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Universe, in its second edition, was published in a single book format with an attractive full-colour starmap giving X, Y, Z coordinates, spectral class and so forth. The cover features some below average and rather cheeesy "space opera" era artwork (orange jumpsuits no less!) by John Pierard. Of the internal artwork nothing can be said; there isn't any! Unless one stretches the definition and includes the rather unexciting (but colour) maps that accompany the adventure that comes with the book. Added to this is an extremely tight text, written in a dense and formal manner, without many illustrative examples. The three-column, justified small-type, serif-font is organised in decimal notation (e.g., 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 etc) with general and specific rules consistent with SPI's style. It can hardly be described as an exciting read, indeed it is quite soporific. The table of contents and index are quite spartan, with the former rather oddly organised; the book, according to title pages is broken up into a Gamemaster's Guide (c46p), a Charts and Tables (18p) and a Adventurer's Guide (the rest), however the Charts and Tables aren't part of the initial contents. The binding of the softcover book however is quite impressive and lasting.

Setting a theme for the rest of the character generation is quite detailed. First randomly determine "potential multipliers" for physique, coordination, intellect and social background. The higher the sum of the character's Potential Multipliers the lower their initial Study Points will be. Next the player determines the character's Home Environ, which is a complex of contour and features (e.g., hills and light vegetation) as well as temperature and gravity, their social standing (modified by social potential, positively and home environ skill, negatively) which determines their base starting wealth and modifiers the initial skill points. After this initial study points are expended to determine the degree of specialisation in one of seven fields of study (Theoretical Science, Applied Science, Business, Humanities, The Mind - Psionics, The Body, Military and General). The degree of specialisation also determines modifiers for characteristic generation which occurs next. There are nine characteristics; Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Mental Power, Leadership, and Aggression, whose values are from 1-12 (halved for Mental Power, minimum of 5 for starting Agility).

The next step is to determine the character's profession from a range of 23, including 7 military professions. Professional experience is taken in four year increments, with starting age varying from 20 (no experience) to 40 (20 years experience). Characters over the age of 28 suffer the possibility of decline in physical characteristics. Each profession generates a number of skill points to spend on a variety of professionally-appropriate skills, whose levels are capped by the period of professional experience. When the character retires from professional life they receive a number of financial benefits and other equipment.

Each skill is described in terms of general use and specific tasks; the general percentage chance for success is a the base chance of the task plus related characteristic plus the square of the skill level. Skill levels are capped both in general and by characteristic. The scope of the skill range is quite impressive; about 90 all told across Military, Psionic, Vehicle, Scientific, Interpersonal and Environmental categories., including the "subskills" that come under the general vehicular types. The subskill section, it should be noted, requires careful reading to determine how the allocation system works. Experience is gained on a per skill basis and according to skill use with the number of experience points required being equal to the skill level sought. As is often the case, experience game in-play is significantly faster than experience gain during chargen.

Robots are described as semi-sentient property with hardware and software limits and software systems. Other equipment includes personal weapons, protective equipment, vehicles, and a variety of personal equipment (scanners, communication equipment, computer time (!) and so forth. It's a fairly short list with each item limited by "Civ Level" with prices modified according to variance from base Civ Level. One can be charmed (or horrified) by the idea that "small portable computers" capable of "menial calculations" weigh 10 kilograms and the fact that longbows have one of the best ranges. A misplaced decimal (one can only presume) suggests that the ornithopter has a speed of 1500 km/h.

Star, planet and moon generation is detailed and surprisingly simple compared to some other sf systems as many of the calculations are embedded into table references. Generating a star system may lead to planets, which are defined by ty[e and position, atmosphere, hydrographic percentage, land mass and gravity. Populated worlds are defined by their technology, settlement type, starport class, law and Civ level, and resources. Planet type is relatively simple; Earth-like, Tolerable, Hostile, Asteroid Belt, resource rich, resource poor. Likewise atmosphere is defined as thin, thin contaminated, normal, normal contaminated, poison or corrosive. The population and technology section gives some idea of the default assumptions of a Universe campaign; a Federation is referred to, law levels are defined by increasing degrees of the pursuit of justice and use of the death penalty(!), Civ Levels are defined with Civ 8, the highest technology equates with 2300AD.

The seventh chapter deals with "Character Action", which is mostly about travel and record (time and location) keeping and encounters. It makes the remarkable suggestion that a party travelling by foot "may traverse 50 kilometers" per day under ideal conditions, however they may march at a faster rate! On the other hand the game does include excellent Creature and NPC reaction charts where, amazingly, creatures actually behave appropriately. This section also includes "Action Rounds" used to resolve combat situations. It is a relatively standard procedure of initiative, movement, fire and damage with all the usual and appropriate modifications and with various willpower checks on the relative bravery of participants. Armor reduces the amount of damage received and varies according to the damage type; it is less than clear than weather this protection is applied per hit or per sum in the case of multiple strikes. The rules imply the latter, but realistically this would not make sense. Again, the game suffers for lack of illustrative examples. Damage is directly applied against physical characteristics and can be quite savage, especially against the unamored.

Space travel is achieved via psionic hyperdrives and slower-than-light travel. The game makes use of astronomical units and acliptic planes, and describes a number of space vessels according to their availability, minimum crew, passenger capacity, cargo capacity, cost and performance modifier (aka structural integrity). Ships can also carry variable performance enhancing 'pods' such as augmented jump drives, bio-research labs, heavy weapons, landing gear etc. Whilst FTL travel is, as mentioned, by psionic hyperdrive, STL travel within systems is through consumption of radioactive fuel with speed relative to the performance of the STL drive and the use of gravity webs. The chapter concludes with a "crippled" (i.e., deliberately unplayable) summary version of the Delta Vee starship combat system, notable for having a scale of 20,000km per hex.

The final section (excepting the numerous logs, character sheets and more charts and tables) is the "Adventure Guide" which consists of two distinct parts; the first is a listing of standard creature encounters which are presented in an abstract manner, more by what it looks like and what its powers and abilities are rather than by a name or any sort of taxonomic classification. Some 40 creatures are so described along with a standard listing of powers. Next is a collection of stock NPCs split into "Common" (20), "Uncommon" (12) and "Unique" (8). These are each described with characteristics, profession, location, skills, possessions and obvious plot hooks developed from first impressions. This follows with a small number of spaceship encounters and accidents, again with the implication of being used a plot devices.

The game concludes with the introductory adventure "Lost of Laidley", which is effectively a "find the lost explorers" mission, which is hardly a flagship introduction to the game. Indeed, it is excrutiating in its dullness. There are no plot twists to speak of, no real narrative development or plot devices to generate a sense of excitement; just a tireless and essentially random journey around the map area until success is achieved or the PCs suffer effects from the corrosive atmosphere or are eaten by a giant slug; I'm not kidding.

Universe is a game I wish I could like more; in many ways it was quite advanced in terms of its allocation of professions and scope of skills and the general principles in the task resolution method. The rules for psionicists and especially their FTL navigational powers (c.f., Norman Spinrad's "Void Captain's Tale") are quite evocative. The scope of the rules in such a short publication are extremely impressive as well. There are some notable absences, such a method for characteristic-based task resolution, and a couple of rules which are not quite right, such the highly inflationary effects of skill levels and the minimal influence of characteristics; these do not add substance to the game. Stylistically, the excellent physical production of the game is significantly hampered by the writing style, lack of illustrations and the lack of artwork. Fundamentally, it is a detailed science fiction game with great scope and a mostly workable game system presented densely in a soulless package. I suspect this, more than anything else, is the reason why Universe (unlike its fantasy brethren, DragonQuest) has been almost forgotten in the RPG community.