14 DAY TRIAL // 
George Lucas' universe is rife with themes just waiting to be uncovered by game developers. Titles like Knights of The Old Republic, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Battlefront, Rogue Squadron prove this and not only. Most of the games built on the Star Wars universe showed a great innovative potential and Empire at War is no exception. Aside from the implicit value of the world it depicts, it is also showing that the traditional RTS genre may be improved through some simple but well implemented game concepts and mechanics.
Concept Without straying too far from the traditional strategy game genre, Empire at War provokes the gamer to an entirely new game approach. The game is made up of three major components, already familiar to any gamer but - as a change - they are given something of a new functionality and they are interconnected in a very ingenious way - at least, this is the way I see it.
To some point, EAW resembles the mechanic of the Total War genre, although it is much closer to Imperium Galactica. The unit, tech, economic and structure management takes place on a strategic map made up of ten to forty sectors/planets (named after their movie counterparts). Furthermore, unit movement and the way battles commence are similar to the risk gaming system from Total War. After recruitment, units can be stacked and dragged over the area were they are supposed to go. However, unlike the risk gaming system, which is turn-based, EAW's blood is pure real time with pause and fast forward options over the top.
On the other hand, the tactical aspect of the game both preserves and improves the plain stupid skirmishing of the traditional RTS. Petroglyph thought to keep the land battle system I almost hate thanks to Spellforce or Warhammer 40000, games that successfully managed to mock the little that remained of the classical RTS by implementing some of the worst concepts conceivable for this genre: "unit detachments" (Warhammer) and eternal re-spawning if the recruitment buildings are not treated with utmost prejudice (Spellforce). Fortunately, ground battles can be auto-resolved.
And there are those space battles that kept me for days in front of my monitor screen. EAW glitters with high intensity thanks to this feature. They are a simplified recreation of the battle mechanics of games like NEXUS: The Jupiter Incident or Star Trek: Starfleet Command. Each space ship has a specific time of damage (concussion, laser, ion, and so on), a well-specified weapon "fire size", and a characteristic hull size (corresponding to its tactical role on the battlefield: fighter, tactical-bomber, corvette, destroyer, light cruiser, battle cruiser, and so on).
This (the tactical value of space battlefields) and a versatile AI make up for everything else. To be honest, this feature alone would have been enough to sell the game.
Story Although Empire at War feels as if it was optimized exclusively for multiplayer, its campaign has enough charisma to put up a convincing game experience. As the commander of either the Empire or the Rebel forces, the player has the opportunity to rewrite the outcome of the intergalactic conflict of the last three (III, IV and V) episodes of Star Wars.
However, there isn't any "true" story, only a random selection of ripped sections from the movie (remade with the game graphic engine) to cover for the mission briefings. And if there was a serious plot in the whole mess, it was somehow implicit. An example of ambiguity is the way Obi Wan and Luke Skywalker join the Rebels as soon as the Death Star (the Doom Star Class battlestation) is finished. There is no clear explanation about how do the two appear, what is their background or their goal. It is the duty of the player to presume what and how.
The developers assumed that the fame of Star Wars is enough and that everyone should know the plot behind it. Therefore, they decided not bother writing a pertinent, intelligible story for their game. It is a pity, as the end of the Empire campaign reserves a delightful surprise for those who felt the empire did not deserve its faith.
Gameplay There are three options of single play, and none of them involves dedicated space skirmishing: the campaign mode as the Rebel faction or the Empire (the pirates, although having a good range of units, are not available), galactic conquest (that resembles the campaign in almost every aspect, the only difference is the number of planets ranging from 10 to 42) and skirmish mode (in the good ol' RTS way).
As I said before, ground skirmishes are plain boring if not plain dumb. The range of troops tries to remain true to those from George Lucas' universe. The maps look like they were meant for those in defense to have the upper hand. I wouldn't have mind if the AI kept the tactical genius shown on space battlefields. In ground battles, it acts as predictable as in every other traditional RTS: sends scores of troops and backs them with heavy artillery barrage. And this is something that the Germans learned the hard way back in the Normandy Campaign. To storm the lines of a force that has air superiority is pure madness. A well-placed bombing run brings utter devastation amidst the Indian line used by the AI.
Otherwise, the opposing forces are very well balanced even in the presence of major Heroes like Darth Vader, ex-Senator/Emperor Palpatine or Obi-Wan Kenobi. There is no clue that could point any of the Rebel weaknesses depicted in the movie.
Except the major heroes, all ground units form detachments of three or more units. However, infantry groups cannot be split in individual ones, as it is the case with mechanized troops. The idea behind this whole detachment thing is that if at least one unit survives throughout a siege, the group will be replenished afterwards.
The Heroes play a major tactical role as they did in Spellforce or Rome Total War. Their skills may turn the balance from utter defeat to a legendary victory. Fallen heroes need a lot of time to re-spawn, one that may be of great advantage for the side that kept them alive and kicking. For instance, the Death Star can only be destroyed by Luke Skywalker.
Ground battles work on a simple principle. One side plays the besieger role and must use landing spots to deploy its troops and bombers to prevail against a defending force that has the advantage of unlimited troops of types corresponding to the military buildings built across the surface of the planet, if any.
If the besieger does not find the most effective tactic to destroy all defending units and buildings, the chances are the battle will drag on and on for about an hour or so. There are two options to prevent this: retreat (which does not work individually but global), or auto-resolve (which is probably the dumbest I've seen in my entire life as clear victory conditions lead to clear defeat. Who did the algorithms and what in the name of God was he on? I would really appreciate some, too).
In total contradiction to what is happening on the ground, space clashes can bring bliss into any strategic maniac's heart. The AI knows to outflank your fleet using nebulas or asteroid fields (natural land mines for capital ships) or to use fast corvettes to lure your fighters into ambushes thus leaving your heavy cruisers with their pants down.
Unlike corvettes or fighters, capital ships and cruisers are made up of several subsystems (laser/ion canons, torpedo and rocket bays, engines, shield generators and fighter/bomber bays as it is the case with Star-stations or the Empire's battle cruisers).
The Rebels are a conjunction of heavy battle cruisers with outstanding shields and superior fighters and bombers but which weigh heavily to the limited upkeep (25 for the Rebels). The Empire's "naval" force consists of powerful carriers, which can support up to ten TIE fighter squadrons and six TIE bomber squadrons. The upkeep (number of forces present at the same time on the battlefield) is only 20, but a fair number as the TIE squadrons do not stack to the general upkeep and - by all means - they are many.
There is a lot of tactical value to this obvious diversity. As soon as the battle commences, the rebels will try to destroy TIE bays as much as the Imperial fleet will look out for easy pickings amidst the irreplaceable Wing squadrons, otherwise a great menace to both TIE-s and capital ships. Why is that? The powerful cannons mounted on the battleships can hardly scratch the puny fighters or bombers, therefore, corvettes are given this task. And these ships have to be also protected by light cruisers as they are mere pussycats against any type of cruiser. There is no ultimate space ship in EAW. Cruisers are sitting ducks against TIE bombers or Y-Wings while these are weak against Corvettes or fighters. This means that the player will have to think twice before choosing the consistence of their fleet. And this I did not expect from a game that has such poor ground battle system.
The financial and unit management takes place through something that resembles the risk system from Total War but it happens in real time. Planets, like Total War's provinces, will provide their administration with both bonuses (better armor, better HP, better speed for their troops) and penalties; however, these are just local and resume to the what kind of troops cannot be recruited there or how they will behave in case they are besieged.
The tech management interesting, but also simplistic. There are five tech levels, and both units and heroes depend on them. The difference between the two faction is that one (Rebels) has to develop every unit separately (by "stealing" from the Empire using the PO and R2 units, where "stealing" means buying large amounts of credits and waiting to "cool-down" for each obtained tech) while, the other, only needs to build one structure and research the "Death Star" technology (much cheaper and faster).
The game interface may be "jaw-dropping", "eye-candy" for some, we know whom. But this means squat as it is a total mess to even try to make some use out of it: where is my Broadside Cruiser, which planet produces more credits if thrown a mining facility on its surface, which route will use the opposing force if it decides to attack one of my planets? I guess people that fancied SW should know the answer.
Moreover, who was the genius that thought to assign the space key to activate a totally useless cinematic camera instead of the pause option? An option that cannot be assigned to a key, so get ready to swear a lot because you will find out how "Good" it feels to even consider hitting the pause in the interface without having any chance to get to it in time because it is in the left of the screen. Lucky left-handed people!
Probably the same pinky-brain behind the "jaw-dropping" interface and the auto-resolve algorithms thought that there is no need to use icons for every unit that takes part into a battle but for heroes only (even if ten minor ones are present and they are all piled up inside a single ship). I miss the sticky icons from (it is just an example) Civilization IV or the cards from Total War. Many ships will be blown to smithereens thanks to this "fine" interface. Did I mention that the icons of minor heroes (ship officers) are persistent in the detriment of those of major ones? The outcome is that you will lose the chance of seeing Darth Vader's happy face expressing his pleasure in eradicating the galaxy of those unwilling to join the romanticism of the dark side. Furthermore, the chances are you will lose him in the hit of the battle without even noticing.
Another important omission is the lack of control over which ships should enter a battle and which should not. A fine example of "happy thinking" is that the computer decides to bring under your control an Interdictor Cruiser or several fighters when you already have a space station with the same ability and a cargo bay never more eagerly to spit ten times more fighters. Rats! And it was obvious I needed at least one Star Destroyer or at least a Broad Side Cruiser with long range plasma rockets.
The experience or upgrade obsessed should avoid Empire at War as it has none of these (the exception are the skirmish maps where a "one layer" of upgrades is possible).
Video The strategy genre's wing never had under it a game that looked better: energy fields, explosion shock waves, heat haze, electric discharges, blue laser beams, red leaser beams and even more colorful beams. An excessive bloom effect and 4x anti-aliasing have the role to hinder in every way the perversity of low quality textures - the "sweetest" characteristic of all strategy games.
Well, it does not always look as great as it may sound. Planet landscapes - usually made up of wastelands - are a total bore to be honest, and the strategic map camera has the habit to start scrolling by itself, God knows why.
Oh, and do not expect to see any proportion respected because we, gamers, deserve only psychedelic approaches when given to play strategy games. This is the way of things: Obi-Wan Kenobi must remain a great man in all his aspects, and this means he must be taller than a tank.
The Speeders mostly hover and there isn't any chance to convince them to fly as there isn't any chance to convince any ground unit to remember of its instinct auto-conservation and start shooting at the darn thing.
Sound The tunes, voices and sound effects from the movie are reproduced with utmost precision. Furthermore, each side has its own soundtrack. It just hits the softest spot in my Star Wars lover heart. "Witness the full power of the dark side!" (cackling laugh). It sounds and feels as I have foreseen (another cackling laugh).
Multiplayer I was convinced Empire at War was designed to satisfy even the most exacting taste concerning multiplayer styles. It can be played either by LAN or online but there are only four types of multiplayer gaming. There the two-player campaign mode, the ground-based team battle four on four (the empire against the rebels, never two opposing forces of the same side, why not?) and the space based one. Also, there's another multiplayer style called "Land Control", something like King of the Hill, as players will have to take control over some strategic locations.
Conclusion Empire at War is the first (Battlefront does not count as it had little strategy game value, nor Rebellion, Force Commander or Galactic Batllegrounds and its Clone Wars expansion, as they failed to be games in the first place), thus the best strategy game that uses for its battleground the Star Wars universe. However, it has far to go before being a good strategy game. It is addictive, yes. It is innovative, I agree. But I expect a powerful gameplay and replay value from a game. I played Sudden Strike 2 or Rome Total War for over 200 hours and never felt weary or fed up with them. I played EAW for just 24 hours, and I am not eager for more. Maybe a sequel will change my impression, as there is a lot of unexpressed potential/force in this one. To be frank, I believe that Petroglyph did not feel the urge to polish their creation but rather to throw it out on the market in time for the confrontation with Battle for the Middle Earth "bis". They did not lose, but did not win either. May the force be with the strategy gamer, as there will be many "glittering" titles hiding tons of junk underneath and begging to be munched before the end of the month.
