Urban Assault - Television Tropes & Idioms

Urban Assault is an RTS/FPS hybrid created by Microsoft. The planet Earth has been polluted to the point of being almost uninhabitable, the remaining humans have splintered into rivaling factions, and the planet has been invaded by aliens set on claiming the planet for themselves. The player controls a member of the Resistance, who is physically wired into the faction's remaining hardware, creating a factory/floating battleship known as a Host Station. The ultimate goal is to fight from the Resistance's territory, Great Britian, towards the East, where the Mykonian "Parasite Machine" drains energy from the Earth's core, accelerating the deterioration of the planet. The mission-to-mission goals vary, but generally consist of destroying all hostile host stations to cripple the enemy factions in that region.

While the player can construct units, as in any Real Time Strategy. However, the player can take control of any constructed unit at any point, granting it improved shielding and weapons in the process. These vehicles are always controlled from a first person view.

Tropes present in this work include:

After the End
Aliens Are Bastards: The Mykonians.
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Surprisingly averted. Build units until the game almost crashes if you want.
Artificial Stupidity: Your drones are sadly incompetent in many circumstances. The weaker ones will generally die before firing off a shot unless you're piloting them. And good luck with getting them to traverse the maze of buildings leading to the enemy base. The good news is, the clumsy path-finding works both ways, so enjoy obliterating the Mykonians while they get caught on the sides of skyscrapers.
Authority Equals Asskicking: Host Stations are piloted by commanders, and are the strongest units on the field. Also, any vehicle the player takes control of gains improvements in attack power and shielding.
Blown Across the Room: It's a major gameplay mechanic, no less. The main advantage of anti-air units is that they knock back aircraft with each impact. This stops them from reaching their original target, and makes them easier prey for vehicles with slower weapons.
Cast from Hit Points: Vehicles are made of energy, which is used up when they fire. However, the process is so slow that units are rarely lost in this fashion.
Crippling Overspecialization: Many of the vehicles are subject to this. The worst hit are heavy tanks. They are so slow to manuveur that a single well-controlled helicopter can dismantle an entire formation. Also averted in some cases, such as when the AI defeats your choppers with bombers by flying above them.
Easy Logistics: Your vehicles create their ammo from their reserved energy stores. The host station creates said vehicles the sqame way. Thus, the only thing that matters is having enough energy.
Electronic Speech Impediment
"Mission failed. Host...station...destroyed."
Fragile Speedster: Most of the air units fall under this. Learn to dodge enemy fire, because they can't take a hit. Oddly enough, this also applies to several tanks.
Glass Cannon: The Resistance Rhino and Rock Sled, also the Taerkasten Flying Ion Cannon. If they reach their targets, they will do impressive amounts of damage. The Ion Cannon and Rhino can heavily damage a single unit, while the Rock Sled is wired with explosives. This term also applies to the entire Mykonian race.
Hold the Line: There's a few missions where the objective is to control all the Stoudson bomb trigger points until it detonates. 1 memorable mission has you hold a hill against 5-6 Host Stations until the timer runs out. For an added challenge, go on offense.
It's Up to You: No, really. You're piloting the last Host Station the Resistance has. So you'll be conquering an entire landmass single-handedly.
La Résistance: The Resistance, of course.
Lightning Bruiser: A handful of aircraft fall under this, combining impressive firepower with the ability to cross the battlefield in the span of a few seconds.
Mighty Glacier: Heavy tanks and most Taerkasten units are this. Worst of all is the Taerkasten leonid tank, which absorbs stupid amounts of punishment before going down. The Black Sect Host Station applies as well, combining a Host Station's prodigous energy reserves with multiple high power defense cannons.
No Recycling: Destroyed vehicles leave an energy residue. Driving through it adds a small amount of energy to the Host Station's reserves, and heals the unit itself.
Reinventing the Wheel: Thankfully averted. All research upgrades stay with you for the entire game. This was intended, as the player obtains more powerful schematics as they travel to the east to counter more powerful enemies.
Ridiculously Fast Construction: The player can build a power plant, or an tank battalion, in seconds. Eventually, the player can combine this with high-output power stations and build a tank battalion every 10 seconds.
Risk Style Map
Starting Units: Sometimes, they'll merely be units you haven't unlocked yet. One mission however includes 3 captured and refitted enemy Gigants. Once they are lost, they're gone. Also of note are the Bronsteijn Flying Ion Cannons, which can only be built in 1 stage.
Self-Imposed Challenge: On the stoudson bomb missions, some players will instead opt to destroy the enemy the old-fashioned way.
Stone Wall: Host Stations, at full power, take several hits from the most powerful vehicles in the game to fall. Their weapons systems are not nearly as impressive, serving more as a last line of defense. They are generally capable of engaging multiple targets though. Flak Stations count too. Their attacks actually range from laughable (The Resistance model) to fairly powerful (Mykonian and Black Sect variants), but their main advantage is being hard to destroy, and almost impossible for planes to even damage, because each shell knocks them further away. They also have impressive range, which lets them whittle down approaching tanks before they can attack.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: It's either this or Artificial Brilliance, but I'm guessing that killing air units with bombers wasn't intended by the programmers. They'll generally find any flaws in the Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors scheme and exploit them mercilessly. Their power stations are always at full efficiency, so they'll be throwing waves of units at you even when they shouldn't be able to.
We Do The Impossible: Most of the mission briefings tell you outright that it's a suicide mission. But you're the only one left, so you don't get any choice in the matter.
Zerg Rush: Considering there's no unit cap, energy is ultimately unlimited, and defeating the enemy with convential tactics can be tricky, this strategy is used a great deal. By the player and the computer.

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