graphics aren't bad, but they are far from current technology. I would gladly accept the graphics as is if gameplay wasn't so awkward. The user interface is horrible. it is not intuitive, there are graphic glitches with the GUI(flashing poly's, misplaced indicators), and there are layers upon layers of awkward menus that take you away from the main screen. This would all be fixed with a customizable user interface similar to a lot of the online MMO games where windows could be positioned and layered. The game crashes to desktop regularly. The feedback system from your crew in commander career mode is poor. It took me a few hours for everything to sink in as to who was telling me what. Allied crafts don't always do as they are told. sure it may be a touch of realism, but there isn't any feedback as to whether it's "as designed" or a glitch. This game is rife with glitches. This game touts air-sea-land-space combat. the physics engine for land is based on the space engine. flying a craft in the amosphere feels like flying in Zero-g. It's not a flight sim, it's not a true first person shooter. The shared engine for all combat modes needs a better physics engine to make each mode enjoyable and realistic. I found no entertainment in any profesion besides commander. Perhaps multiplayer is a different story, but I didn't try MP.

Some die-hards out there will really love this game as I suspect there is a redeeming value underneath the very rough appearance. However many will not stay long enough to find it. I am still playing the game, or attempting to... it crashes to desktop a lot. in a two hour session, about 4 times.

Oh, and this all was verified with the new patch. the latest 2/10/04 patch did little to help the game stablity.

This is a niche app, and a budget category game. There are lofty dreams by the developer for this game, but in my opinion it has a very far way to go. Casual gamers looking for a fun story driven space game, do not buy this. Hardcore space combat fans might love it if they are willing to wait on the fixes for the glaring errors, crashes, and glitches. But I'm not rating this from the perspective of a die-hard, but from a casual gamer and consumer. I think dreamcatcher did right by making this a 20 dollar game, and even at that I don't think it's right to release a game with so many bugs and stability issues.

Needless to say, I no longer feel as if I should send the extra 20 dollars. Infact I'm seriously considering contacting my state attorney general to see about getting my money back on this game, as it does not deliver as advertized.

This game has a horrible user interface and a nearly useless manual. The premise is awesome but the execution is terrible. I don't think that I have much more to add to the reviews here other than to say that I truly tried to like this game. The premise is so darn cool that I really really wanted to like it. I read the manual. I re-read the manual. I played it with the manual next to me. Finally I had to give it up.

I am very very disappointed in this game.

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.

...

I heard that the reviewers who gave the previous release a 5 star rating (Battlecruiser Millenium: GOLD) were all devoted fans or even "orchestra" of Mr. Smart.I would really suggest all of you to check to a website like gamestop or something like that before geting a somewhat objective review of the game.
The thing that is the most ridiculous is that all of Mr. Smart's devoted fans are talking the same garbage about X2 and Freelancer ("...it has ONLY good graphics.The immersion sux...blah blah blah" ... something like that). So please, read the reviews on a more objective site.
I was a customer of his (in the past years) but my status totaly changed when i challenged my opinions on his forums.Does "Fascism" ring a bell? In a democracy you can speak up - negative points of view are flamed and people get banned (even not being able to DL a patch afterwards - stay away from the forums)

About this game: Its quite a potential that all other developers had picked it up before this game was up.Just look E.V.E. ONLINE - now THAT's a game.X3 shows much promise. Its the depth that lacks and the broken promises that Mr. Smart (not so smart anyway) made years back. (Like transporting to other ships, a "WORKING" interface,far better graphics,able to controll SEA vehicles...etc.).The thing that frustrates me most is how he gets away with that :) In my opinion,flaming others because someone doesnt like the game is self-explainatory. Its just toping the fact that the game is done pretty bad for these day's standards - no excuses !!! WE ARE THE ONE'S WHO BUY IT !!!

Graphics:old and poor (no spatial effects like debris and a real feeling of SPACE.There is only a bitmap of nebulae and thats about it).The shielding effect is the only one i liked most - and the spaceship's design is impressive but not unseen in other games.
Sound:bad and boring.
Gameplay:Has huge potential.Its a verry complex game but lacks depth and a sense of having a part in the UC universe.AIR SEA SPACE LAND ... well ,SEA missions do not exist - no SEA carriers to play with and thus being in command of such :).Good if you love going to planets,discovering (dead) "new" places on all the globe.The idea of a "nuclear" war is somewhat cool,but dissapointing.Its nice to play for about a few hours,but then it gets really boring - no NPC interaction leave everything to your immagination.The idea is great,but Smart's work is not so SMART :)

I hope i didnt hurt ANYONE's feelings :)

Cheers!

When I started to play this game it had terrible graphics and the game commands are very complicated. I am glad that my friend opened it before I did, because I am returning it right now! Its horrible!

I have never been motivated enough to review a game before this one. Good or bad, I pretty much just played until I got bored and figured I had my money's worth.

All of that changed with Universal Combat.

To put it simply, the game is absolutely AWFUL! Everything that has been written about it - the lack of stability, the graphics straight out of the 1980's, the incredibly complex interface, the myriad array of choices that really don't impact the gameplay in the slightest - are all true. This game truly is a piece of garbage.

The only good thing I can say about this game - and I am stretching here - is that the box art is cool.

I can't even sell the game to someone else... I'd feel too guilty about it.