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Universe At War: Earth Assault (PC) Release Date:09/15/2007 ESRB Rating: Rating Pending Genre: Strategy Publisher: Sega Developer: Sega Originally Appeared in GFW 05 When a game's fiction centers around threats extraterrestrial, you can generally rest assured of one thing: You're about to tackle some of the most generic bad guys an unimaginative game designer can conjure up. Sci-fi real-time strategy games get it the worst; if the half-baked shovelware strategy epic you just booted up isn't trying as hard as it can to copy StarCraft, chances are high that whatever villains you're up against look like they just walked out of a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover--with a formulaic world-domination agenda to match. So, when faced with the same damn "aliens invade!" shtick and a generic name like Universe at War: Earth Assault, why should you expect this RTS to be any different? UAW producer Ted Morris sums it up nicely. "We're huge fans of the MMORPG genre, and we've reengineered some of the features that make those games so fun and impactful into Universe at War." You heard the man right: It's a massively multiplayer online RTS--from Petroglyph, the studio responsible for last year's Star Wars: Empire at War. Though the concept looks good on paper, it doesn't take long to realize that most MMORPG conventions don't exactly lend themselves to RTS gameplay. Character development and advancement, for instance--a subject that Age of Empires III tackled in greater detail--suddenly becomes something that goes far beyond where your name appears on the online leaderboard. "You'll have ways to advance the traits or special abilities of your online persona and use those improvements in later games against your foes--or in conjunction with a friend against another team," says Morris. "We have an online mode called 'Conquer the World.' Players start with one territory and then attempt to conquer the rest of the globe through online battles. Your progression is gauged by how much of the Earth you own and how much still needs to be conquered. Conquering the entire planet gives players bragging rights--our substitution for standard 'MMORPG gear.'" Morris also points out that UAW allows a high level of customization that "transcends both single- and multiplayer games," comparing it to how you'd trick out a favorite World of WarCraft avatar--but it's too early to talk specifics. JUST THE BEGINNING In any case, that still doesn't assuage our fears of a stereotypical sci-fi scenario. UAW's bullet points tout three unique factions, galaxywide wars, and destructible environments--the usual suspects. But, according to design director Adam Isgreen, the structure isn't as banal as our knee-jerk reaction suggests. "We don't believe in making one-off games," Isgreen explains. "We like creating worlds that we enjoy returning to, exploring, and expanding. This game tells a very epic story that sets greater events in motion. The initial release is where it all starts--the approach we're taking to telling the first game's story is more like a season of a great TV show than just a 'game story.' Our story arcs happen within individual missions, over several missions, over one faction's entire campaign, over multiple campaigns, and even into the future of the franchise. Everything that happens has some impact into the future, and we've been very careful to make sure that we're answering lots of questions, and leaving more open as the series continues." "And we're not on future-Earth, or some version of Earth you can't relate to," Isgreen continues. "We're in the year 2012 at the start, so we have a lot of very recognizable locations, peoples, and political situations. People still don't get along, oil is still an issue, and although some amazing and catastrophic things have happened in our version, it's still the same planet. We leverage this throughout the story, especially as you learn more about our factions and how they relate to each other and to the planet itself." SATELLITE OFFICE The big, nasty alien faction calls itself the Hierarchy and relies on mobile war machines to do the dirty work. Everything about the Hierarchy--unit production, tech upgrades, defenses, and special abilities--revolves around these massive structures, and the idea of controlling an army with this type of universal portability is something that lead designer Steve Copeland says that "no other factions--or games--have." Speaking to the faction balance in general, Copeland says that, "The rock-paper-scissors model--or some abstraction of it--is fundamental to all good RTS games. Advanced gameplay is about giving just enough attention to a situation to ensure the ends you desire, then moving on to spend your attention elsewhere in the battle. In order to do this, there has to be a certain amount of predictability to any encounter-- rock beats scissors." Hey, if it ain't broke.... UAW does tinker with plenty of tactical standards, though, dividing gameplay into strategic and global modes. The former allows you to make big-picture decisions--attack plans, strikeforce management (these squads consist of hero units and persistent-state troops), espionage, and command-center construction. The global mode takes a page from Empire at War's galactic conquest mode--with a few improvements. "Turning all the data on led to information overload, and managing numerous fleets was difficult," says Isgreen. "Keeping track of which planets had what upgrades also became an issue. Although you could attack from different vectors, it didn't offer much of an advantage. We wanted to simplify and improve on [these things] in UAW. We redefined and gave impact to what it means to attack from a different direction; coming into an enemy territory can set off territorial defenses, pelting your incoming assault craft as they move toward the combat area. If they take too much damage, they'll be shot down. If you attack from a different vector where you don't have to cross as much open terrain to reach the combat location, you take less risk. Once in combat, your [plan of attack] defines where you appear. If you used your spies well, you might be behind the enemy's defenses. This is just one example of how we've applied lessons from our previous title into UAW's global mode." And for Supreme Commander fans who smell a rip-off, Isgreen says it ain't so: "I don't think anyone will look at the respective games and think the respective developers set out to make the same kind of product." Other WDS GUIDES: GRAND
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