The storyline for Universe at War: Earth Assault is pretty generic. An alien force, known as the Hierarchy, has descended upon Earth and is consuming all of its natural resources. The humans were almost annihilated during the first attack, and are making one last stand against the Hierarchy. During this attack a new force arrives called the Novas, which claim they only want to destroy the Hierarchy. As the battle rages on, the human’s retreat from both aliens when a new power arises: the ancient Masari. This latest race has technology that dwarfs what both sides have available; and their mission is to completely cleanse the Earth of all invaders. Humanity now hangs in the balance as these three superpowers fight in order to determine the fate of planet Earth.

The only real issue with the control scheme is when players want to create their own “groups” to fight enemies. The game makes it easy to select an entire type of unit, but if players want to only select half of one unit type and half of another, they have to select each unit one-by-one, which makes creating “groups” a moot point. Why would players spend a lot of time creating a group that will get destroyed easy, when they can just send the whole batch instead?

The graphics for this game are not as impressive as one might expect for an Xbox 360 title. The unit designs and structures are very interesting but the main problem is that the textures look very washed out and “muddy.” The only thing that looks appealing is the special effect that this game has, and players will be able to view these the more battles they participate. The biggest problem with this game is that the performance is nowhere near where it should be. Players will be forced to deal with slow down all the time; especially they are fighting enemy forces (even smaller battles, 5 on 3 with one hero the game slows to a crawl). Slowdown is never acceptable; but it might have been understandable if the graphics were breathtaking.