Developer: Petroglyph

Publisher: Sega

Release Date: March 25, 2008

System: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PC

ESRB Rating: T

Official Web site

0:00 I'm not very good at or interested in real-time strategy games, but good reviews, the Sega name and an Xbox 360 version convinced me to try this one out.

0:01 A starry sky... oh, no, it's actually the electric lights of a planet, with the sun rising in a thin corona. Some military guys shoot through the dust then get attacked by alien walker thingies right out of "War of the Worlds." Driving rock music accompanies the carnage. Suddenly, some bright white mechs straight out of "Gundam" show up, along with sleek metal robots straight out of the Star Wars prequels. The music turns all techno as they fire missiles at the big walker, bringing him down. Fade to title.

0:03 I'm afraid I'll have to go through the video tutorial. Sorry if this turns out to be boring. I learn that Resources have to be collected. "Without adequate raw materials on hand, your army is doomed to failure." Good advice for real life, too.

0:06 The research tree is apparently "a rich feature of Universe at War," if the game does say so itself -- and it does.

0:07 These tutorial videos seem to skip over the basics like, er, controls and basic goals, and go straight to the higher level stuff like building power stations. Part of me likes this approach, but another part of me is afraid I'm going to be overwhelmed when I actually start the game proper.

0:10 Patches can improve buildings, blah blah blah.

0:11 I can play as the walkers and I can upgrade their abilities using hardpoints! Sa-weet!

0:12 This tutorial is going way too fast. I'm never going to remember all this stuff. It already feels like there's going to be a lot of micromanagement, which I hate. I hope they ease into it in the actual gameplay.

0:15 Done watching the tutorial videos. On to the Campaign mode (and not a moment too soon). I really hope they're gentle. I choose "easy" difficulty just in case.

0:16 "On the distant world of Lieta Novus, events are in motion that will profoundly alter Earth's future forever." Cut to a robotic showroom floor. "Wormhole tunneling has commenced." The Novus forces (the "Gundam" robots) have just heard that the Hierarchy (the walkers) have invaded Earth (our planet).

0:18 Seem this first mission is also a tutorial that goes over the basic controls that were skipped in the videos, thank god. Left stick moves the camera, right stick rotates and zooms. It's surprisingly simple.

0:19 I'm told to make a robot move from one position to another. "But my purpose is pain! Please provide more aggressive input!" he says plaintively. HA!

0:21 This robot has a duplicate function. "More of me means less of you." Heh. Quick buttons for selecting multiple units and embiggening the radar. I'm liking the controls so far.

0:24 Building stuff, hum dee dum.

0:26 Mirabel is my Hero. Really, she is: a human in a robotic suit that has special abilities that the other robots don't.

0:29 Selecting groups and moving them is apparently so important that I have to learn how to do it three times in a row.

0:30 Tutorial mission complete! They're ready to jump down to Earth. "Our program is set. Our purpose is unyielding... we are the last line of defense in the cosmos." They think a lot of themselves, for robots. "May the odds favor our victory." Are these robots with religion?

0:31 "For thousands of years, mankind has stared at the stars in awe and wonder. After today, we'll wish we were blind." The writing isn't half bad.

0:32 Jump to a tattered American flag over a burning, garbage-strewn Washington D.C. The president is barely alive, I'm told over the radio. A human with a huge gun is walking, getting orders on his headset when the Washington Monument goes kablooie. "All right men, we've got a job to do, so let's move out!"

0:33 "All right men, keep it tight. Let's go get our planet back." I take back what I said about the writing.

0:36 Walking my men down a wrecked road, taking out stray alien guys as they come. I lose a few units on the way, but they seem expendable. The radio voice breaks in to tell me the president's losing a lot of blood. Thanks for the update, I guess.

0:37 My radio contact tells me they're not sure South America is there anymore. "Oh, man!" You can say that again. "Charlie Squad, you're with me. We've got a president to save!" Ugh.

0:39 So far, the major "strategy" seems to be timing and targeting my use of grenades to hit a few guys at once. Otherwise, my group slaughters everything it comes across automatically. Not that I'm complaining. This is a good intro to the basics.

0:41 The small walkers are making mincemeat out of my guys, but some support tanks come in just in time to bail us out.

0:42 Every time I choose a new point to which to move, my main guy says "Pick up the tempo," or "No man left behind," or "Get the boots on the ground," or some other generically annoying phrase. This game should come with earplugs.

0:43 Presidential health update: He's dropping into a coma!

0:44 Mission complete! We got to the capital, and we're told to escort the prez to Fort McNair. Suddenly, a huge meteor-looking thing utterly destroys the capital. Man, I hate it when that happens. It's one of those huge walkers from the intro. Apparently the president survived the impact, because we're still dragging him to the fort.

0:49 Somehow, in escorting the president's ambulance, I lost control of the president's ambulance. My whole unit managed to move to the fort, but not the ambulance itself -- it stayed annoyingly still. I'd blame myself, but it's more fun to blame the game. Stupid game!

0:50 Now that we're ALL at the base, I have some production structures. It's showtime!

0:51 "What's gonna happen," asks a grunt. "We keep fighting for a miracle, that's what!" says the General. When did he become Hillary Clinton? *rim shot*

0:55 The game runs into some EXTREME slowdown when I send in all my newly-made units against the big walker and his cohorts -- and I do mean EXTREME! Like I-can-count-the-frames-per-second extreme (roughly 10).

0:57 The attack-the-walker-with-all-my-guys strategy doesn't seem to have worked, but suddenly the white robot guys burst onto the scene in a cut scene. The general starts firing on them, not knowing they're the good guys. Oh, the irony!

1:01 My strategy of making everyone fire on the walker seems to be working now that I'm controlling the white robots. I get a 10G Achievement for learning "The basics."

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Probably not.


Why? It's seems well constructed enough, and the controls are mapped well for a console, but I'm just not a big enough real-time strategy fan to bother with the learning curve, I imagine. Nothing personal. It's not you, it's me.

This column was based on a retail version of the game rented from GameFly.

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