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After downloading and playing the whooping 741 MB demo, Star Wars: Empire at War demo is more interesting than the Age of Empires III demo.
The demo consists of 5 tutorials and 1 playable mission.
Star Wars: Empire at War reminds of the old Star Control game where you can take over planets, build ships, build structures and control ships in battles. In Star Wars: Empire at War you have to fight in orbit and on the ground.
The galactic map reminds me of a board game. You can build up your units and building structure on the galactic map. From the looks of it you don’t have any control over where the buildings are placed on the planet. This can lead to some tactical issues if one your bases are under attack by the enemy forces and your reinforced base are all the way across the map.
When you land on an enemy planet, you can’t build bases. Like in Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War you can take over strategic points to send in reinforcements. There are building pads you can take over to create turrets or heath structures to heal your units. If there’s a bomber in orbit you can send a bombing run to destroy the enemy bases.
The fighting is done a in a rock, paper scissors manner. Each unit has a strength and weakness when used against other units. It takes some strategy to figure out what units to use in a battle.
The battle animations are disappointing. The units have one set of attack. It looks really stupid when the storm trooper is firing at the enemy point blank. Why can’t the storm trooper use melee attacks to kill the enemy?
There is one cool kill technique where you can have the AT-AT stomp on the unit troops.
Before you can land on a planet you have to destroy the enemies in the planet orbit first. That’s where the space battles come in. The space battles are pretty much the same structure has the ground maps. The main difference is there are no building pads and you can’t send reinforcements in space. The ships are placed on a 2D space grid and you have to send your ships to kill off the enemy forces. You have to make sure you bring enough ships to take over the orbit.
I really like the use of cinematic function in the game. When you press the cinematic button, you can see some awesome battle scenes. Though once in a while the camera some odds scenes where the camera would focus on a unit that is far away from the battle.
There is one major issue I have with the game. It can become very repetitive and tedious to take over one planet at the time. You have to go over the same task: build ships and units, go into an enemy orbit, battle and destroy the enemy ships, land on the planet and destroy the enemy. I really hope the developers put in an auto match function in the final game.
Overall Star Wars: Empire at War looks like a very interesting game, combining the RTS and macro resource management together.
Pros:
-Galactic map macro resource management
-Cinematic camera
Cons:
-Lack of Micromanagement of building placements
-Average to poor battle animations
-Can be repetitive and tedious when taking over a planet
The demo consists of 5 tutorials and 1 playable mission.
Star Wars: Empire at War reminds of the old Star Control game where you can take over planets, build ships, build structures and control ships in battles. In Star Wars: Empire at War you have to fight in orbit and on the ground.
The galactic map reminds me of a board game. You can build up your units and building structure on the galactic map. From the looks of it you don’t have any control over where the buildings are placed on the planet. This can lead to some tactical issues if one your bases are under attack by the enemy forces and your reinforced base are all the way across the map.
When you land on an enemy planet, you can’t build bases. Like in Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War you can take over strategic points to send in reinforcements. There are building pads you can take over to create turrets or heath structures to heal your units. If there’s a bomber in orbit you can send a bombing run to destroy the enemy bases.
The fighting is done a in a rock, paper scissors manner. Each unit has a strength and weakness when used against other units. It takes some strategy to figure out what units to use in a battle.
The battle animations are disappointing. The units have one set of attack. It looks really stupid when the storm trooper is firing at the enemy point blank. Why can’t the storm trooper use melee attacks to kill the enemy?
There is one cool kill technique where you can have the AT-AT stomp on the unit troops.
Before you can land on a planet you have to destroy the enemies in the planet orbit first. That’s where the space battles come in. The space battles are pretty much the same structure has the ground maps. The main difference is there are no building pads and you can’t send reinforcements in space. The ships are placed on a 2D space grid and you have to send your ships to kill off the enemy forces. You have to make sure you bring enough ships to take over the orbit.
I really like the use of cinematic function in the game. When you press the cinematic button, you can see some awesome battle scenes. Though once in a while the camera some odds scenes where the camera would focus on a unit that is far away from the battle.
There is one major issue I have with the game. It can become very repetitive and tedious to take over one planet at the time. You have to go over the same task: build ships and units, go into an enemy orbit, battle and destroy the enemy ships, land on the planet and destroy the enemy. I really hope the developers put in an auto match function in the final game.
Overall Star Wars: Empire at War looks like a very interesting game, combining the RTS and macro resource management together.
Pros:
-Galactic map macro resource management
-Cinematic camera
Cons:
-Lack of Micromanagement of building placements
-Average to poor battle animations
-Can be repetitive and tedious when taking over a planet
