March 11, 2008 - If there's one thing I learned at
a recent Universe at War multiplayer session at SEGA, it's that you
should not immediately go online to play against other players if
you're unfamiliar with the game. That should have been readily
apparent; those who have played a real-time strategy for a long time
have an advantage over new folks like me, but that didn't stop the
hubris from setting in. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I have to be fair to myself here. Nobody else will. I did pull off one
win out of the three I played. Unsurprisingly, the match I won was the
one where I used the Masari, the faction that plays most similarly to
other traditional RTSs. The other two races, the Hierarchy and Novus,
play drastically different. They're fun (How can you argue against a
massive mobile command center?), but they're also so unique that you'll
have to completely change your approach to the fight should you want to
succeed.

As it turns out, knowing the ropes is a big help.

Even
though I was overwhelmed before learning the ins and outs of the alien
races, I was able to get a handle on the new controls which are
surprisingly intuitive. Scrolling across the battlefield by zooming in
and out of the mini-map (done by holding down one of the triggers) is
the quickest we've seen on a console outside of Supreme Commander's
strategic zoom. The wheel menus are easy to select what you want,
though they sometimes require you to scroll through the options rather
than just pointing around a ring like Halo Wars. Laying down way points
for construction queues was a snap -- so easy in fact that the match I
won was due largely to a constant flow of units into the heart of the
battle thanks to a good build order.

I also got a look at the PC vs. 360 cross-platform play. At this point,
there's no visual queue to let you know that you're up against a player
with a different control scheme. The only real difference between the
two, aside from the user interface, is that the console version only
supports four player matches instead of eight.

Nifty effects.

Right
now it's impossible to tell if the controller actually can match up
against the keyboard and mouse just yet. The person manning the PC in
the match was an experienced player going up against a new Universe at
War player -- hardly a fair competition. The console options do provide
a few shortcuts you don't get on PC, so we'll have to wait until we get
the game in the office for a proper test.

Though the build I saw isn't completely finalized, there was a bit of
worrisome slowdown during battles. Universe at War looks pretty good on
the console. It's not as sharp as the high-resolution displays you can
get on a high-end PC, but it can hold its own. This display comes at a
cost right now with noticeable chugging during fights. Let's hope the
last bit of polish cleans this up before the impending release.