Soldiers of the Universe Review

First-person shooters seem to have been brushed away in recent years. Sure, there’s always a new installment to the ongoing franchises that are Call of Duty or Battlefield, but it’s quite rare for anything new that isn’t multiplayer focused or battle royale oriented to take the spotlight. Unfortunately, Soldiers of the Universe is nothing new and ends up falling into the void of nothingness that consumes all generic story-based FPS’s. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Soldiers of the Universe is not out of this world (Reviewer pun, scoff scoff.)

The plot for this story-based title goes as such; you, a soldier, are thrown into a conflict based in the Middle East where you must fight against a group of terrorists in order to… actually I never really figured why you were doing what you’re doing. The story itself is there, but it’s so poorly told with barely an explanation for anything that you’ll more than likely just be sitting there wondering what the hell happened that provoked this conflict in the first place. Long story short, for a game that’s supposed to be selling the narrative, I’d like to know where it is and if I could participate in it at any point.

Bad story aside, it kind of just gets worse from there. The visual design for this title is, more or less, just plain bad. Soldiers of the Universe looks as if it should have been a launch title for the PS3, or even an entry into the PS2’s catalogue of games. Being on the PC though, I did manage to do enough to make it look and run as good as possible. Try as I might however, the title still had frame rate issues and some screen tearing in certain sections of the game. Which is a shame because the gameplay, despite being bland, was functional when things were going well.

On that note, the gameplay is probably the best thing about Soldiers of the Universe just because it’s so generic. It’s the classic ‘been there, done this’ formula of pointing your gun at the other person holding a gun and then hoping that they will be the first one to fall over before you do. There’s not much I can really say about it except that it does what it needs to with about as much gusto as you would expect. As far as the little details go, the weapons themselves look fine, then again if you’re screwing up the look of a gun then there’s clearly something that’s gone amiss. All in all, the gameplay exists.

The last thing I want to address about Soldiers of the Universe is that, and I apologise if this comes off a bit harsh, but who is the audience for this game? If they were going for a single-player experience like they wanted, then there’s the recent success of Fortnite and PUBG that they had to try and deter players away from. If they were going for a shooter feel, then the aforementioned Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises have already got that down to a tee. Perhaps the developers wanted to craft a passion project, which no one can blame them for, but the market they shot for (no pun intended) is one that's incredibly difficult to break into. Especially considering the bare minimum amount of features that the game provides, such as single player and a couple different multiplayer modes that have already been done before and better.

So is Soldiers of the Universe worth the cost? No. Save your money for something better to come along and just let this title pass by. That is, of course, unless you’re a huge fan of generic shooters with repetitive gameplay and barely any replay value, then Soldiers of the Universe is the title for you! If not, then please re-read the opening sentence.