Universal Combat: A World Apart (PC)

Level Design

I should really have said Universe design here rather than levels, you can expect some nicely decorated planets to land on, replete with mission zones and a few surprises here and there to keep you on your toes. Overall there’s a massive Universe to play around in that has been created with just enough detail to keep you from becoming bored and to ensure that you don’t need a ‘42’ Gigahertz processor to run it.

Sound

Adequately done sound, it doesn’t boast impressive audio effects – but in space, really, no one should be able to hear you scream. What effects the game does use are good/solid and they do the job nicely – its not crammed full of useless audio.

Voice

There’s the background chatter, which can be turned off, the various messages from your officers and all of the voice work in the game is passable. Again rather like the sound there’s enough to add to the overall feel of the game, but not enough to overload you and no hour-long Metal Gear like speeches.

Music

Some fairly nice up-tempo pieces, a little heavy in places but the option is there for you to turn off the music. What’s there I didn’t hate and that in of itself is a rarity for me in games since I am fairly picky about the type of music that accompanies a game.

AI

It can make mistakes and there are several levels of AI at work here, the AI that runs in the background and governs your ship’s crew/personnel is pretty much invisible though you can track their status through the 2d management screens and make sure they’re going where you told them to. The combat AI is fairly solid and the various battles are intense and satisfying with a decent level of skill required to survive in the hostile Universe.

Enemy AI can be quite ruthless and will exploit weaknesses in your ship’s defences, trying to take out systems with boarding parties and so on. In combat they prove to have a varying degree of skill and in the further-out systems you can run into some tough cookies indeed.

Final Words

If I were to list everything that’s inside UC: AWA then we’d have a small novel instead of a review. It is a comprehensive space simulation game and requires a lot of time to get the best out of, there are some quirks and 3000AD are dedicated to support/patching the game through their auto-patcher and their own forums.

Pros:

• Massive space sim, with more than enough to keep you occupied for years.
• Intense space battles.
• Free roaming, multiplayer game modes. (Coop included)
• Good, solid gameplay.
• A step above UC, UC: Gold.
• True open-ended gameplay.

Cons:

• Complex: requiring digestion of the large manual.
• Graphics may put some people off.
• Large game may put off instant-action junkies.

Despite a couple of crashes to my desktop, which I am sure is a-typical of computers being computers, I had a lot of fun with this game and it provided for me a return to the glory days of Elite when I could be master of my own skies/space and be beholden to no-one but myself. I like the free-roaming aspect and the solid MP element of the game proves that it can be done.

Anyone that says such games like X3: Reunion can’t have MP and Coop MP is selling you something. 3000AD’s game has all the MP features you would expect from a sci-fi MMORPG without the pay-2-play price-plan and keeps a solid, stable platform throughout.

So there you have it. Universal Combat: A World Apart…forgetting uber-shiny graphics and brain-popping eye-candy for a moment. If you want a solid playable space sim, with excellent support – then UC: AWA and 3000AD deliver what they promised.