Star Wars strategy games have been a decidedly mixed bag. The first offering, Force Commander was one of the most horrible games ever to hold a LucasArts label. The second attempt, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and it’s expansion pack Clone Campaigns were an enjoyable journey into the Star Wars universe, but they had been shunned by many for it’s lack of innovation.
Well, when you want to guarantee a strategy game gets done right, what do you do? You scoop up the developers at Petroglyph (famous for their former work at Westwood on the phenomenally successful Command and Conquer series) and you take a producer with a string of hits under his belt (Brett Totsi, producer of the Jedi Knight series and Shadows of the Empire). Shake it all together and what do you get? Empire At War (EAW), the latest strategy offering from LucasArts. So choose your allegiance and come with us for a look!
Bursting onto the scene prior to this year’s E3, EAW is looking impressive; most impressive. The presentation is for lack of a better word, beefy. Landing in-between the original trilogy and Episode III the game has you fighting around the time the Rebel Alliance comes onto the scene. In case the one person who plays videogames and hasn’t ever watched Star Wars reads this, let me give you a brief synopsis of what you are getting into: A disfigured politician with Houdini like abilities has just created a Dictatorship much like the Nazi regime and along with his buddy who only had enough money for one pair of robotic clothes, they begin to crush all opposition. A wrench is thrown in the works as bunch of people are of the opinion that they don’t need to be told what to do by someone who looks like Cher without the surgery and they throw down. Thirty or so years later, the creator of it all realizes he has hit the jackpot and laughs while we buy most everything he puts a stamp of approval on.
Now that you are up to speed let me tell you about what happened at E3 this year. Everyone was treated to an amazing video presentation. After the legendary scrolling text passes by we see the Rebels in a land battle attempting to steal the prototype for a new fighter craft, the X-Wing. The Empire isn’t too happy about this development and they fight back. Barely escaping into space the Rebels find they have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. It’s an ambush of Imperial Star Destroyers!
I find it important to mention the dynamics of the space battles, these aren’t linked 3D battles that you can control both at the same time. Space action takes place on a separate plane. Despite the fact that ships will automatically fly above and below each other depending on size, there is no manual vertical movement. Think of it as a land battle with space textures. You will also be able to build space stations and factories in the final frontier as well.
So where was I? Oh yeah, moving from one part of the battle to the next, the space-going ships speed into the battle on a new plateau of the battlefield. Your land units for the most part won’t be able to assist you from thousands of miles away on the surface but if you happen to have any ion cannons on your land base, they will spew out cover fire for you. Of course the Star Destroyers are impregnable to lasers with its shield active, so a new system has been implemented allowing you to target different sections of larger spaceships and space stations. In this case the shields are targeted and the battle rages on. It has been mentioned that your units left to AI control will make these decisions if you are busy elsewhere, so no worries.
Eventually the Rebels win and with their same army that continues growing they move on to liberate other planets from the evil Empire’s grasp. You will be able to choose your battle plan by clicking on a Galactic Map (supposedly reminiscent of the Living World Map from EA’s The Battle For Middle-earth). The interesting thing about this is that a player can choose which path to take, effectively re-writing Star Wars timelines/history if they so choose.
A variety of familiar Star Wars locales will be included with the planets Hoth, Tatooine, Yavin, Dagobah, and Naboo already being name dropped. With each new system traveled to there are multiple defenses to be dealt with. You can’t attack the planet without cutting through a blockade or an asteroid field of course. Or conversely, if you are the blockading fleet you will have to destroy the invaders. The obstacles don’t stop on the planet’s surface however, as the elements and elevation will effect the outcome of battle. On Hoth, for example, the snow will take away from your troops’ effectiveness but if you are on a hill overlooking troops below you will get a sniper bonus for being a sneaky Russian. Each planet yields new resources to add to your war machine, until you ultimately either crush the pitiful Rebellion or drive away the dark side.
Many Star Wars units and vehicles from the original trilogy will be deployable here, along with a few from Episode III as well. Looking at lists and screenshots so far, you can bet that there will be X-Wings, Y-Wings, Coreillian Corvettes, Speeder Bikes, AT-AT’s, Star Destroyers, Air/Snow Speeders, TIE Fighters, and of course the dreaded Death Star. In a recent interview Totsi mentioned that 70% of the units will be from the movies, with the rest being created to fill in the gaps. There will not be medics in this game, although the game will give you troops the ability to hide inside certain buildings and heal inside bacta containers.
Hero characters such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader will enter the foray as playable heroes on screen. It has been mentioned that if these heroes are inside a spaceship for the lunar battles it will provide bonuses for that particular vessel and possibly nearby ones as well. This makes sense, as honestly, the first thing I would do after asking Darth how he keeps his helmet so shiny is get my ass to work and how. On a separate note, it hasn’t been mentioned whether or not there will be killer Ewoks with super laser-shooting staffs in this game, although I hope they’ll make an appearance.
If you have taken note of any of our posted screenshots I don’t need to tell you how graphically impressive this game is. Textures look incredibly refined, even at this point. Explosions are as awe-inspiring, as they should always be in a Star Wars game, and lighting is as it should be as well, you can even see exhaust fumes coming from the ships engines.
If you are asking yourself if scaling will be precise, wonder no more. Instead of past games that had an AT-AT twice the size of a Jedi, this game realizes how things should be scaled in this universe. Imperial Walkers will tower over the troops and Capital Ships will dwarf X-Wings. Of course you can also count on the most recognizable score in movie history and optimized hums, crackles, beeps, "boops," and "peews".
You can count on Empire At War to appear in the first quarter of 2006 (as of this writing February 7th). In the meantime be sure to check out our screen shots. Then go hop in your landspeeder, put money down today and may the force be with you.
