Universe at War Review
Universe at War: Earth Assault is really a game that I was rooting for ever since it was announced. Petroglyph, the studio behind Star Wars: Empire at War, finally had a chance to develop an original title from scratch with no ties to anything else at all. If you're not in the know, Petroglyph represents what is left of the former and legendary Westwood Studios. Electronic Arts acquired Westwood in 1998, only to close down the studio several years later before moving the staff to EA's California offices. Many of the original Westwood employees instead opted to stay in Las Vegas and to help create the virtual successor to Westwood, Petroglyph Studios, in 2003.
As most gamers know, Westwood was behind the insanely popular Command & Conquer games, as well as some others, such as the highly influential Dune II and Earth and Beyond. After its creation, the Petroglyph team immediately began working on an RTS product set in the Star Wars universe, called Empire at War. While this was most likely meant to help get them on their feet, in very little time they began working on their first original RTS property: Universe at War, which they hoped would be as big as Westwood's Command and Conquer franchise. So after much hype and debate in the RTS community, and a somewhat flat beta test program, the big day has come and Universe at War is finally on shelves and in our hands.
Universe at War: Earth Assault was developed by Petroglyph, which is composed of many former Westwood Studios staff members.
Universe at War throws modern day man into a conflict that has stretched across the universe and back before finally arriving at Earth itself. Aggressively lead by the evil Hierarchy, their invasion on Earth itself hits with full force and is supported by Hierarchy motherships in Earth's orbit and huge walkers on the ground. The walkers themselves make the tripods in the movie War of the Worlds look friendly and destroy virtually everything in their path without prejudice. Without help, mankind is surely doomed to perish or exist merely as slaves in the best-case scenario. Enter the Novus and the Masari.
The Novus and the Masari are the two "friendly" alien races who jump into the mix, just in time no less to stop the utter elimination of the human race. The Novus make their appearance first, immediately after the very short-lived human prequel campaign. Initially, the Novus are very cautious about interacting with humans, as they have their own prerogative for being on Earth and do not wish to meddle in human affairs. Unfortunately, for the Novus, a primarily AI computer-based race, their one and only carbon-life-form-based leader ends up getting a bit too curious and sympathetic for the humans, which puts the Novus in a messy situation. As curiosity turns into desire to help, the Novus end up sticking around longer than they intended to help fight for the survival of the human race. Not the best deal for the Novus, but the humans certainly need the help.
Universe at War has traditional RTS gameplay as well as a compelling story.
As for the other friendly race, it turns out that the Masari have been on Earth for quite some time, hiding deep in the depths of the ocean while the Hierarchy go from planet to planet enslaving or destroying everything they come across. The Masari themselves faced near extinction despite their in-depth understanding and manipulation of energy itself. Earth was ultimately a hiding place for them and the attack on Earth by the Hierarchy awoke the beings who were actually viewed as gods by early humans. Luckily, the Masari are a good race, and have nothing but noble intentions.
The good news is that the story of the campaign is actually pretty good. Each side has a good enough reason to be involved in the conflict, and you'll end up actually wanting to find out what happens with each side in all three campaigns. The Hierarchy campaign is actually interesting, even though you're playing as a side that gets off on wiping out entire civilizations. I don't want to ruin the surprise of how Petroglyph ends up making an evil race satisfying to play, but there are some good plot twists and shockers in store.
The bad news is that the single-player campaigns are short, and the final Masari campaign is in an embarrassingly unfinished state. For some odd reason, Petroglyph completely cut out the dialogue between missions and even cut scenes themselves during the Masari campaign, at least until the very end. Furthermore, the design of the Masari campaign switches from a point-A-to-point-B-style mission progression into what can only be described as a poor man's under-developed Risk game. To add insult to injury, the Risk style mission progression mode does not even function as it was obviously supposed to, where the player would reinforce locations with bases and units and progress along while being attacked by the Hierarchy as the days progressed. Instead, the Hierarchy never do a damn thing but hang tight in the sectors, which they already control and ignore the player day after day as the world turns. Almost all efforts made by the player to take part in the building of bases, technology research, spy missions and even super-weapon defense networks are done with virtually no purpose at all. This alone shows that Universe at War was nearly without a doubt rushed out the door by Sega before it was actually completed.
Join our discussion on this topic
