Go to Windows 7 Insider GuideStar Wars: Empire at War (PC)
Manufacturer: LucasArts Part number: 85420
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Gamespot editors' review
Star Wars: Empire at War (PC) price range: $18.95
- Reviewed by: Bob Colayco
- Reviewed on: 02/16/2006
- Released on: 02/15/2006
The Star Wars franchise has seen its share of great action games, role-playing games, and space-combat simulators, but the strategy genre is something that, for some reason, has proved elusive for LucasArts to truly capture. The efforts to date, including Rebellion, Force Commander, and Galactic Battlegrounds, have ranged from poor to pretty good. Petroglyph's Empire at War is the game that's finally gotten the formula down just right. In Empire at War, the action takes place both in outer space and on the surface of planets, but the interconnection of the two is one of many important strategic aspects that you'll consider as you make your way through the campaign and galactic conquest scenarios. Logical differences in the optimal playing style between the Empire and Rebellion, as well as an epic presentation befitting of the license, contribute to a fantastic overall package that any strategy-game player can appreciate, whether you have a stormtrooper outfit in your closet or you just have a passing familiarity with the films.
Strategy-game fans won't be disappointed with Empire at War.
The real-time action in Empire at War takes place on two different layers--a strategic layer, and a tactical aspect, which are the battles you fight in space and on land. The strategic layer takes place on a 2D galactic map, which shows all the planets in the galaxy. If you're playing the campaign, you'll worry about more than 40 different planets, while some of the galactic-conquest scenarios have as few as eight or 10 planets arrayed. Most planets can support space stations and land buildings such as barracks, mining facilities, factories, or even planetary defense systems like turbo-laser towers or massive ion cannons that shoot up into space. You can get more detailed information on a planet by zooming in on it, which gives you something of a Civ-lite view, listing all the units and structures there, as well as the things you can build on that planet. The Rebel side see all Empire-controlled planets on the galactic map, while the Empire must deploy probe droids to seek out the Rebels. The important thing to remember is that the action takes place in real time, even on the galactic map. So if you spend too much time considering what to build or where to send a fleet, you may invite the computer to attack one of your systems.
Some of the planets have unique bonuses, such as letting you build units more cheaply, or making all of one type of unit more powerful. The biggest ships like Mon Calamari cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers can be built on only a few different planets, so as you'd expect, there are relative values for the different planets in the galaxy. All planets you control, however, add to your daily credit income, which allows you to purchase improvements for your planets and, of course, the soldiers and war machines that make up your military-industrial complex. There are a lot of demands on how you spend your credits--if you go all troops and no improvements, you risk falling behind in the technology race, or not having a stout defense in place if a raiding fleet arrives at one of your planets. One of the main differences between the Empire and the Rebellion is that the Empire usually generates a lot more money. Over the course of a campaign you can eventually build an economy so powerful that you build up massive forces to overwhelm Rebel defenses. The Rebellion doesn't have the luxury of limitless resources, so you'll find that they're more difficult to play and learn, but you can still steal technology and money from the Empire to weaken them and advance your cause. They also have the unique ability to make small raiding parties that can land on a planet and bypass any space defenses the Empire may have in place.
The galactic map gives you an overview of the entire galaxy, so you can plan your next attack.
The tactical-combat layer comes into play when the two factions meet on a planet. If two space fleets meet up, a space battle ensues. The game gives the defender some advantage in that any existing space station in orbit over a planet, as well as planetary defenses like ion cannons or hypervelocity cannons, can contribute to the battle, along with whatever fleet happens to be around. The higher-level space stations are fearsome indeed, with multiple laser and torpedo batteries, as well as its own small navy to harass attacking capital ships. The space-combat battles look great--the sense of scale between the huge Imperial capital ships and the smaller Rebel gunships and corvettes is plainly obvious. Fighters like TIEs and X-Wings buzz around the larger ships like gnats on an elephant. If you've got the graphics options turned up, the explosions look fabulous, with electrical fields shimmering around a ship disabled by ion cannons, and downed capital ships breaking apart into large pieces while falling slowly out of space. You'll also see distortion effects around exploding hardpoints, which brings up another interesting aspect of space combat in Empire at War. The space stations and capital ships all have hardpoints pertaining to different systems, such as shield generators and weapon systems. You can target individual systems to cripple larger ships in specific ways. Getting rid of the hangar on Imperial capital ships will thin out the fighter cover, while targeting engines can slow down ships. In most cases, the order in which you want to take out hardpoints is obvious, but ships that have special features, like the gravity well on the Interdictor cruiser, add even more tactical considerations. If you don't remove that gravity-well generator, for example, you can't retreat out of a system and save some of your fleet.
Land battles in Empire at War probably aren't quite as fun to play or look at as the space battles, but they offer their own unique nuances. The number of units you can control at once in land battles is limited by the number of reinforcement points you control. The attacking side is usually under a good amount of pressure to find and control more reinforcement points so they can call down more help, which is important if the defending team has a large number of units or emplaced defenses like shield generators. There are elevation and line-of-sight considerations, as well as weather effects such as snow or heavy rain that hamper visibility and accuracy of weapons. Special hardpoints on a map can also be controlled by either side for building small turrets or healing and repair stations for troops. If you control a fleet in orbit over the planet you can call down periodic bombing strikes that are powerful enough to take out major structures like factories or barracks. What's odd is that the defending team can't produce additional units directly out of the structures on the planet. Building units puts them into your reinforcement queue, but you still have to call them down on specific, controlled reinforcement landing zones in order to bring them to bear.
User reviews
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Problems, but not with the game
by Jay R___well on February 25, 2006
Pros: Well put together game, nice change from the ordinary
Cons: Security on the CD can cause some major issues
Summary: Well, Lucasarts has once more outdone themselves. This game brings the best of all the Star Wars games and puts them in one nice neat package. It is the game ...
Summary: Well, Lucasarts has once more outdone themselves. This game brings the best of all the Star Wars games and puts them in one nice neat package. It is the game that I expected when I first picked up Star Wars Rebellion, only this time I wasn?t disappointed with it, not with the demo anyway. The actual full release, now there?s another monster all together. This game started out as a thrill to have purchased, but turned quickly into a nightmare...
I got the game home and began the installation, which was quick and painless, as it should be. The first time I started up the game I was met with an odd mouse cursor, something I had never seen on my computer before. It was a spinning CD with a small arrow in the top left corner. Well, I figured it was a cursor from the game so paid it no mind. Then up came an error message. ?CD Emulation Detected?, which was a surprise but not that big of one. I use CD emulation in my business of making ?video memory? DVD?s, as it?s a lot easier to fix a virtual ISO DVD than a burned one, saves money too. I disabled the virtual drives and tried again, same error. I sat and thought about it for a little while and then decided to see if anyone else was having this problem. I use the emulation software legally for business, so removing it just to play a game isn't an option. To my chagrin I went to the Lucasarts forum only to find it covered with posts from others who were having the same issues that I was. The first thing that ran through my mind was, ?Uh oh?. I followed all of the suggestions that were listed by the less than helpful staff, meaning they usually just gave excuses how it wasn?t their software that was the problem and to uninstall a mass of other software that might be conflicting with their one program. I thought it was the other way around, that their software was conflicting with other non-illegal software, but tried their suguestions anyway. It didn?t solve anything. So I followed their suggestion next to forward my error log file to Securom, who makes the security for the game. They just insulted me by suguesting I had a pirated copy of the game, which I guess is their way of shifting blame off themselves. They didn't even look at me until I offered to fax the recipt to them, that shows it was purchased. They denied the fax offer and sent me a ?modified? executable file that should have worked. It did work, at first.
I started up the game and my excitement once more grew. I had a little trouble getting out of the starting block, but now I was rolling. I fired up the first campaign mission and was off. Approximately four minutes later, my cursor turns into a standard mouse cursor and I hear an error beep over my speakers. After alt+tabbing out of the apparently frozen game, I find an error stating that a fatal exception occurred. Isolated incident right? Wrong?. I started back up thinking ?Well, maybe it?s just that map?. So I tried another, a space map this time. Same crash. A different land map, crash. A different space map, crash. A multiplayer game, crash. Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash!!! I meet all the requirements, have no spyware/viruses on this PC (as I'm in the PC industry and avoid that stuff like the plague), so I'm at a loss.... Suddenly I?m reminded of Windows ME, I don?t know why. I checked the website one more time and noticed a patch! ?A patch is good?, is what I thought. Wrong! Installed the patch and it only got worse, my original issue was back again. ?CD Emulation Detected?? I replaced the EXE with the Securom modified EXE and got a version error. Now I was pissed. I checked the error log that the game generated when the crash occoured and it stated that it tried to read/write to a memory location that it wasn?t authorized to access. I couldn?t help but think, with my programming background, that these guys have idiots working for them. I mean, seriously. Both companies. Idiots!!!
Having a bit of practice, after having to go through this same bull with F.E.A.R, I turned to the software piracy ?industry?. Hell, in my opinion Lucasarts violated their own Terms of Service by selling me software that doesn't work, and can't be returned after being opened. Using a special search engine and a program called bittorrent I downloaded something called a ?Mini ISO?, which is CD1 of the game with the junk taken off of it. I mounted it using my virtual emulation software and used a program called Curerom that apparently prevents the Empire at War program from discovering the CD emulation. Now remember, I own the game so I'm not doing anything illegal. I don't condone the actions of the piracy industry, but if it can help get my legitimate copy of the game working then I'm all for it. I started up the game, freshly patched again to replace the EXE that Securom sent me, and it fired right up. I played for a few minutes, anticipating a crash, but it didn?t happen. I played one mission, then another, and another, into a 5-hour gaming session. Nadda, no crash.
So now that I have a functioning game, and can still use my emulation software for LEGIT use, I?m happy. I have one message for Lucasarts and Securom though, it?s pretty sad when you force your customers to turn to the very thing your trying to prevent, just to get the game they legitimately purchased to run. Perhaps, Lucasarts, you should think again about ever using Securom on one of your software titles because this flop has earned you a hell of a bad name. You went to all of this trouble, and caused your legitimate customers so much heartache, and the dam piracy industry had your security cracked in less than a couple days. Now that I got my game working, well actually MY game is back in the box it came in because I'm using the pirated WORKING version to play, but at any rate I can do an actual review now.
Let?s start off with the game play, as it?s the major addiction in this game. There are aspects of game play taken from every game that has been a major success. You have strategy game play, like Starcraft. You have game board game play, like risk. You even have 3rd person game play, like Rogue Squadron. Add to that a grand storyline that, if you are a Star Wars fan, you might have been able to anticipate and you get one hell of a game. There are some new model additions to the game that we haven?t been able to control previously in Star Wars games, such as the Alliance troop transports. Not to mention all the favorites have been added as well, like the giant ATAT walkers and Star Destroyers. I think, however, the best aspect of this game is that you are not restricted to the surface of a planet or the space above. It truly is a massive universe, and you can explore pretty much all of it.
Graphics in this game are very well done, but fairly normal for today?s gamer standards. We have beautiful lighting effects and scenery with well-detailed models, and add to that environmental and particle effects and you have everything that makes up a good game. I enjoyed watching a slew of storm troopers getting slaughtered; I think it?s my new hobby.
Sound in this game was also top notch. Being an avid gamer I did recognize some effects that were reused from older games, but for the most part they were done very tasteful. Music in this game had the same mix of the themes we?ve all grown accustomed too, with a few additional scores that have been unheard prior. All in all it was a very nice mixture that struck a very good chord with this Star Wars fan.
The originality of this game is hard to judge. It is a Star Wars themed game, which has been done over and over again, so there isn?t much originality there. However, the game?s aspects as far as bringing multiple game functionality (cinematic views, strategy, etc.) together into one game, as well as using multiple locations that appear as completely different games (surface/space) make it somewhat unique in that aspect. I believe I reflected that nicely in the given score.
If this game didn?t have problems with its built-in security features it would receive a perfect score. But, in my research I have found that I?m not the only legit software holder that has had this issue. Actually, hundreds of other gamers who purchased this game legitimately have been having the same issue. Thus, I only give it a 4.Updated
My review was taken directly from my own review site which has segregated ratings so some spots, like where I refer to a "nicely reflected" rating for origionality, might not make sence in my overall rating here. To simplify, here is the ratings as I gave them on my own review site.
GAMEPLAY: 5/5
GRAPHICS: 5/5
MUSIC: 5/5
STORY: 4/5
ORIGIONALITY: 3/5
EASE OF USE: 2/5
STABILITY: 1/5
SUPPORT: 2/5
It should also be noted the poor "Ease of Use" and "Stability" scores are related to my personal experience with this program, as well as the knowledge that many others are having the same experience, and may not reflect everyone's experience.7 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Good Real-Time-Strategy
by Miril Strike on March 17, 2006
Pros: The whole style of Star Wars in RTS is a great blend. The music also adds another nice effect as I also enjoyed the composer's fine work. I love the choices avaible for the game.
Cons: Tech support is useless, takes around 25 days to answer - be warned! Some versions that you buy cannot be fixed and install incorrectly that you cannot chose your side or color online; you can play.
Summary: They really need to improve their customer support, I contacted them about the online matter. And they DID NOT READ WHAT I TYPED and kept thinking I could not play ...
Summary: They really need to improve their customer support, I contacted them about the online matter. And they DID NOT READ WHAT I TYPED and kept thinking I could not play the game online, even after I UNDERLINED AND CAPITALIZE THE SECTIONS SAYING I CAN. They have the WORST customer support I have EVER seen, I was extremely furious and do NOT plan to do business with them again just because they don't care about their customers.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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awesome real-time strategy
by Freshbakedpie on September 24, 2008
Pros: Very fun, easy to learn the controls
Cons: not the best multi-player
Summary: Worth the money!
Summary: Worth the money!
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Truly Star Wars.
by mauro_vos on November 23, 2006
Pros: It's THE Star Wars rts-game!
Cons: Small land battles. Population cap.
Summary: +Extremely cool looking space battles with nebula, asteroids and moving planets (!).
-Somewhat borring though, after a while.
+Loads of mods to be downloaded.
+Map editor. -Doesn't work on my ...Summary: +Extremely cool looking space battles with nebula, asteroids and moving planets (!).
-Somewhat borring though, after a while.
+Loads of mods to be downloaded.
+Map editor. -Doesn't work on my pc.
-Small scale land battles, so you won't exactly be able to reproduce the battle of Geonosis from episode II.
-Also because of the pretty low population cap. Annoying in space.
+Lots of maps can be uploaded from other players, created with the map editor. Units that 'auto-spawn' won't be counted in the pop cap, this should compensate the cap in space.
-No Super Star destroyer or playable Death Star. (you need the expansion)
-Poor construction capabilities on both land and in space.
-Larger amounts of infantry woud make the game more realistic. (battalion of 9)
+Land battles are fun anyway.
+Darth Vader and Obi-Wan (and others).
+Galactic Conquest, just like in Battlefront.
+Very simple to create a new account, all you need is a nickname and a password.
+Star Wars fans MUST get this game. -
Very Fun! And easy to control
by darksithlord12321 on August 24, 2006
Pros: 43 PLanets
Cons: Only Galactic Civil War not clone wars aswell
Summary: A Good 1st Star Wars RTS. Defiantly worth buying.
Summary: A Good 1st Star Wars RTS. Defiantly worth buying.
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Star Wars: Empire at War PC Game played by Jameson Thottam
by jameson thottam on July 18, 2006
Pros: Great game play ---Jameson Thottam
Cons: Cost is beyond the stars - Jameson Thottam
Summary: Star Wars: Empire at War PC Game played by Jameson Thottam
So with all the hype and after playing the demo I was still a little unsure and was bracing ...Summary: Star Wars: Empire at War PC Game played by Jameson Thottam
So with all the hype and after playing the demo I was still a little unsure and was bracing myself for a mediocre game. Once I loaded EAW up I was hooked. I played the single-player story campaign all weekend long (24 hours straight) and have not even gotten into the MP and campaign modes. The gameplay had so many options on how to play unlike any other RTS before it. EAW gave me a unique way to play the game in every mode. All hail Petroglyph and may we have many many more RTS games from you in the future. Don't forget to download the latest patch, it has new maps and a new galactic conquest campaign.
Jameson Thottam cannot put into words what this does for the Star Wars universe. Finally, after years of waiting, we get a game that is worthy of the Star Wars Name. The Gameplay on this game is truely amazing. You are thrust into the Star Wars universe, amist a massive Galactic Civil War, a war between bitter rivals, the noble Rebel Alliance to restore the Republic and the powerful Empire. You suddenly find your self in the control of one of the two factions, the fate of the galaxy is in your hands. Also, the multiplayer is just amazing. Very few games have this level of multiplayer. I love it.
If you have ever played Star Wars Rebellion you will love this game, if you have never played Star Wars Rebellion you need to get that game first, I, Jameson Thottam, base all my opinions of any game onto that game. The gameplay of EaW is very intense, fast paced, but very fun. Space battles are gorgeous.
However, there are some cons: First off this game is still $50.00 it was released too long ago to still be $50.00, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is only $15.00 at CompUsa so if you are low on cash get SC:CT instead of Star Wars Empire at War and maybe, just maybe LucasArts will drop the price.
Also, a new expansion (Forces of Corruption) has just been announced with tons of new stuff. Even more reason to get this game.
Jameson Thottam
Specifications
- Manufacturer: LucasArts
- Part number: 85420
Product Basic Spec
- Platform PC
- ESRB rating Teen - Fantasy Violence
- Genre Strategy
- Number of players 1-8 Players
- Difficulty Medium
- Learning curve About 1 hour
- DirectX version v9.0c
- Operating system Windows 2000/XP
- Offline modes Competitive
- Online modes Competitive
Game
- Developer Petroglyph
- ESRB Teen
- ESRB descriptors Fantasy Violence
- License Movie
- Release date 02/15/2006
Manufacturer info
- LucasArts
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse LucasArts products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.lucasarts.com/
- Address:
P.O. Box 10307, San Rafael, CA 94912 - Phone: 415/507-4545
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