The scope of
Universal Combat lives up to its name. The universe is absolutely massive, with hundreds of worlds and star bases to explore, 12 different playable races, a Career and Caste mode that lets you look at the universe from any angle, and just about every type of fighting you can think of from first person shooting to capital ship battles. The Campaign mode offers 25 different missions, and there are also Instant Action, Roam, and Multiplayer modes as well.
Despite the wide range of features in Universal Combat, the gameplay is actually quite thin. Where features are concerned, it's dead on target (except there are no naval battles), but the actual content of those features is lacking. Each is basically a demo of some type of game that would utilize that element. For instance, the FPS aspect is nearly devoid of any action, and what you do get to see you have to take twenty minutes to get there by running across a planet.
The same goes for the flying aspect; most of it consists of boring, empty space to fly around in with an occasional, but brief, skirmish. The ambition of Universal Combat is blown way out of proportion when compared to what is actually in the game. The Career mode is a nice step, but it lands you in a virtually empty, huge universe. On the surface this game looks complete, but once you get under the hood you'll find nothing but cobwebs.
The Multiplayer aspect could have been the saving grace, or at least a step in the general direction of a saving grace. The only problems are that there is barely anybody online playing this game, and if you do manage to start up a game, you'll more than likely suffer a crash to desktop shortly after starting up.
