Magnus

Yes! Downloading. I can't wait! And just to note, Fileshack has the demo up. Now I just have to wait, and wait and wait. Hopefully my gosh awful satelite internet will stay stable and actually allow me to download this within the next hour or so. Edit: Got the demo, installed and have played a little. I'm about to go down onto Earth, started to print the tutorial out since it was starting to be a pain to flip back and forth from the CTRL+H and lo' and behold my printers out of black ink. Its one of those fancy ones where if I don't have all the ink, I don't get to print at all! (So, no fancy purple manual for me! ). I'll just have to continue flipping back and forth which will make it a lot more tedious I guess. So, I have played a bit and I'm loving it, jump gates look bloody amazing, kindof mesmerizing to look at as I flew closer to them. The performance is nice, though I find parts of the interface are hard to see (mainly the square box that shows your target) at times, so I'm playing at 1024x768 so its a bit easier to see. I'm playing with the Xbox 360 controllers and I'm finding it quite nice, though I wish I could invert the left analog sticks y axis. I have a question about it though, you cannot switch targets while pressing the thrust, is this intentional? And, whenever I target planets I get only part of it textured, I'll have the top and bottom textured and the middle instead of having any texture will be a nice band the same colour as the texture. If this hasn't come up before, I can post screenshots of it later. I was waiting for the nice voice overs in the tutorial, waited and waited and didn't hear 'em! Was hopeing to. Over all however, I am loving it. Great success!

Well, I do love capital ship combat, but I also extremely enjoy fighter combat. So, it is also difficult there. Therefore I shall pose two more questions to hopefully help you all (and myself) give suggestions as to which to purchase first. Campaigns, I do love them, I am an avid roleplayer and just love getting into the gushy epic stories whether they are Fantasy or Science Fiction. I have not got very far into the campaign of Universal Combat and know very little about Echo Squads story. If I am looking for a thriller, which would be preferable? The differences between Univeral Combat and Universal Combat: Collectors Edition game engines, I've read the PDF on the light differences, and they look like quite large differences graphically, glow mapping, bump mapping, all these items the freeware edition (as far as I know/can tell) does not have. But, does it make a true difference in the gameplay? Is there any screenshots that could be used to show a true comparison of the versions available anywhere? I'm using this as a way of testing your general opinions of the games, for as I said before I do intend on buying both. I mean the only way this could be better is if they were on Steam! (That way I could indeed no longer be 'Teh Sux' in my gaming rank!)

Hello, all. Recently I've been debating which product to purchase, Universal Combat: Collectors Edition or Galactic Command: Echo Squad. Both of these products have various 'pluses' and 'minuses' in comparison to each other. I plan on most likely purchasing both of the products within the next year or so, but I am having trouble deciding which to buy at the moment. This is where I hope you all can come in and aid me. Below I will attempt to lay out my opinions on both products and hopefully you can give me a suggestion. I'll start with Universal Combat: Collectors Edition (herein refered to as UCCE), this package contains not only the UC and its subsequent additions, but also the BC games in all their glory. In addition they're all ported into an updated version of the UC:AWA engine which expands their usability considerably. But, both the BC and UC series at least in their most primitive forms are now freely released and available minus their multiplayer component. (Which isn't an issue for myself, since I am currently on Satelite internet and any hope of multiplay is very, very slim.) So I could fully enjoy both games separately, for free without paying for anything. Ofcourse to do this I would have to forgo any of the updates, upgrades and improvements in both gameplay and stablity that UCCE has with it. I also would not recieve any support for any issues I recieve. Now then, onto Galactic Command: Echo Squad (herein refered to as ES), this title has just been released this week and is quite impressive. Even though it features are a bit slimer than UCCE, it is suppose to be easier to pick up and play, with a more focused storyline and (as a big plus in my opinion) compatiblity with the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows. I have not had a chance to actually play this title yet, I am eagerly awaiting the demo (C'mon, c'mon its Weds where is it!?) to test it on my system before purchasing, to determine if it will run at a respectable speed for me. I am almost positive I will enjoy the game, since I do enjoy this genre of gaming. (I've played my fair share of space simulations, ranging from Wing Commander, to Tie Fighter and the X series to name a few) I recently printed off all the available material for UCCE and now have a huge binder just full of its manual and other support documents. So, I am dedicated and that isn't an issue. Also, with UCCE I can get a boxed version of the game which I do prefer over digital downloads (both would be great, but that rarely happens. I'm looking at you Stardock!). As far as I know ES does not have a boxed option. You all are the experts, what do you say? Hopefully you were able to get through my horrible writing and rambling nonsense of a post and understand what I'm asking. Which one should I purchase?