UC Review - Strategy Informer

[Supreme Cmdr]

This one was done on May 31st but kinda slipped under the radar.

[LostInSpace]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

This

one

was done on May 31st but kinda slipped under the radar.

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Hmm, maybe you should have use the TACOPS computer rather than the RADAR.

"Overall, this is a very difficult game to learn, let alone master. The level of detail certainly makes it worthwhile to the hard core, but I felt it was too complex for its own good. If you enjoy a good fight, and are willing to put in the time, then pick up Universal Combat. It isn't bad, its just a lot to handle."

Too complex? It's good to know, however, that my IQ must still be pretty good.

[Freyar]

That bit caught my attention too.

[Guest Shingen]

I never could quite comprehend why everyone thinks that BC is so god-awful hard to learn! Are these people mentally impaired or just plain lazy?

Hell, the game isn't that damn hard...it just takes some time and some intellectual fortitude.

[Supreme Cmdr]

What's happening is that as soon as someone hits a roadblock, instead of using their brains to either (a) figure it out or ( read the manual, they throw their arms up in the air screaming the usual its complex crap. Why? Well, just because someone else said it, so it must be true. As such, I guess they figure, why not hop on the bandwagon?

Sure, the game takes some getting used to, but thats the nature of the game and always has been due to its high end sim like nature and roots.

[Guest Shingen]

Well I must be one smart SOB, 'cause when BC3K first came out, there wasn't anything but the manual that came with it. At that time I wasn't even on the internet, but I learned how to play the game in a few hours.

Hell, that game even forced me to learn how to tweak windozes and DOS memory sets in order to keep the game running.

dem where da dayz.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Shingen:

Well I must be one smart SOB, 'cause when BC3K first came out, there wasn't anything but the manual that came with it. At that time I wasn't even on the internet, but I learned how to play the game in a few hours.

Hell, that game even forced me to learn how to tweak windozes and DOS memory sets in order to keep the game running.

dem where da dayz.

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You, like most from back in the old days, are an exception Shingen. You're crazy.

[Guest Shingen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

You, like most from back in the old days, are an exception Shingen. You're crazy.

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That's what my wife says. Crazy as a fox and barely enough sense to buy a stick of gum. I still learned how to play the damn game though.. huh? =P

[Freyar]

Heheh... I lent my copy of BCMG (With the public patches) to a friend for three days... He ended up giving it back to me before I left saying it's too complex.

[CedricB]

As someone soon graduating with a degree in marketing, the general observation of most of the gaming masses (age 15-25) is that space games are somehow easier than say your average flight simulator. Granted the whole series of budget titles and other less defined space sims pretty much dominate the market, that have similar characteristics to FS2004 as detailed below. This is also part of the reason reviewers say "This game has a huge learning curve" because, well, generally spacesims don't really have one. When consumers look at a "Realistic Flight Sim" a learning curve is almost immediately assumed. However, when dealing with a fictional universe, those same people assume that the creator(s) will somehow make things easier because those things just don't exist in real life, and won't be as detailed.

This game is just as, if not more, complex than say FS2004 when you get into the finer points of the fully modeled GPS reciever, glass-cockpit of the Boeing 777, and the finer points of VOR-to-VOR navigation using the radios. There are only a few exceptions that make FS2004 more accessible:

1. A whole list of realism options for flight dynamics.

2. You can still "fly" the aircraft with a minimum of knowledge on the individual systems. i.e. That's the gear, that's how high I am, that's what orientation the plane is in, that's the stick, and that's the throttle YEEEEHA!

3. Extremely detailed tutorials on how to use the individual systems of the aircraft, to the point where you have basically completed ground school. (Up until recently, not included with UC)

There is also an assumption that difficult games will do some of the proverbial "hand-holding" the SC has mentioned from time to time. None of that really exists in UC at all, save for the tutorial that the SC put together (and is done rather well I might add).

For me the real joy in the game came from mastering the many different systems and seeing how they interact with one another to help keep tabs on the ship, and then applying those systems to actually go out into the sandbox and DO something useful with those systems (DIE TER/INS SCUMBAGS).

I think the game is just saddled with this incorrect assumption, created by other games in the space-sim genre, which leads to people falsely considering the game "difficult" or having a "monumental learning curve". UC really doesn't when compared to say Lock-On Modern Air Combat or any other flight sim that achieves a high degree of realism. Even IL-2 Forgotten Battles has it's finer points at higher realism levels with "simpler" prop-driven aircraft.

There needs to be a sub-genre or something to delinate the differences between this game and say, Freelancer, which is much more simpler. Maybe then people will stop whining about something that isn't a drawback at all, but just the nature of the beast.