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Star Wars: Empire at War Review
The Star Wars franchise has seen its ups and downs in terms of quality in the game industry over the years. While there have been a select few gems, most of the games have been either mediocre (Revenge of the Sith) or just plain awful (Force Commander). Considering LucasArts has made many excellent games in the past, it’s often shocking to see so many duds from its star franchise. Things have begun to turn around though with the recent releases of Star Wars Battlefront and Lego Star Wars. Both of those games were received very well and Battlefront has already spawned a sequel and Lego Star Wars will soon follow suit. The real time strategy genre is probably where most fans would love to see a good Star Wars game sprout from and it appears that Empire At War is ready to be that game. While neither perfect nor genre defining, Empire at War provides at long last a Star Wars strategy game experience to be proud of. There’s room for improvement, but any fan of Star Wars and most RTS enthusiasts should find something to like in Empire at War.
Empire at War’s campaign mode is said to follow the events leading up to Episode IV (A New Hope) and while certain situations scream of timeline inconsistencies, for the most part everything is solidly represented. The storyline of Empire at War does a good job of bridging the gap between the Prequels and Sequels (much as the future television show plans to do). When you first start you are given the choice of playing the Rebels or the Empire and as expected, both storylines differ in terms of their resources and goals. When starting up you will notice that most of the game’s strategic decisions are made on the Galactic Map, and with it you will be able to see all the planets and resources at your disposal. From here you can create space and land structures and even units based on your population limit and the amount of credits you have. Both your population limit and money supply are based on how many planets you currently control or smuggle from. Planets you control are outlined in green while enemy planets are red. At the end of each galactic day you will gain credits from the planets your control. Some planets are controlled by pirates who are much easier to deal with than the opposing team and other planets are simply uncontested, which for the most part can simply be taken over with little hassle. Unlike most strategy titles, battles are fought on two fronts. In order to invade the land of an enemy planet, you must destroy the forces guarding the planet from space. Space battles and land battles differ slightly, though most of it’s just a difference in style. Creating a space station above your controlled planets allows you to produce space units as well as defend the planet below with built in defense. Stations can also help with increasing the population cap. All of your favorite Star Wars space vehicles are present including ones you may not be all that familiar with. By flying your ships into the orbit of an enemy planet you will incite a battle and that’s when the game loads into the space combat mode.
At this point the game will feel familiar to most other strategy games aside from the fact that you are controlling your units in space. As expected, the units are controlled on a 2D plane meaning you can’t simply fly your ships in a million different directions. The camera is fully controllable and the easiest way to keep an eye on the units is from looking overtop of them. From space you can seek and destroy your enemy the same way you would in any other RTS, (select and click ring a bell?) but because we are dealing with spaceships here, there are a few extra layers. Ships have two sets of energy, one for the shield strength and the other for the base hull. Basically you have a little room in battle to be crazy because you are equipped with extra shielding, giving you a little time to do some of the more daring suicide dives. The catch here is that some units have weapons that can penetrate shields, so shielding isn’t always a reliable source of longevity. Also, space stations and some of the larger ship come with several areas that are attackable. Before you can destroy a space station, many times you will have to target other vital areas like the shields first before really digging into it. It’s also possible to attack the source of a target’s weapons to neutralize them while your forces advance towards it. Most of the time when you enter into a space battle you will not spawn with the total units you selected to join you. Some units are held in a reinforcement queue which you can call on at any time in clear space (not near enemy bases). Along with being able to take full control of the game’s camera in space, a cinematic camera mode is also included. By choosing this, you are treated to some often amazing camera angles of the action close up. The downsides to the camera mode is that you can’t control anything while viewing it and sometimes the camera will get caught up in showing a whole lot of nothing. For what it is, it’s a great little side feature.
Once the space above a planet is cleared, your troops will be able to land safely on an enemy planet and begin the ground takeover. Ground battles should be even more familiar for the typical strategy gamer as you are basically given command of your troops and advance across the map destroying all the enemies in your path. The maps are filled with various structures that can be taken over by both sides, like ion cannons and sensor arrays. In some situations you can also create new relatively small structures that will help you in the immediate area. The maps also include reinforcement points which when captured, allow you to call on troops available in the queue. Unlike in space where you can pretty much spawn troops anywhere away from enemies, these control points can be stolen by the enemy and if you control none, you could very well lose all hope of taking over a planet. The units that occupy the land battles include troops that ride speeder bikes, carry massive rocket launchers and command tanks and even some of the larger vehicles like the AT-ST and AT-ATs. Unlike most other strategy games, you cannot spawn more units on the game field and you don’t really create any vital structures, as there is usually always some facilities ripe for the taking already on the planet, or if your planet is being attacked, you probably already have facilities on the ground that you queued up from the Galactic Map. The tactics are fairly similar to the space battles, but less layered. Basically if you have a large enough force of units and plow them against the enemy, you have a good chance of success. As always there are basic infantry troops that are good against their enemy equals and there are units that specialize in taking down tanks and other vehicles. Its not rocket science, but there’s a lot of fun to be had here. The battles are visually appealing and keep you on your toes when having to skip back over to the reinforcement points to bring out more troops. The enemy AI is quite competent and can be frustrating on certain missions, but aside from the typical path finding issues that pop up here and there, they do their job quite well. Indigenous species also roam the maps you play on depending on the planet you happen to be on (how about some Jawas?). The missions you embark on both in space and on land range from escort jobs to taking out enemy structures. Both campaigns are fairly lengthy and if you aren’t turned off by the eventual repetitive nature of the battles then you will likely stick with them until the end, because for all of its simple fun, there really isn’t a whole lot of depth underneath the basic mechanics. Its three stage setups (campaign map, space battles and land battles) and subtle changes of the RTS norm help Empire at War stand out (if ever so slightly) in a genre in dire need of innovation.
Empire at War also gives you the ability to recruit “Heroes”, which are represented here in the form of our favorite characters from the saga. Characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader can be a significant addition to your army and not to mention a bit overpowered. Each hero has their own special ability or attributes that can include increased damage against enemies or improved armor ratings for surrounding troops. To balance out their power, the enemy team can also acquire heroes and both sides can hire bounty hunters to try and assassinate the hero from the opposing side. Gaining new heroes is achieved by advancing your technology level which is also another important part of the game. By increasing your technology level (which is achieved by building research facilities on the Empire’s side and using C-3PO and R2-D2 from the Rebels), you are given access to new types of structures, more powerful units and as said before, heroes. One other small feature in the game is the ability to send a specific type of unit from the Galactic Map to another planet to acquire information or resources. For instance, C-3PO and R2-D2 can be sent to another planet to gather (steal) new technology or you can send spies, smugglers and probe droids to other planets to gain intelligence and sometimes more credits.
In addition to the campaign, skirmish mode and the now expected online options are available for you to toy around with. Skirmish plays similarly to the Campaign mode except that you pick either to play a space or ground battle and you can set up the level, terms and opponents. In Skirmish, the goal of the game is essentially to destroy all of the enemy forces. Another match type is called Land Control which is basically a no holds barred battle for control of all the reinforcement points on the map. In the skirmish modes, you are able to upgrade many abilities through the structures in your side’s base and create more units in a method that differs from the normal game considering the lack of the galactic map. Last but not least is the ability to play a freeform campaign mode against another player. In this version of the campaign mode, you can select the terms of victory and the size of the galaxy to help control how long it will take to play. You can even save campaigns and pick them up at a later time. Playing online is definitely one of the game’s sweet spots and if you can get past some network issues like the sometimes excessive lag, then you can have quite a lot of fun pitting your skills against other human players. The game has already seen two quickly released patches to fix gameplay and network issues and if this initiative keeps up, the bugs should be smoothed out in no time.
While both the space and land battles are handled by the same graphics engine, it’s surprising how different they can come across to you. The terrain, vehicles and particle effects of the ground maps are all quite impressive and seeing ground forces go at is never a sore sight. The main complaint with the ground battles is how some of the units look a bit dated when compared to some of the newer strategy titles on the market. Especially in the cut-scenes, blocky representations of several beloved Star Wars characters may not be all that settling. Space battles on the other hand are downright amazing looking at times. While the ship models and explosions are great in their own right, it’s the combination of all the visual elements in some of the more fierce battles that really make the space battles pop. Performance wise, Empire at War can eat your computer up and spit it out if you try pumping up all the effects on the typical home computer. The good news is that there is a long list of options for you to toy around with so that eventually you will find a good balance of beauty and performance. Slowdown is bound to occur on even the more meaty machines though because of how hectic some battles can get, but since this is a strategy game, framerate drops are far less detrimental to the game than they would be to a fast paced shooter. Considering this is a Star Wars game, the now and forever amazing John Williams soundtrack and movie sound effects are present in Empire at War throughout every nook and cranny. Of course like most Star Wars games, the actual actors from the saga aren’t present, but the sound alikes are adequate. Even if you have never heard of Star Wars (which lets face it, is pretty close to impossible), the sights and sounds featured here should disappoint no one.
With the movie saga complete and a television series coming closer and closer to reality, the Star Wars franchise seems to have ended one chapter and begun another. While some people like to spend hours on end debating the quality of the movie prequels, whatever their issues may be, they can’t even hold a candle to how bad some previous Star Wars games have turned out. It’s nice to see that the gaming end of the Star Wars franchise is starting to pick up and treat fans of the movies the right way just as Episode III redeemed the movie saga for many who felt Lucas had lost the magic. Well, with solid strategy mechanics, often stunning graphics and the top notch Star Wars presentation we have all come to expect, its few issues with balance, repetition, difficulty and online performance are overshadowed by the enjoyable experience it delivers to its players. While the movies may be over and done with, the games have seemingly just begun their rise.
Written by Joseph Bennett. Posted year 2006.
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Released on
February 15, 2006
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