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On the surface, Universe at War: Earth Assault is your standard base laying, resource harvesting, unit building affair.

But what Petroglyph has done is to take that basic framework and use it to create a game with three wildly unique but finely balanced factions that each offer a level of real-time customization that gives players a chance to really adapt to the changing circumstances on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, the game's campaign doesn't do justice to the overall design while a number of sticky interface and performance problems add to the frustrations.

In brief, Universe at War tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth, our timely rescue by an otherworldly benefactor and the eventual arrival of a third group of aliens who have been awakened by the whole mess.

Of course, any one who's paid any attention to anything vaguely resembling science fiction has seen all of this before. We have the requisite giant multi-legged walkers, the flying anthropomorphic anime robots, and, of course, the ancient mystics who were long thought dead.

It has a real paint-by-numbers feel that hides any of Petroglyph's original ideas behind a thick coating of overused cliches. We might be more likely to accept it all if we were more convinced that Petroglyph intended the whole thing to come off as kitsch rather than homage.

Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that one.

Full article from IGN