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A few days ago, I stumbled upon yet another *cough* glowing review of the game on a game site. What a bunch of whiners. For a series I enjoy, it's ironic that I always seem to get reminded of this franchise by the copious amounts of bitching involved by reviewers. Long story short, I picked up UCCE at the local game store, and I must say, I'm pretty impressed. The planetary engine is vastly improved, and I'd completely forgotten how jaw-droppingly huge the damn game is (teach me to land thirty clicks out from an Insurrectionist base and try to drive). I like the FPS portion a lot. It's a lot different than the more common 'shooter' types like Halo and Half Life, but the huge scale, and unit tactics are very fun. In some ways, it feels pretty realistic, and being able to explore whole planets (and nuke them from orbit) is just awesome. The draw distance is staggering.
The new anti-aliasing/shading options make the space side of things look great, and i love the new gun sounds and effects. Makes the ships sound much more menacing. Sure, the graphics may not look as good as, say, FEAR or Halo 3, the last time I checked, you couldn't coordinate orbital strikes, fighter attacks, and ground assaults on one of hundreds of bases on a planet while you ride shotgun on a tank as your mile long carrier roars overhead raining PTA fire in Halo. I'd forgotten how much fun this game was, though it' really probably better labeld as a simulation. It's got a lot more in common with Sub Command and Decicive Action and other 'sims' than most games.
Actually, maybe that's the reason for all the bitching. People buy a game, and bitch if it's not easy to play. Sim players, on the other hand, bitch if the Cessna cockpit has a gauge with too many bolts, or the waterfall display in a 688 attack sub doesn't use proper sound channel modeling for the ocean thermal layer. Giving a game like this to some gonzo at IGN or Gamespot to review is like handing my dog an algebra textbook and asking him to graph polynomials. I'd almost forgotten how rewarding some of these sim games are, and how much fun it actually is to have to think as well as react in a game. Of course, a lot of the thinking, I'm finding, involves various ways of saying 'gee, that was dumb' I'm a bit rusty
Anyway, nice job to Derek and the dev team. This thing is THE definitive starship sim IMO, and since everyone else is whining and moaning about it being impossible, I figured I'd chime in and say thanks. It's rare a developer sticks with a series this long and develops it to such gigantic proportions. Think I'll stick around this time. Maybe join one of the MP fleets if the time commitment isn't too big.
