Star Wars: Empire at War Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I was looking forward to playing this for awhile. I pre-ordered a copy and when it arrived I leaped into it. It is a decent game overall. The graphics won't wow you. They aren't top of the line, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing because it will play on a majority of computers out there today. There are little things they did add in like when ships explode and the men and pieces of metal will come tumbling out into space...nice touch.
I think I was expecting a bit more...there isn't a whole lot of tactics/strategy to the game that can't be solved by a quick mouse hand. If you excel at Warcraft/Starcraft type games then you will be right in your element. The space/land battle maps are very small and claustrophobic where there is no room for manuevering or flanking. It's basically move in and slug it out clicking all over the map to ensure victory. It's not completly dull, but it's awful close. In it's entirety however, they play pretty well and enjoyable.
One misperception I had was that the space battles were in 3-D similar to Homeworld or Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. They are very 2-D, but will appear 3-D if you switch to the cinematic camera which is pretty cool when you are in a big space battle and you have everything under control and can watch the battle unfold other than from a isometric top-down perspective.
The gameplay itself is entertaining, but I really did not like where time continued to advance on the strategic map. You can slow the time down a lot and of course there is pause, but time continues to advance and you need to stop and really slow things down immensly on the Galactic Conquest games. Speaking of pause there is no hotkey for it which makes pausing the game during land/space battles annoying especially when the battle is very busy and costs me a few units. I really would have prefered a turn-based strategic level similiar to Star Wars: Rebellion. On the massive Galactic Conquest map it's almost unplayable on a normal speed because it is so daunting managing 30ish planets. I highly recommend putting the speed to lowest and then just hitting the fast forward key if you need time to speed up a bit.
The tutorial and voice acting are very good. They explain the game pretty much without having to crack open the manual with a few omissions. I wasn't sure how to build Imperial Star Destroyers until I realized i needed to upgrade my Space Station as well (To build these big boys anyway you need to be on a specific planet as well.)
The game is fairly balanced between the Rebels and Empire. The Star Destroyers are definately the kings of the skies and tough to beat. The rebels have a lot of little tricks though to help them out like the annoyingly frustrating Raid tactic where the Rebels can bypass your defending fleet and land directly on the planet with a army to wreck havok. This forces you to overfortify a lot leaving little for offense at times if your borders cover many worlds. However, the AI isn't outstanding so you can bend a bit. For example, there seems to be a definate lack of building the big Mon Calamari cruisers or Imperial Star Destroyers on Galactic Conquest. I give the other side breathing space to get a big battle but the AI seems to only like to build average frigates and waaay too many missile boats which have the armor plating of a Pinto.
There is a cap on how many units can be on a Land/Space battle at one time. For space battles it is 25 points for the Rebels and 20 points for the Empire. Big capital ships like the Mon Calamari Cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers fill up 4 points each with most frigate types taking up 3 points and your corvetters will fill up 2 points. Fighters like the X-Wing and Y-wing take up one point. The empire never has to build fighters because they auto-launch from Star Destroyers with the exception of the TIE scout (which sucks).
It's almost impossible to lose as the Empire. You can setup your fleet with five Imperial Star Destroyers (which puts you at a cap of 20 units out of 20 units) and fight a Rebel fleet 10 times your size and you will win everytime because the AI does not concentrate all their big capital ships and instead brings in lesser missile boats and corvettes which get chewed up by a few salvos from your Star Destroyers and you can focus on their Nebulan and Assault frigates one by one. The AI won't wait and concentrate, but send them in piecemeal to get smushed. One of the good parts of the AI is that it is very choosy where to attack. If you have fortified all your border planets with Level 5 space stations and a decent fleet the computer won't attack unless it has a big force. It will go on the defensive mostly and wait for you. It's not that much more challenging playing as the rebels either when I built up a large invasion fleet to combat Coruscant which was heavily defended and when the two Fleets engage I see the AI has decided in it's wisdom to build 39 TIE Scouts. Errr?
The heroes and villians are on a spawn timer with the exception of the Emperor and Mon Motha in most Galactic Conquest maps and campaigns. For example, that grrrr Han Solo you can kill with a Bounty Hunter or in battle but Shazam! in no time at all he's back up and kicking leading more forces past your fleets.
System stability. Well, I really don't have much to comment on this other than Lucasarts is definately paying attention to this release and there have been TWO updates i've downloaded from their site via their auto-updater when the game is launched. I guess the widespread negative reaction to their abysmal failure of a MMORPG prompted a lot more pampering to the latest Star Wars products.
Is it worth your time and money? Sure..why not. It's fun and there is nothing bad about it, but it's not going to knock your socks off. It's not the Total War engine (which honestly I was hoping for). You will enjoy the battles if nothing else. Just note there is nothing turn-based about this at all. Overall a 4 star game.
Pros
- Fun
- Cinematic camera angles are immersive
- Addicting gameplay
- Good voice acting
- Good tutorial
Cons
- Sub-standard AI
- Too easy even on Advanced.
- Cramped Land/Space battle maps.

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Star Wars: Empire at War is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that is, quite simply, amazing in its scope and grandeur. This game has all the elements that both hard-core Star Wars fans and dedicated strategist gamers are looking for. In Empire at War, you must fight battles in space and on the ground, giving the game a dual-layered design that forces you to operate on both an involved strategic level as well as a tactical level. Add epic-looking battles with dozens of great touches, outstanding sound effects that you've come you've come to expect from LucasArts, the contrasting play styles enabled by playing as either the Rebellion or the Empire, and a broad array of unforgettable characters, and you've got a game that lets you truly immerse yourself in the Star Wars universe.
The storyline of Star Wars: Empire at War occurs between the two trilogies through the end of "A New Hope." As a player, you'll be involved in virtually every aspect of the conflict between the Rebels and the Empire. You must simultaneously manage your economy, develop technology, build factories, planetary defenses, ships, and space stations, as well as get information on new planets and maneuver your various forces around the galaxy. Unlike some strategy games that are decided by who has hoarded enough resources to overwhelm the enemy, here it is just as important to build your forces up in an intelligent fashion in order to gain power. And to ensure you aren't ever allowed to sit back and relax, it all happens in real time, so if you spend too long considering what to build or where to send your fleet, you'll be inviting a computer attack that could reverse your gains.
Star Wars: Empire at War has a huge number of variables you'll need to consider. Many planets have unique bonuses, such as allowing certain units to be created more powerfully or cheaply, thereby increasing your credit income by different degrees, as well as only allowing the largest ships like Mon Calamari cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers to be built on certain planets. And the Empire and Rebels obviously both have their differences. The Empire usually generates a lot more money, which it can use to overwhelm the rebel forces if left unchecked. The Rebels, on the other hand, have far fewer resources, which can make them more difficult to play and learn, but they can steal technology and sneak raiding parties past many of the Empire's space defenses. And each of the two sides has their own distinct Hero units, which can be extremely powerful and can sway the course of battle greatly. You can use Palpatine or Mon Mothma to reduce a planet's production costs; C3PO and R2D2 to steal technology or hack into an enemy's turrets and turn them against their own troops; Darth Vader to force-push entire groups of enemy soldiers on land; or Boba Fett to crush concentrations of fighters by dropping seismic charges in space. To balance out these massive powers, both sides can hire generic bounty hunters to try and eliminate a rival hero from the game.
While the land battles in Star Wars: Empire at War are highly enjoyable and extremely challenging, involving heavily armored AT-ATs and more, the space battles are truly breathtaking. Watching a Star Destroyer crawling with bright-blue ion energy, or an entire wave of X-wings explode into flame, or witnessing a fully-armed and operational Death Star blow a planet to smithereens are unparalleled experiences in this galaxy, or any other. And the visual and sound effects aren't the only thing that will amaze you during a space battle. The bigger units like space stations and Star Destroyers all have hard points pertaining to different systems. You can target these different systems to cripple ships in different ways, taking out their shield generator, weapons system, or engines to reduce their effectiveness, or taking out the hanger on Imperial capital ships to thin out their fighter cover. And as you destroy a cannon or shield generator, that piece will break off and float away. And while most ships eventually explode, the Mon Calamari Cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers will actually tear in to pieces that continue to linger throughout the battle. What's more, you always need to watch out for ships the AI (artificial intelligence) might be hiding in asteroid belts, waiting to spring them on the flanks of your fleet at the worst possible moment.
The strategic layer of Empire at War takes place on a two-dimensional galactic map showing you all the planets. In the full campaign mode, you must consider and plan around more than 40 such planets, whereas in some of the simpler conquest scenarios, you may end up dealing with as few as eight of them. Instead of playing in the campaign mode, you can play multiplayer matches over a LAN or online with up to eight players. The LucasArts' matchmaking system makes finding an opponent easy, and if you are playing a head-to-head match against a friend, you have the ability to save a match and reload it to continue at a later time. Delivering a presentation that is as epic as the films themselves, Star Wars: Empire at War is ideal for any fan of strategy games, and absolutely necessary for Star Wars aficionados.

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