Universal Combat CE

Loaded with bugs. My crew likes to hang out in the launch bays til they starve to death. I think someone should take the source code and have an AI fix it. it would probably be a really awesome game then.

How is this mostly positive....oh 14 reviews....right... Not much has changed sadly. Derek Smart is a legend in gaming but not for positive reasons....

This appears to be some sort of software.

I don't really like writing reviews especially negative ones but for this I will... For anyone who has played bioshock do you remember that scene where Sander Cohen blows up mr.fitzpatrick for getting his masterpiece wrong yeah that is a metaphor for this game... To tell you the truth this game is not all that bad in fact I use the ships, weapons, clothing, and armor as an archetype for my custom pen and paper Sci-fi roleplaying games to give my players an idea on what they are wearing and wielding in the game visually. That being said Mr. smart please do not let your wrath and pride get the better of you I can tell you are a talented developer by the outfits and ship designs but to me that is what the game is a BEAUTIFUL art piece with wonderful looking ships but art is only half the battle remember that my friend. And yes on a side note I first bought this game in 2006 I still have the disc somewhere. Keep on working mr. Smart maybe one day it will be the game you in visioned it would be! :D

First of all I'd like to say that I gave this game a fair benefit of the doubt considering the bad reviews all over the net. I read up on a fair bit and took one of the reviewers advice and got Battleship Millenium Gold FREEWARE to try the game out and see for myself if it's worth spending the money on it. I played that for a bit and the gameplay in the ROAM was ok but pointless and unrewarding while the campaign missions might as well not have you participating, yet you must participate to advance and down time in between missions was not sufficient enough to get some money up to restock, refuel, repair and I ended up basically running out of money just so I can refuel. Now since Universal Combat CE promised bug fixes and more, I still gave it the benefit of the doubt. So I like a fool bought it and played about 5 hours before the game absolutely crapped itself. From starters the HUD was missing elements and the game was just a mask over the previous version with, what I can gather was just cosmetic with even worse bugs, Now I can't see planets in TacOps mode, the terrain on planets has totally blurred and the units and buildings have disappeared. For a game that has been in development for such a long time, you'd think the bugs would be ironed out. I will not be buying the $40 patch that promises even more like a bridge view and even more bugs fixed, yet for the life of me I can't find one shot of a bridge or cockpit anywhere on the net, so I'm guessing that promise is just a marketing ploy just to feed the coffers of the developer with just another cosmetic rehash or the same buggy game. For this day and age the developer should be ashamed of himself hyping up a game that doesn't hold a candle to to similar games that are available with much better graphics, game play and immersion where the developers have ironed out the bugs by listening to the people that play them, instead of just forcing a faulty relic with new bells and whistles on the unsuspecting public over and over again just so he can keep on doing it. All the documents seem to do is hype the concepts of the game without detail to the various ships, units and weapons, where the game is just full of acronyms in the names of things that it just makes it mind boggling when it comes to Trading. The developer constantly refers to the manual and appendix, while the manual is 94 odd pages, it does help you get started once you've read the entire thing in detail, but I found that it just wasn't worth the effort just to play an arcade game that wishes it was a simulator. The appendix is just a bunch of pretty pictures with minimum detail regarding the units, weapons, buildings that you walk away from it with no real insight. Now that I have experienced this tragedy of game, I'd have to agree with the negative reviewers in tagging it as a scam with hyped up marketing as the only thing it has going for it. If the developer would just fix this game and take some pointers from games like the X series, Evochron series and not just modernise, rename and remarket a really flawed and buggy game it actually could be something unique and worth while. My full recommendation at this point on the game in it's current form is to keep your money in your pocket and walk away because all you'll be doing is enabling the developer to continue with the deception that this game is worth buying (what a joke) and playing. If you like games like this, look to the Evochron Series, X series, No Mans Sky, Elite, there are so many more alternatives that will save you the hassle, are actually worth paying for and have you actually playing and enjoying without the forced complication of an unrealised concept. The very next thing I am doing is getting my money back from Steam and putting it towards something I can actually enjoy. Out of 10 I give this a 1 just because the concept is unique.

It takes a certain kind of person to really love this game, and I seem to be one of them. It is a difficult game to play. The tutorial document is longer than the manual. EVERYTHING is an abbreviation. But dang, this game scratches an itch. If you invest the time, it will reward you. Do you want to invest the time? That's up to you.

As I understand it, this is a science fiction military simulator. It's like Dangerous Waters, Fleet Command, Falcon BMS, 688 Hunter Killer Command: Modern Operations... But it's also the space simulator with the good things from this kind of game: big universe which you can freely explore, kill stuff, capture stations, land on the planets, etc. There are also several campaigns, which are, as far as I can tell, somewhat (...a little bit) similar to X3:TC story arcs in which you receive objectives to progress through it, but how you do it is entirely up to you. X3 devs refer to it as the "Think" aspect of their "Trade Fight Build Think" It's truly amazing, but as with all serious military simulators, expect to spend some time learning it. But considering the size of manuals, this simulator is still significantly easier to learn than most realistic military sims. Consider 600 PDF pages for Dangerous Water or over 1000 for Falcon BMS... Overall, I highly recommend at least check this simulator out to any space game fan. Especially from EVE or X community who may search for some other serious space games and new intellectual challenges.