Universe at War: Earth Assault

Illegal Aliens

It's fair to say, then, that Universe at War gets plenty of things right. Unfortunately, it also gets a few really key things wrong - badly wrong enough to upset quite a lot of the sterling work Petroglyph has done on the factions and balance. There are huge, glaring problems with both the single-player and the multiplayer aspects of the game, which doesn't leave a whole lot of untainted ground in the middle.

Let's look at the single-player first. The structure here is fairly conventional, with the player taking on the roles of all three major races (first the Novus, then the Hierarchy and later the Masari) as you progress through the story. The individual missions, however, are extremely weak - and do little to showcase the strengths of the game in terms of balance and innovation.

Most of the missions are very heavily scripted, offering no opportunity to experiment with the strategic options on offer. You're generally funnelled down one clear path, and strategy tends to dissolve into a case of simply ordering a big group of units to the requisite point on the map to trigger the next cut-scene. Later in the game, things open up a little and you get a little more decision-making ability, but it's still fairly restrictive.

Moreover, the game largely removes the research system from the campaign - something which isn't uncommon in RTS game campaigns, we admit, but which feels terribly disappointing in a game which has expended so much effort on creating great research benefits. Instead, you're given a cropped-down and restricted sub-set of each faction to play about with, which doesn't give a realistic impression of the faction's capabilities.

In the game's defence, it does offer single-player users a pretty competent skirmish mode, as well as the option to play through some pre-rolled scenarios. Both of these modes give you the full monty as regards research, units and buildings, and offer a chance to get your teeth into proper strategic play - although the AI is somewhat predictable, and not remotely as much fun as playing against human opponents.

It probably goes without saying, then, that if you're not into multiplayer, you won't find a lot of value for money in Universe At War. It's when you roll your army out against other human players that the game really comes into its own - the beautiful balance of the three diverse factions, the wide array of strategic options and the need to react to your opponents' research choices all combining into a genuinely great experience.

Certainly, it's not without its flaws - we got very annoyed by the fact that the camera can't zoom out to take in a decent portion of the battlefield, leaving you with a very tight viewpoint on a couple of large units, and no overview of the surrounding area. You'll spend a depressing amount of time peering at the tiny mini-map or scrolling around, which is ridiculous - and perhaps a symptom of the game's rather creaky graphics engine, which looks reasonably good but runs into fairly serious performance bottlenecks on a regular basis.

Satan Live

The single biggest flaw, however, is on the verge of being a deal-breaker - and it lies in Petroglyph's frankly baffling decision to use Games for Windows LIVE for its online functionality. Now, sure, this enables nifty features like Achievements, but it's also, frankly, utterly broken on a lot of systems - and to add injury to insult, Universe at War doesn't enable its most interesting game modes unless you're a Games for Windows LIVE Gold subscriber.

That's fine if you're an Xbox Live Gold subscriber already, for instance (although that still doesn't change the fact that Live on Windows is buggy, unstable and badly implemented) - but if you're not, you'll have to pay for a Live Gold subscription in order to use the Conquer the World and Ranked Match options in multiplayer. Given that Conquer the World, where you challenge other players for control of territories, is by far the most interesting mode, this is a massive pain.

It gets worse, though. Because of this restriction, you'll also need a Gold account to get the higher Achievements in the game. Achievements give you in-game medals which you can use to boost your stats as you play - so what this boils down to is that Gold users are being given in-game bonuses over and above those who opt not to pay for features that PC games have offered for free for decades. This is a shockingly poor decision, and if if puts people off buying the game, frankly, we can't blame them.

The heart of Universe at War is a beautifully crafted strategy game which could have been one of the best things in the genre in years. This just makes it even more tragic that it's let down by a passable but unimpressive graphics engine, utterly dull single-player and the disastrous decision to use the godawful Games for Windows Live Gold service for multiplayer.