Hmmmmmm..... Much nerdiness I sense in you. Play this game you must, or regret it forever you will!

Every time I review or mention a Star Wars game I always bring up the law that governs all Star Wars products, be it movie or game. They will either be excellent (Jedi Knight II, and Battlefront) or terrible. So far every Star Wars RTS has been terrible. Both Force Commander and Galactic Battlegrounds broke my heart in a way that no woman ever could. They made the the Star Wars Galaxy not fun. I really tried to like them, but the best thing about Force Commander was the remixed music, and the best thing about Battlegrounds was the box art.

I started seeing screenshots and videos from Empire At War a few months ago, and I wondered to myself.... Could we finally have a Star Wars RTS that lives up the movies and the greatness that this franchise is possible of? Is it possible we've got a game that might finally take the RTS crown away from Total Annihilation? Lets get started and answer all of these fascinating questions, and more.

Premise

The Empire took over the galaxy. The rebels have decided they're had enough and are going to kick some serious Imperial ass. Please see Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI for all the details if by some miracle you're unaware of the entire back story. (Of course you're the type of nerd who reads Star Wars game reviews, so I doubt that's the case.) Empire at War plays out just before the events in Episode IV and runs through Episode VI.

Gameplay

Empire at War (Hereafter referred to as EAW) is a real time strategy played on three different levels. At the strategic level you've got a view of the 42 planets that make up the known Galaxy, with the various colors indicating who owns them. The strategic game is quite enjoyable, as it's interesting to see how your decisions will affect the battle. What units should you be producing where? Do you need a garrison, or a stronger space station at system X? Should your fleets abandon planet Y and attempt to hold system Z? From your overall view of the known galaxy you can order different buildings and facilities to be constructed on the various planets you own, order said facilities to construct ships, ground units and space defenses, or order your fleets around. When one of your war fleets enters a star system that is controlled by the enemy or a neutral party such as pirates, you'll engage them in the most enjoyable part of the entire game: epic space battles. Once you've defeated their space defenses you'll land troops for the ground assault and fight that as well.

Unfortunately you can't build your base on the ground and lay out your defenses, it's all done (rather poorly) by the computer, and on any of the single player missions that had a "resolve battle automatically" I found myself quickly clicking on it rather than slogging through the ground fight. With the game being laid out the way it is I don't think it would have been possible for them to get any real base building in you just wouldn't have time what with your managing the entire galaxy, and the front lines change so often it'd be a great deal of wasted effort. Your planets will be able to produce various units and defenses depending on their terrain and your enhancements. Each planet has a limited number of slots open for such buildings though, so chose wisely.

Unlike conventional RTS games which have you collecting Metal and Minerals (or whatever their version is.) in EAW you get money from the various planets you hold, and that's the only resource you have to worry about. The planets also often have a bonus. For instance on Hoth the enemy can't see what defenses you have built up, due to the terrain, Kessel will give you a credit bonus per turn due to the trade in illegal Spice, Bothawui will give you information on nearby enemy movement, Tattoine will allow you to build a cantina to recruit smuggler and bounty hunter heroes, and Mon Calamari will allow you build capital ships if you control it. The more planets you control, and the more built up they are, the greater you maximum unit cap.

Moving your troops and ships around the galaxy is dead simple. In the zoomed out strategic view, just click on a planet to zoom in and view all the units in orbit, on garrison duty, and all defenses and enhancements you've built. If you want to move some units just drag them into a fleet one by one, or ctrl-click to drag the whole stack. Zoom out one level to the strategic view, and drag the fleet where you want them to go and they'll make their way there in real time. It's quite frustrating to move a fleet into position to defend a weak point in your hyperspace lanes and have an enemy force get there just before you do and smoke your space station and other hard earned defenses

EAW is a rock/paper/scissors type RTS. Generally speaking Unit X will always counter Unit Y, unless it's defended by Unit Z. For instance most capital ships are good against other capital ships, but weak against bombers. Bombers are weak against fighters, and fighters are weak against corvettes. It requires quite a bit of maneuvering at times to make sure your units are always after their optimum target type and being protected from the units that are hunting them. It's nice that they've included a paper chart with the game that shows you the strength and weaknesses of all the units in the game, as well as showing the same information when you select a unit.

There's several gameplay options in the single player, my favorite is Galactic Conquest, where you'll play through many of the events of the first three movies up until the destruction of the Death Star from either the Rebels or Imperial side. As the Rebels you'll be trying to hold your own, recruit new people and worlds to your cause, and find out all about this new super weapon that the Emperor is building. As the Empire you'll be trying to wipe out those pesky rebels and blow up things with said super weapon.

There's some shorter scenarios/skirmishes to be played as well. On most skirmish maps you'll have a pre constructed base, or have to capture structures and repair them to build your armies.

I rather enjoyed the single player missions that follow the storyline where you have goals such as to rescue Han and Chewie from an Imperial ambush, or to sneak them onto a planet and steal some plans.

The interface for EAW is intuitive and extremely easy to learn and master. The in game tutorial and manual will have you stomping Rebels and blowing up Imperial bases in no time flat.

Heroes/Special Units

Each side gets minor and major heroes each with it's own special abilities which can come in quite handy. Some of the abilities work in combat, some work passively on whatever world the hero is stationed on. For instance the Emperor decreases the costs of whatever world he's stationed on. In combat Chewbacca can highjack enemy vehicles. Admiral Akbar can order all the ships in his squadron to concentrate their fire on a single enemy target for a damage boost. R2 and Threepio can spy on enemy planets and steal technology without being detected. You can also recruit/build minor heroes using structures such as the cantina or officer academy.

Space Combat

Once a fleet enters the space around a defended planet the space combat begins. In order to land your troops and take a planet you'll first have to engage and defeat the enemy's space defenses. They'll generally have a space station of some sort. There are different levels of space station, each upgrade giving the defending forces a larger garrison of ships, more weapons and armor. The space battles are remarkably cinematic, and offer some breathtaking scenery once things get underway. It's incredible to see squadrons of fighters and bombers swirling around a few Star Destroyers and Mon Cal Cruisers who are going at each other. One interesting feature of the game is the ability to target different systems on bases and capital ships. For instance, you can blow the shield generators and engines on a ship and leave them drifting helplessly until you can get around to destroying them, or you can blow up the hangers so they can't launch fighters. Once all of the hard points on a capital ship or facility are destroyed it will explode.

I hated the fact that by default you can't change your camera angle and are stuck in an above head isometric view. Luckily this can be changed in the control options.

Each side has a unit cap, and so can only deploy a certain number of units into the fray at any time. When some of your units are destroyed, assuming that you have reinforcements waiting, you can summon them into the fight. It's a little tricky to make sure that all of your ships are doing their jobs and engaging the proper enemies Ex. Fighters are keeping enemy fighters off your bombers, who are engaging the enemy capital ships or space defenses., and also keeping enemy bombers squadrons off your capital ships. I mostly just throw squadrons of fighters on guard duty then control the bombers and capital ships and let the AI handle cap duty.

The only unit in the game that I found to be very unbalanced are the long range missile cruisers. They've got an annoying habit of being able to pick away at your capital ships across entire maps. I found myself keeping a few smaller capital ships around to chase those darned things down and kill them.

Ground Combat

I found that the ground combat in EAW got pretty boring pretty quickly and did a quick resolution to it wherever possible. It's a fairly standard get your units to destroy the other guys forces completely. As in the space combat phase of the game, you'll have a unit limit cap as the attacker. You'll attack initially with a small number of units and as you capture landing zones on the ground you'll raise your unit limit and be able to land more forces from your orbiting fleet. If you have bombers in your fleet you'll also occasionally be able to call in air strikes on ground targets.

The ground units fit the typical RTS standards. Light armor, heavy armor (Hmmm. AT-ATs!), tanks, rocket infantry, rifle infantry, artillery. Depending on the map you may also get support or resistance from indigenous fighters, as well as having to battle native fauna if you get to close to them. Just like in the space phase of battle, use the appropriate units and you'll generally win. (Ex. Riflemen don't do much to tanks, but rocket infantry are extremely effective.) I wasn't all that impressed with the Rebel hover tanks and other ground units, they don't have the sheer presence or personality of the Imperial toys from the movies. Tank vs. AT-AT? I'm thinking that the AT-AT is one hell of a lot cooler.

Unlike a traditional RTS, the attackers can't build any more units during the battle. You'll be using what's in your fleet, so call down backup wisely, and use the build pads scattered around the map to build fixed gun emplacements or repair/medical facilities to keep your troops and their equipment alive.

Many of the units that you can create on your planets will affect the ground battles, for instance a shield generator will keep the enemy from firing missiles/arty/bombs into a wide area surrounding the generator, until it's taken out. It's an interesting conundrum... Build defensive structures in your limited slots in case you get attacked on that planet or production facilities?


AI

The AI in EAW certainly isn't the smartest thing ever, but at the higher levels it's a challenge. You tend to get quite a bit of zerg rushing from the computer, but it will sometimes try to flank your units or hit you from long range with artillery units.


Graphics

Spectacular. There's nothing like seeing a huge armada of warships jump into a system and lay the beatdown on an enemy force. Lasers, missiles, explosions all rendered in delicious vibrant glory. The texturing on the ships and units look quite nice, even when you zoom right in on them, and it looks great when you take a capital ship out and she breaks up. The cinematic views of space battles look almost as good as those from some of the movies. It's just that pretty. I was quite impressed with the weather effects during ground battles as well, and seeing your troop transports come down to drop off reinforcements is awesome. Check out the screenshots for all the tastiness.


Sound and Music

It's a Star Wars game. It's got The Imperial March. The music and sound effects are always top notch. Heck, even the Han Solo voice in the briefings sounds a heck of a lot like Harrison Ford. (For all I know it might be, but for some reason I doubt it.)


Multiplayer

You can play all of the single player maps in Multiplayer Mode, either co-operatively against the AI, or head to head. There are four game modes in the multiplayer: Land Battle, Space Battle, Land Control (Where you capture and hold points) and Campaign. The first three modes are playable by up to eight players (Four Rebels vs. Four Imperials) and the Campaign mode is a one on one mode. Interestingly you can save and load games in the Campaign mode, so you and your buddy can just play for a little bit then pick up later where you left off.

Match making is done via the in game browser, which requires you to create an account. Write down your account information, as there doesn't seem to be any "I lost my password" button that I can find.

The multiplayer is quite enjoyable even when I'm getting my ass kicked but again, I don't like the ground battles much. The space battles are quite entertaining.


Bugs/Bad Stuff

I found it quite irritating that when I scroll the camera out to get a better idea of what's going on in the fight the HUD vanishes, making it quite difficult to command your units around, or even know which unit you currently have selected. I also don't like the fact that your camera angle is fixed by default, but at least you can unlock it in the options so you can rotate it down.

Upon initial installation, and after installing the latest patch I received an error from Securom informing me that I was playing with a duplicated CD rather than the original disc, which I certainly was not. I reset and this fixed the problem the first time, the second time I had to put the CD in my second DVD-ROM drive before it would work. Very strange, as all my other games play fine in my DVD-RW. Go anti-piracy software. I had the same problem with Battlefront 2. :(

I found that when I was directing large battles the default zoom level is a little too close to be effective, and unfortunately when one zooms back one step to get a better overview of the battle your HUD vanishes. It's great for looking around, but you can't really direct units effectively without a HUD. Heck you can't even really tell what unit you've got selected. I really wish that the HUD stayed on no matter what the zoom level, or at least the game just gave you an option to toggle it on and off.

Conclusion

Finally a good RTS game set in the Star Wars universe. Actually, a damned good game set in the Star Wars universe. Empire At War overall is fun, easy to learn and addictive. Except for a few annoying minor things, like ground combat and the camera stuff it'd be perfect. As it is it's still highly recommended purchase, especially if you're a Star Wars game fan.

I also like that the game automatically searches for patches, informs you if one is available, and asks if you'd like to install it. More games should do this, it'd make like easier for everyone, but especially gaming neophytes.