Universe at War: Earth Assault

Developer: Petroglyph Games
Publisher:  Sega

Universe at War has a bit of a misleading title, when I first heard about the game, I thought you'd pick from several alien factions and then duke it out throughout the Universe. Well I got the first part right, but you only get to fight on Planet Earth despite the Humans not even being a playable faction (huh?).

The campaign progresses in a linear fashion as you take control of the stealthy but underpowered Novus, the amazingly awesome and devastating Hierarchy, whose production facilities also double as giant walking mechs of death and the Masari, who are the more traditional RTS faction, I definitely enjoyed playing as the last two, but I got the feeling Novus' stealth abilities don't really make up for how weak their units really are.

I was also not a fan of the campaign, didn't care for most of the plot or the characters with the exception of Orlok, a battle weary Hierarchy General, the missions themselves weren't too interesting either, with the exception of the final stage for each faction, I always felt like the skirmishes were too small in scale.

Universe at War features cross-platform multiplayer, meaning you can play the PC version against  Xbox 360 players, I'd love to see how well implemented this is, but unfortunately the servers are completely empty, so no luck there. At least you have the usual single player Skirmish options as well as Scenario mode, which places you in a map similar to "Risk" as each player takes turn in taking over territories for bonuses, that mode was pretty fun.

Overall, I have to say, there's no real point in getting this game, the campaign is pretty dull and the online servers are empty and while the Hierarchy is pretty fun to play, it alone can't save the rest of game's shortcomings.

Trivia: Did you know that a lot of the developers behind Universe at War were also involved in the creation of Dune 2?

Pros:

- Three very distinct factions
- Playing as the Hierarchy is awesome
- Scenario mode is pretty cool

Cons:

- The Campaign is pretty boring

- Online servers are completely empty
- I'm fairly certain the Novus are underpowered

Final Grade: D+

I remember buying the game, staring at the box art and having no idea what the heck I was looking at! Is this an alien? A Reactor? A Power Core? After finishing the campaign I now know that it's Kamal Rex, one of the bad guys from the Hierarchy, but still, I really have to wonder how could anyone think that this was a good cover?

 The Manual itself is pretty decent by RTS standards it tells you a little backstory, and gives you some small stats for your vehicles, overall the information is not terribly deep by RTS manual standards, but it does its job fine I suppose.

Packaging score: C-