Cheap Universal Combat (Software) (Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of Universal Combat

What was I thinking?

This game freezes often, and I can't even find the "Quit" option. Apparently, the developers wanted to make it a puzzle just trying to figure out how to move your ship or fire your guns. You can't do anything in this game, it crashes, freezes, you can't control it, and in the campaign you dont even know what to do. The best part is that you can't even save or load or go to an options screen. This waste of a CD should be taken out of every store in the world. Trust me, I enjoy all sorts of games from Hearts of Iron to Raven Shield to Battlefield 1942 and Starfleet Command III - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME OR ANY OTHER GAME MADE BY DEREK SMART.

Forget the rules...
This is what you need to do to appreciate this game:

FORGET ALL THE ESTABLISHED RULES OF MAINSTREAM GAMES!!!

Done that? Good.

Now, the most important thing to remember is to read the manual before you begin. That is what it is for. Unlike most (if not all) other games, the manual actually performs a function. Funnily enough, it tells you how to play the game.

Secondly, make sure you have the latest patch (which, contrary to 'a gamer from Portland', you are not required to register to download. I know this because I downloaded it BEFORE I registered). This will fix many of the reported issues, most of which are there due to development time constraints.

Thirdly, do not expect to just jump in this game and start blasting alien scum within ten minutes. If you do, you will hate this game and, unfortunately, have bought the wrong game for your particular tastes. You will need to spend time learning the control system and basically getting the 'feel' of the game.

Once you have done all this, however, you end up with a game that gives you a LOT. Certainly in the Roam mode, you are basically in the middle of an entire virtual universe where you can do just about anything. Whilst you are encouraged towards combat (as the name would suggest), you can just as easily become a peaceful explorer, trader or miner. What is rather unique about this game, and a very good thing, in my opinion, is the complexity. In most spacey type games, there is no real distinction between your ship and you. In this, you actually play a character as opposed to a ship, so, for example, you can send your AE (Alter Ego, your game character) into a shuttle, launch from your battlecruiser and use the shuttle to do some trading whilst you order your battlecruiser to attack an enemy starbase. The most complex I've had it (so far) is, on a planet, having a naval group giving covering artillery fire to a detachment of infantry marines assaulting a planetary base backed up by armoured cavalry whilst, at the same time, in space, having my carrier class ship attacking a starbase with support from two battlecruiser escorts and using its fighter wings as a guard against enemy reinforcements entering the system whilst my AE was using a shuttle to trade to raise some money and having a couple of drones on a planet doing some mining.

There are some negative points. The first is that yes, the graphics do look a LITTLE dated, but unlike most modern games, it is the gameplay that makes this game, not flashy graphics.

Secondly, there are quite a few bugs, but these are being worked out as I type. This is the only thing that makes me say that unless you are quite patient, you maybe shouldn't buy it....yet. On the other hand, if you are not quite patient, you are not going to enjoy this game anyway, as it requires an investment in time and brain-power to get the most of.

In conclusion, I would say this is a game you would either love with a passion, or loathe with a passion. If you like highly in-depth, complex games that give a lot of satisfaction if you give it an investment of time and energy, you are probably going to be the former.

If I could give 0 stars, I would
Other reviewers have done a fine job of hashing out this title's many bad points so rather than restate the obvious I will just confirm (again) that this title is worthless. I have a very high tollerance for mediocrity in games and can usually find SOMEthing to like about even the most abyssmal title; this game is an exception. I still own pretty much every game I've ever bought, and I have never taken one back because I didn't like it, no matter how bad it was. Once again, this game is the exception.

Do not buy this game, for any price. Unless perhaps you can find it for 99 cents in a few years on some dusty little shelf in the back of some store, it might make a nice coaster. Though even for 99 cents, you can probably find something better to spend your money on. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with this game and a computer, I would sooner rig a pulley to drop the monitor on my face than have to play it.

Horrible.