archon474

I've had this game for about 1 1/2 weeks now and it is definitely one of the coolest games I have ever played. Before I read the game I saw some reviews maligning the graphics engine, the controls and even the gameplay. Those reviewers were idiots! Obviosuly they tried to rush through the game without even actually learning how to play. How can you review a game you haven't really played? This isn't a game to rush through at all. This is a game to savor and relish for a good, long time. It took me about 3 days to have any level of proficiency in a CC. There are just so many options, so many things you can do. Take any two or three features from UC and you have what another company would call a complete game. Graphics: The graphics are great considering the massive amount of stuff the game has to model. I have games that are supposed to have cutting edge graphics and I still sit there going "WTF is that?". In UC I have never had a problem identifying what I am looking at. The way everything looks actually makes sense and is very functional. Anything more would almost be superfluous. The gameplay is the mainstay of this game and this is where the game truly shines. This is one of those rare gems, a totally open ended game (in roam mode) where you have the freedom to decide where to go and what to do. There is so much freedom in fact that I think many new players may be overwhelmed by the sheer possibilities. The learning curve is somewhat high but nowehere near the insane level the reviews said it was at. In under a week I have figured out that if something seems to be screwing up in the game it's probably due to my own mistakes. "Why is my shield suddenly going down?" For Example: I had sent a marine out in a shuttle to a planet to do some mining and he seemed to be having a hard time landing, deploying the drone, ect... He eventually did all that but alot slower than the ones I had sent out previously. Then when the drone was ready to be picked up I gave him a waypoint order to retrieve the drone. Well the shuttle crash landed and became too damaged to take off (it would take off then drift back down to the ground again). I was like WTF??? So after some difficulty I had it towed back to the CC. I checked out the marine who had been piloting it in perscan and lo and behold... he was the biggest dumbass on the whole ship. His AI was really low, around 6% if I remember correctly. I also read in some review that the game was unstable... Yet another unfair misrepresentation. When I bought the game I ran it out of the box for about 2 days and never had a problem. I have since installed the patches and have not had a single CTD or other glitch. That's very impressive considering my video card is crap and crashes on most other games I have after a few hours of play. Overall my first impression of UC is a very, very good one. It might have been different if I hadn't bothered to read the manual and appendix or if I gave up on trying to play after a few hours of play like I bet most people do. But thankfully I stuck with it and now am looking forward to many nights exploring the stars. Many thanks to 3000AD for producing such a magnificent game.