Petroglyph, developers of Star Wars: Empire at War, bring a never-ending space battle to earth. Except this time, humans don't do anything but get in the way. Universe at War: Earth Assault won't chronicle humanity's struggle against an overwhelming force from the stars. Instead, earth gets caught up in the crossfire as aliens battle over control of the planet. Although humans will be present, they appear as mainly obstacles in the main war.
When it comes to the Hierarchy, players should think big. This faction does not construct buildings. Instead, it cuts glyphs into the ground, calling in reinforcements from outer space. Each unit essentially functions as its own facility. The resource collector looks like a giant cauldron on legs, converting everything it passes by (trees, cars, livestock, etc.) into usable materials for war. The tactical reasoning behind these mechanical giants was to make sure they remained completely mobile, while gobbling up resources along the way like a swarm of insects.
The Novus seem diminutive in comparison. They don't use the same kind of firepower, instead the Novus constructs huge, sprawling bases in short time. Featuring buildings connected via networks, units can quickly react to either bolster forces or make a hasty retreat. Speed will be the overriding factor when confronting the Hierarchy's massive but slow-moving giants. However, the Novus also has a few tricks, including a tower that redirects incoming fire, turning the Hierarchy's power on itself.
Each faction has three distinct technology paths. For example, the Hierarchy researches better mutations or makes better use of radiation, but there will be no way to pursue all three technology trees at once. Players must decide what kinds of technologies they want during any given game.
Universe at War has three major game modes: The single player campaign, an open-ended "conquest" that offers different goals for victory (like conquering South America in 10 days) and multiplayer. Petroglyph will spice up multiplayer with a new mode called DEFCON. In DEFCON, a counter raises the threat level every few minutes, automatically bringing all factions to the next level of technology. Players need to figure out whether or not to hold out for high tier weaponry, or use their current weapons to get rid of their opponents before they can get too high up the tech tree. In an average game, it will only take about ten to fifteen minutes before everyone has access to game-ending superweapons to completely wreck a hapless player.
Scheduled to release in fall of 2007 for the PC and early 2008 for the Xbox 360, puny humans should get out of the way before getting vaporized.
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