Star Wars: Empire at War is the latest game in the Star Wars franchise. Eagerly awaited by gamers and Star Wars fans alike, we have some good news for you. It rocks.
Expectations were high, and rightly so, since the developers responsible for it have Command and Conquer as one of their credits.
Star Wars: Empire at War has managed to exceed expectations - not only is it a great all round real-time strategy, it has managed to bring some new elments to the genre.
Set a short while before Episode IV, Empire at War gives players the chance to wage war on land, and in space. It mixes real time elements with longer term strategic planning, and allows for warfare on a galactic scale. Want to blow up Kashyyyk with the Death Star? Feel free - in conquest mode at least. The game features pretty much any planet you can imagine - Tatooine, Yavin, Dagobar, Rori, and many others taken from both the films an the expanded universe books and role play system.
In story mode, you have a choice of playing either the Rebels or the Imperials. Each has a set of missions, well scripted, and featuring well known characters such as R2D2 and C3PO, or Darth Vader. It is slightly frustrating that you can 'kill' these hero characters, only to have them reappear in another mission. Some of the hero units, such as Luke, are features of the space game only.
If you have played the demo, but did not enjoy it for whatever reason, I strongly suggest that you give the full game a chance - the graphics are much improved, and the game really only gets going in the later missions. At first, throughout the tutorial and the early missions, Empire at War feels very slow paced - the mix of 1 day at a time building between missions, galactic conquest, and normal real time play seems excessive. Once you are deeper into the game, however, you will appreciate the time you get to manage your planets. In fact, you will likely end up feeling rushed, and have some sympathy for the Emperor - it wasn't Force Lightning that made him so old and wrinkly, it was stress!
Space battles can be auto-resolved, or can be played out in real-time. As the battle is taking place, you have the option of viewing events in cinematic view - this is a great feature, but doesn't always show you what you expect - you could be blowing up a Star Destroyer, and you end up looking from the point of view of a ship looking the other way. In real time view, both in space and on land, the graphics are decent enough - the models are small, but you can zoom in and get some good detail. The cinematic view, however, is breathtaking.
When you conquer a planet it has some indiginous defences and properties - these are useful, because it takes the rush out of base building, and means that you will have a chance to defend yourself from attack immediately. Space battles are limited in size with a unit cost system that allows you to have either many small ships, or a cuple of large ones. The reinforcement system allows you to send up some more, should you lose the ones you have, but the game is more about what you do with the things you have, not how much you can build.
Petroglyph have done a great job of differentiating Rebel and Imperial by more than just the units they have - their entire philosophy is different - Rebels steal technology, Imperials research it. Rebels recruit Smugglers and use them to siphon credits from the Imperials. The Imperials can hire Bounty Hunters to assassinate those Smugglers. You could almost use Empire at War to replace Star Wars Galaxies!
The story mode can be quite difficult in places, but also rewarding, as you get to play through Star Wars: A New Hope, and make the film work out the way you think it should have.
Its hard to do Empire at War justice - the story modes are both well written and well acted - with voice actors that sound convincingly like the characters they are playing, and Galactic Conquest is incredibly satisfying. It is unfortunate that multi-player does not allow for the entire galactic map, but in truth, how many people have that much time in one sitting?
Star Wars: Empire At War has more than enough content to keep you busy for a long time to come - the Rebel campaign and the Imperial campaign are both of decent length, add a variety of Conquest maps, and multi player, and you have a decent dose of strategy gaming crammed onto one disc.
If you are a Star Wars fan, you must play this. If you are a fan of strategy games looking for something that bit different, then again, play this. Now.
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Single Player: 9/10
Multi Player: 9/10
Longevity: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
