Real-time strategy games absolutely require a flexible and expansive control scheme to function, and on the consoles it is often what makes or breaks a game. Universe at War is noteworthy in that it easily brings with it one of the most accessible RTS control schemes the console world has seen. At the same time the game itself suffers from numerous issues that attack the very bedrock that all RTS games are based upon.
In the game, Earth has been attacked by an alien race known as the Hierarchy, a group of aliens that go from planet to planet eliminating all sentient life and strip mining the planet of its resources. Humanity itself is not only caught completely unaware with both their existence and sudden attack, and within a couple days the casualty count becomes staggering. No sooner than humanity is on the brink of extinction the Novus portal onto the scene, a race of artificially intelligent mechanoids that have been waging a constant crusade against the Hierarchy. As if humanity isn’t already collectively dumbstruck but this sudden intergalactic war taking place literally in their backyard the Masari show up to the party as well, which not only created the Hierarchy but don’t take too kindly to either side of the conflict.
One thing that Universe at Wardoes well is that it throws a lot of the more stale RTS conventions out the window. The human side of the conflict is only playable for a few levels, and isn’t even actually a playable race in multiplayer nor as one of the single player campaigns. The game’s three sides do a great job of being unique not only amongst each other but in comparison to other games in the genre. The Novus are fast moving and work well in swarms, while the two-sided Masari can take either a dark or light form with their associated pros and cons and the Hierarchy lumber above the battlefield in their customizable walkers.
The walker units are one of the more interesting concepts the genre has seen in some time. The units are costly and slow moving quadrupeds that stand hundreds of feet tall and are covered in hard points that the player can load hardware such as laser cannons, infantry spawners, and other assorted capabilities. This means that not only can the player who wields the walker tailor it more towards the role they want it to play, but at the same time players looking to take it down must first target individual hard points as they see fit to remove some of its capabilities before finally downing it for good.
The control scheme still isn’t a match for the capabilities a keyboard and mouse can perform, but at the same time serve as a shining example of how to implement RTS controls on a gamepad. The left stick controls the movement of the player’s viewpoint across the map, with the cursor always stuck right in the middle to facilitate ease of use. The right stick pivots the camera as well as zooms the viewpoint in and out, and clicking it in resets the viewpoint to the default orientations. The A button is used for selecting units and giving them orders, and double-pressing A makes the unit move more quickly at the expense of firing at nearby enemies along the way.
Other buttons are context sensitive based on what unit or structures you have selected, such as the left trigger accessing build orders on structures. However, if a group of units are selected it will display all possible special actions they can perform. The right bumper is used to select groups of units such as every unit of the same type or a player’s custom groups which are created by selecting a group of units and pressing the Back button. Overall the control scheme does have a bit of a learning curve, but once that is surpassed controlling units is about as easy as a gamepad is capable of delivering on.
The single player game plays out in a manner that is less realistic than it is seemingly ripped out of a comic book, and ultimately is quite predictable. Mirabel is the lone organic unit in the Novus forces who pilots an anime-styled robotic battle suit named Viktor, who immediately finds a sort of kinship with the surviving humans and often disobeys direct orders from the Novus commander whose robotic nature is repeatedly delivered as subtly as a brick to the face. The plot simply fails to capitalize on the unique foundations it has, and instead devolves into a predictable series of events backed by levels that more often force the player to complete objectives in a very strict method rather than let them experiment with the full palette of units even near the end of each race’s campaigns.
