From Petroglyph Games, the developer's of Star Wars: Empire at War, comes another beautiful sci-fi RTS, Universe at War: Earth Assault. Following in the footsteps of other eye-popping RTS', like Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3, Universe at War looks ready to up the ante on the visual front another notch.
PublisherSega is currently only willing to showcase two of the game's three factions, the Novus and Hierarchy. Sneaky micromanagement masters who like to stealth around the map will be drawn towards the Novus. On the other hand, the Hierarchy faction's strength lies in their giant mechs of Godzilla-like proportions.
We'll bet the bank that the mysterious third faction will bring balance to the other two with a more Zergy race that will feature weaker units that can be pumped out quick and cheap. After all, the triumvirate of slow but strong, quick but weak, and all around sneaky factions has been the staple of sci-fi RTS' since StarCraft.
Above: Try attacking this giant crab-like walker's weak point for massive damage
Universe at War is sticking to the tried and true RTS mantra that no one unit should dominate the battles. The humongous Hierarchy walker shown above looks like it could crush anything in its path, but we saw it quickly fall to its knees after the Novus player deployed several Redirection Turrets around his base. The Redirection Turrets seemed to pretty much castrate the monstrous mech; every time the walker tried to fire on the Novus base with its over-sized laser cannons, the Redirection Turrets quickly reflected them back on the mech.
Expect Universe at War: Earth Assault to start invading hard drives around the world when it releases for the PC this fall. A 360 version is also in the works, but our gut tells us that it won't be release until early next year. In the meantime, whet your appetite for world domination with some sharp new screens by clicking on the Images tab above.
May 11, 2007
