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Star Wars: Empire At War
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Graphics & Sound:
NOTE: This review is for the offline component of Empire At War only. (see Game Mechanics section for explanation.)
Star Wars: Empire At War does a nice job of bringing the Star Wars universe to life. While there are several different settings that can be tweaked to adjust the quality of the graphics based on the power of your computer system, I found that the graphics looked nice even at the lower settings. If your computer is on the lower side and you can't choose all of the options, I suggest going with the higher resolution before turning on other features. The higher resolution really helps the overall look of the game a lot. If you can, you'll also want to increase the detail to get the full LucasArts film-like experience.
Speaking of "film-like", if you find yourself in a position where you've set things in motion and you're waiting to see how things play out (such as while waiting for your credits to build up enough to purchase something you need), try out the "Cinematic Mode". This mode removes your UI and lets you watch the action play out in front of you - up close and personal - for that cinematic experience.
There are a wide variety of units that are faithfully reproduced in Star Wars: Empire At War, including T-65 X-Wings, Y-Wings, A-Wings, Corellian Corvettes, Correllian Gunships, Marauder Missile Cruisers, Rebel Cruisers, Alliance Assault Frigates, Mon Calamari Cruisers, Probe Droids, TIE Fighters, TIE Bombers, TIE Scouts, Tartan Patrol Cruisers, Broadside-Class Cruiser KDB-1s, Acclamators, Victory-Class Star Destroyers, Interdictor Cruisers, Imperial Star Destroyers, and even Death Stars.
Special characters that can be used as reinforcements for their various special abilities include: Mon Motha, Kyle Katarn, Captain Raymus Antilles, R2-D2 & C-3P0, Commander Ackbar, Han Solo & Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Red Squadron (including the young Luke Skywalker) for the Rebels and Emperor Palpatine, Mara Jade, Captain Piett, Colonel Veers, Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett and Darth Vader for the Empire. All of the above were represented by good looking, recognizable models and/or artwork; 3D models being used when on the ground, and face shots being used in the Space battles.
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Gameplay:
The main gameplay in Star Wars: Empire At War takes two forms: land and space-based missions. The point of either is to build your resources and gain control over the area. In the land-based skirmishes, this takes the form of building up your base and troops and balancing between protecting your currently owned and occupied areas and expanding out into new areas and attacking your enemies' holdings, trying to overtake and gain control of them as well. The space-based skirmishes have the same goals, but with more emphasis on building up units, advancing your space station and technology levels and guarding and searching out enemies, rather than building up new areas; there are fewer locations that can be taken and built up in the space skirmishes.
Those looking for more depth can try the Campaign and Galactic Conquest modes, which introduce the concept of overarching, long-termed goals into the mix by providing a series of skirmishes and the element of managing units in between these skirmishes. If you want to play a game in a short amount of time or need to practice certain elements of gameplay, you want to play the Skirmish mode. If you're looking for longer gameplay, the Campaign or Galactic Conquest modes are what you're looking for. If later you find that you've bitten off more than you can chew and you want to do something else and resume your game later, no problem - just save your game and come back to it later.
Fans of the movies will be happy to see that the snow speeders have their grappling line attacks available to them - just the thing for those pesky walkers. |
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Difficulty:
Maybe it's because I'm just a good 'ole American boy, but when I'm playing a Land war, I like to use a lot of air power. Speeders aren't the most destructive weapons at your disposal, but they are pretty dang quick. And push come to shove, they have the nifty cable attack - nice for teaching the Empire why wheels are better than legs.
The difficulty level is configurable before you enter a game, so choose carefully. I find that the Easy mode is just that - easy - but it's also a nice way to get in and get familiar with the units and how to control them. If you want to work your way to (successfully) playing higher difficulty levels or, I shudder to suggest it, online play, you'll need to build strategies; do you want to play more offensively or more defensively, do you want to mass up your cheaper units or save up for powerful units and upgrades. Find your favorite units and learn how to use them. Well. There are a lot of different units to choose from, as well as a lot of different power-ups that will affect them. I suggest finding some favorites and then investing in their power-ups as well, if you can spare the credits; you'll spread yourself too thin if you try to learn everything.
Another thing that, if used wisely, can help tip things in your favor is the Hero Reinforcements. You know them from the movies: Red Squadron (including Luke Skywalker), Han Solo and Chewie, Admiral Ackbar... each one has their own special advantages. Learn these special abilities and use them to your advantage. Chewie, for example, has the ability to commandeer vehicles. You need an AT-ST? No problem. This can come in handy, but this will be a greater advantage if you know what vehicle you want. Learn the special abilities of enemy vehicles so that you know what to swipe, um, when to put the walking carpet's talents to work for you. |
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Game Mechanics:
Empire At War is a nice real-time strategy - it doesn't force you into the micromanagement that some other games do, but you still get the experience of being very much in command of a large force that must be commanded as a unit.
The attention to detail is very nice - with the units having appropriate special attacks and the reinforcements having special abilities that make sense. The massive amounts of small modifiers that affect the gameplay - such as which units work more/less effectively on which units and the bonuses gained when certain heroes are in your fleet or when you have possession of certain planets - is a bit much to memorize, but Empire At War comes with a small, fold-out quick-reference card that puts this info at a glance.
I tried several times to play Star Wars: Empire At War online, but to no avail. Based on the in-game indicators that evaluate system readiness, my computer was better off than a lot that were trying to play in the games I was, but the best we ever got was getting into the game and starting to play of about 30 seconds before someones connection died and they had to drop out of the game. After that, it was one player after the other getting laggy and having to be kicked or simply becoming non-responsive. This review is of the off-line component. If I am able to actually play an online game of Empire at War, I will update this review and raise the score accordingly.
Fans of Star Wars and Real Time Strategies will love this game. Anyone who's not a Star Wars fan would take a while to learn all of the units and such. But then, who's not a Star Wars fan!?
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-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins |
Minimum System Requirements:
(100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer required.)
Windows 2000/XP, Intel PIII or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB 3D card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability, 100%DirectX 9.0c compatible Sound Card, 8X Speed CD-ROM drive, Keyboard, Mouse, 56Kbps or faster internet connection, DirectX 9.0c (included), the latest drivers for your hardware, 2.5 GB of free drive space - with suggestion of at least 200 MB of free RAM available after the installation is complete.
Supported Chipsets:
- ATI Radeon 7200/7500 family
- ATI Radeon 8500/9000/9200 family
- ATI Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 family
- ATI Radeon X300/X600/X700/X800/X850 family
- ATI Radeon X1K family
- NVIDIA GeForce 256 family
- NVIDIA GeForce 2/3/4 family
- NVIDIA GeForce FX family
- NVIDIA GeForce 6 family
- NVIDIA GeForce 7 family
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Test System:
HP Special Edition L2999 Notebook PC:
Windows XP Home Edition SP2, AMD Turion 64 ML-37 2.0 GHz/1MB L2 Cache, 2.0 GB DDR SDRAM, 80 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive, DVD +/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/ Double Layer Support, 14.0 WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x768), ATI Radeon Xpress 200M w/productivity ports, 54g 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster, DirectX 9.0c (from included disc), built-in keyboard, touchpad. |
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