Universe at War: Earth Assault demo hits XBL

by Justin McElroy { Apr 14th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Much like the quests for a better mousetrap or to write a more perfect pop song than Rupert Holmes' "Escape," a great RTS on a console always seems to be maddeningly just out of reach. Developer Petroglyph's attempt on the great white whale, Universe at War: Earth Assault, is now available on Xbox Live for you to sample.

So here's our question for those that have played the demo (or the full game for that matter): Did it work? Are we any closer to finding the perfect combination of factors for console RTS greatness? Or are we back to Square ~~Rupert~~ One?

Gallery: Universe at War: Earth Assault

Tags: demos, petroglyph, universe-at-war, universe-at-war-eart...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Bran @ Apr 14th 2008 6:22PM

*Remembering back to playing Command and Conquer on Nintendo 64, ugh.

I think Tom Clancy's End War has the best shot at being a success.

Kujel @ Apr 14th 2008 6:38PM

I played through the full game and thought it was great. The problem is PC bitches come along and try and convince people not to play/buy console RTSs. BFMEII was an awsome first step, C&C3 was a major leap forward, UaW was another quantum leap, Halo Wars with define the standard. In a few years you'll be hard pressed to find an RTS not available on at least one console.

Jeff @ Apr 14th 2008 6:50PM

Definitely.

... people will utilize ps3's keyboard + mouse support.

I'm not saying you can't play an amazing RTS with a controller. I'm saying there's no way you can play a classic, complicated RTS with one, and those have a pretty large market.

Kujel @ Apr 14th 2008 11:46PM

What are you nuts the gamepad is a way better system, one the BS3 and PC will never match.

Ronshatmycarl @ Apr 14th 2008 7:16PM

I don't know about others, but I have a 32' SDTV and couldn't even see what was going on. I could hardly see units and I couldn't tell how many resources I had. I still think BFMEII did it best on the consoles.

Schmobu @ Apr 14th 2008 7:49PM

Lame this game looks crap and even then I don't know about console RTS with out custom map modding it aint worth the purchase. Starcraft 2 will be good especially since the toolset from Warcraft 3 will be revamped, yay tower defense yay, footmen wars.

Shogan @ Apr 14th 2008 9:59PM

I'm playing the full game now via GameFly. It took a while to get used to the controls, but it's got a very nice system of selecting units, movement, and most everything else.

If this were Starcraft, it would be almost perfect. There's an extra layer of strategy here in the individual units that gets to be a bit much, but it hasn't hurt me so far in single-player.... it may in multiplayer.

Ogenbite @ Apr 15th 2008 12:31AM

Played through part of the demo and it mostly convinced me...to pick up the PC version. The controls work okay, but they still just don't compare to a mouse and keyboard. Plus the text is hard to make out on my crappy TV, and reading through all the menu options is the only way to really find out what anything does.