Weekend Special: Universe at War: Earth Assault $5

[Segoris]

For those interested, and as the title states, $5 for Universe at War: Earth Assault

I forgot about this game, and for $5 I'd say it's worth it. Does anyone know if the multiplayer is any good? I figure I'll gift this to a couple friends if there's any positive feedback on that.

[schild]

Uses Xbox Live for Windows. So uh, yea. Just sayin.

[Segoris]

Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you for that valuable info

[gryeyes]

Overpriced

[Hoax]

Never ever buy a cheap RTS, there is a reason it is cheap, it sucks dick for McD's money.

[schild]

You know, this game isn't really THAT bad. It has a good deal of style. But GFW Live is what really made it just completely unlikable. Much like Fallout 3 would've been if it had had multiplayer.

The only thing worse than gamespy is GFW Live. Considering it's made by Petroglyph and published by Sega and available on Steam, I have no clue what they were thinking.

Maybe they did it for the achievements. To which I respond:

Protip: It wasn't worth it.

[Hindenburg]

The single player campaign is quite good, actually.

[Paelos]

What is / Why does GFW Live suck? So the uneducated can avoid things with it.

[Hawkbit]

GFWL is too damn intrusive.  I just want to play the game, not log into four different windows and see shit loading for five minutes.  Leave it up to me if I want to get achievements. 

I bought GTA4 on PC because I'm too poor for a major console.  Sadly, it requires GFWL to play it.  So to play the game I had to log into Rockstar Social Club, GFWL and finally load GTA.  It would take maybe 4-5 full minutes to where I could actually move the character around.  (This was ultimately the reason I stopped playing it.)

It's bloated shitware.  It serves the same basic purpose of Steam, yet Steam is functional and fast.  GFWL, not so much.

[gryeyes]

GFWL is slow,poorly designed,bloated in addition to being a failed attempt to gouge the customers. GFWL is unusable now, when UAW was released it wasn't even fucking free. You got a bare bones ability to play multiplayer while almost making it required to pay for a gold membership. They intended for PC players to be able to play against XBOX users. So the control scheme for the PC version is intentionally horrible i believe in an attempt for some parity between the two. The game is not vomit inducing bad, but when combined with the other factors it is pretty horrible.

[Azazel]

Doesn't Fallout 3 use GFWL?

As for this game, I'd almost buy it... but RTS are much of a muchness to me, anyway..

[Hawkbit]

Fallout 3 uses GFWL for DLC only. 

[Stormwaltz]

I bought the game.

It reminded me of everything I hate about RTS.

1) Fast default gameplay speed. And, for salt in the wound, no pause button. (Before you ask, I've never played an RTS multiplayer. As a turn-based strategist of 25 years standing, I absolutely rely on the pause button to make RTS playable for me.)

2) Lots of fiddly little unit abilities that you absolutely need to understand and use effectively to win. Presumably, they explain them in the manual, because they sure as fuck don't take the time to explain them in the game. Which brings me to --

3) Completely inadequate, non-interactive video tutorials. I had to figure out for myself how to capture strategic points.

The last RTS I disliked this intensely was C&C: Generals. I tried that one for a phone job interview. I ended up punching the wall several times and telling the interviewer, "I'm sorry to have wasted your time, but I'm not interested in the position." This was when I was on welfare in CA, mind you.

I've found RTS that I like - mostly Relic's and Timegate's. Neat factions, impressive units, and a cheerfully cheesy metal soundtrack can't save this one from itself.

[Kageru]

Agree with the above (just got it as fodder for a LAN games day with friends but can also add one more. I know they love the 3D models of their units but even at maximum zoom out you are so close to the action it feels like you can see about 20 meters. The huge alien walkers (look great and hardpoints are a nice concept) barely fit into the view space let alone the fact they steer and move with the grace of oil tankers. On the whole it's painfully claustrophobic to play. Doesn't seem terribly balanced and also has the whole "race to the superweapon" rubbish that red alert made standard and starcraft wisely abandoned.