Video Games : Star Wars: Empire at War

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from: Lucas Arts Entertainment Co. LLC

: Star Wars: Empire at War

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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Lucas Arts
EAN: 0023272854188
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Label: Lucas Arts Entertainment Co. LLC
Manufacturer: Lucas Arts Entertainment Co. LLC
Model: 2186094
Publisher: Lucas Arts Entertainment Co. LLC
Release Date: February 16, 2006
Sales Rank: 3793
Studio: Lucas Arts Entertainment Co. LLC

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Product Description:
Star Wars: Empire At War lets players rewrite history, while they experience the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith. Set a few years before the events of A New Hope, the game chronicles the start of the Rebel Alliance & Darth Vader's rise to power. Visit worlds like Hoth, Tatooine and Dagobah -- as well as never-before-seen environments taken directly from the Star Wars films and expanded universe novels. Choose to join either the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire, and unleash your tactical skills on your enemy in real-time 3D. All of the gameplay and action within Star Wars Empire at War is persistent; strategic and tactical decisions from previous events will have a permanent effect on the galaxy. Deploy more than 20 ground-and air-based vehicles - from giant Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari cruisers to speeder-bikes and X-wings Access multiple ground troops, from Stormtroopers & Rebel soldiers to powerful heroes like Obi-Wan and Darth Vader Multiplayer action including 2-player campaign mode and up to 8-player online skirmishes

Amazon.com Product Description:
Star Wars: Empire at War is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that is, quite simply, amazing in its scope and grandeur. This game has all the elements that both hard-core Star Wars fans and dedicated strategist gamers are looking for. In Empire at War, you must fight battles in space and on the ground, giving the game a dual-layered design that forces you to operate on both an involved strategic level as well as a tactical level. Add epic-looking battles with dozens of great touches, outstanding sound effects that you've come you've come to expect from LucasArts, the contrasting play styles enabled by playing as either the Rebellion or the Empire, and a broad array of unforgettable characters, and you've got a game that lets you truly immerse yourself in the Star Wars universe.



Land battles are highly enjoyable and extremely challenging, involving heavily armored AT-ATs and more. View larger.


Fight epic-looking battles in space with outstanding sound effects you've come to expect from LucasArts. View larger.


As a player, you'll be involved in virtually every aspect of the conflict between the Rebels and the Empire. View larger.
The storyline of Star Wars: Empire at War occurs between the two trilogies through the end of "A New Hope." As a player, you'll be involved in virtually every aspect of the conflict between the Rebels and the Empire. You must simultaneously manage your economy, develop technology, build factories, planetary defenses, ships, and space stations, as well as get information on new planets and maneuver your various forces around the galaxy. Unlike some strategy games that are decided by who has hoarded enough resources to overwhelm the enemy, here it is just as important to build your forces up in an intelligent fashion in order to gain power. And to ensure you aren't ever allowed to sit back and relax, it all happens in real time, so if you spend too long considering what to build or where to send your fleet, you'll be inviting a computer attack that could reverse your gains.

Star Wars: Empire at War has a huge number of variables you'll need to consider. Many planets have unique bonuses, such as allowing certain units to be created more powerfully or cheaply, thereby increasing your credit income by different degrees, as well as only allowing the largest ships like Mon Calamari cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers to be built on certain planets. And the Empire and Rebels obviously both have their differences. The Empire usually generates a lot more money, which it can use to overwhelm the rebel forces if left unchecked. The Rebels, on the other hand, have far fewer resources, which can make them more difficult to play and learn, but they can steal technology and sneak raiding parties past many of the Empire's space defenses. And each of the two sides has their own distinct Hero units, which can be extremely powerful and can sway the course of battle greatly. You can use Palpatine or Mon Mothma to reduce a planet's production costs; C3PO and R2D2 to steal technology or hack into an enemy's turrets and turn them against their own troops; Darth Vader to force-push entire groups of enemy soldiers on land; or Boba Fett to crush concentrations of fighters by dropping seismic charges in space. To balance out these massive powers, both sides can hire generic bounty hunters to try and eliminate a rival hero from the game.

While the land battles in Star Wars: Empire at War are highly enjoyable and extremely challenging, involving heavily armored AT-ATs and more, the space battles are truly breathtaking. Watching a Star Destroyer crawling with bright-blue ion energy, or an entire wave of X-wings explode into flame, or witnessing a fully-armed and operational Death Star blow a planet to smithereens are unparalleled experiences in this galaxy, or any other. And the visual and sound effects aren't the only thing that will amaze you during a space battle. The bigger units like space stations and Star Destroyers all have hard points pertaining to different systems. You can target these different systems to cripple ships in different ways, taking out their shield generator, weapons system, or engines to reduce their effectiveness, or taking out the hanger on Imperial capital ships to thin out their fighter cover. And as you destroy a cannon or shield generator, that piece will break off and float away. And while most ships eventually explode, the Mon Calamari Cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers will actually tear in to pieces that continue to linger throughout the battle. What's more, you always need to watch out for ships the AI (artificial intelligence) might be hiding in asteroid belts, waiting to spring them on the flanks of your fleet at the worst possible moment.

The strategic layer of Empire at War takes place on a two-dimensional galactic map showing you all the planets. In the full campaign mode, you must consider and plan around more than 40 such planets, whereas in some of the simpler conquest scenarios, you may end up dealing with as few as eight of them. Instead of playing in the campaign mode, you can play multiplayer matches over a LAN or online with up to eight players. The LucasArts' matchmaking system makes finding an opponent easy, and if you are playing a head-to-head match against a friend, you have the ability to save a match and reload it to continue at a later time. Delivering a presentation that is as epic as the films themselves, Star Wars: Empire at War is ideal for any fan of strategy games, and absolutely necessary for Star Wars aficionados.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Game is Awesome!!!
I'm a star wars freak!And for me there isn't much more fun than marching a group of AT-AT's into battle, or Sending a fleet of star destroyers to crush the enemy's defense. The game is great. The sound gets 100/5 stars just as you would expect from a star wars game. Visuals get high score! AI only gets a 4/5 because it's so mixed! Sometimes they will charge at you and sometimes they will just sit in a corner like your not even there. But for glitches and bugs like this just download game patches! The land battles are great and the space battles are Epic and scenic. You control almost every detail...where to land those ships, where that soldier moves, and best, What planet to blow up with the mighty death star! Overall the game is mind-blowing! I'd give it 10,000,000,000 out of 5 stars!


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Good strategy game

I enjoy playing this game. Its not working for online play it keeps saying that my key code # isnt valid. Ive tried working with lucas arts and 2 months later im still not able to connect.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Too repetitive
This game is ok though way too repetitive for any long term appeal. I much prefer Command and Conquer generals which keeps you glued for days and days.

The missions do not have much variety as all you do is fight in space then fight on the ground, thank god you can autoresolve some conflicts as otherwise it would be way way to boring.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Building a Better Empire / Rebellion
Building a Better Empire / Rebellion

Well I recently purchased and tried Star Wars: Empire at War. It's a bit like Rome: Total War I'm told. Just in space, without centurions, nor chariots, and the Emperor shoots lightning bolts from his hands.

Hey at least you can't say it's a boring change.

If I were to compare this game to something it would have to be Star Wars: Rebellion or maybe even Master of Orion II. But don't get excited about the second comparison, its missing some of the things that make MOO2 great. It is a however marked improvement on SW: Rebellion.

Firstly, there are different styles of play in the game. In fact the game is really a set of sub games all kind of rolled together. The first element is to play a campaign for either the Empire of the Rebellion much like the StarCraft games. You run missions that have a large scope in an evolving story and have set forces available for each new mission.

The best style of play in my opinion is on the full fledged galactic map where you pick a side and a scenario. What I mean is, you have the map (or at least part of it depending on the scenario) and the game starts with each side having certain assets. The Empire always gets more, the Rebellion always less. The victory conditions depend on, and largely define, the scenario.

In any style of play you will be taking on both space and ground battles. The space battles are played on a space map that is largely open, but does contain hazards like asteroid fields and energy storms that you have to watch out for. The scenario is always one side attacking and one defending. As is the case in real life, the defending side usually has the advantage because they have more prepared defenses. This is especially true if you are defending and have a large space station.

The ground battles are a little like Command and Conquer, without all of the unit building. Before the battle you have time to build the buildings you need to defend the planet but during the battle itself you just have to be a better tactician. The main difference from the space battles is the presence of terrain and build pads. In strategic locations on the map there are build pads where whichever sides captures them can place a turret or bacta (healing) station or some other useful item. This is handy for defending players but clever attackers can use them as well.

Some defenders structures occasionally spawn extra units but you cannot really build units during a battle. So again, the defender has a slight advantage but BOTH sides must use their available units well. A good tactician will dominate both ground and space battles. Also, maps are different for different planets. So the frozen fields of Hoth will be different than fighting on Coruscant.

Generally speaking, the Rebellion has better Starfighters and ground units. The Empire has better Capital Ships and Armor Ground Units. Troops are vital in the game and you can't take over a planet with AT-ATs alone. Also, starfighters (especially bombers) can savage larger ships quickly by destroying their hanger decks, cannons, or shield generators. The Alliance Corellian Corvettes can destroy starfighter wings en masse and even threaten larger ships when in packs. Then again, the larger classes of Star Destroyers can unleash HUGE amounts of firepower and their hangers spew out TIE fighters and bombers like a fire hose. Also, Imperial Repulsor Tanks are fast, shielded, hit hard and likely to destroy any Rebel player who doesn't have a small legion of missile troopers handy (their main weakness).

One thing I didn't mention yet is the special units. If you are an imperial player and Han Solo is running around on the planet, get ready to be frustrated. He will show up at the weakest point, blow away a turret or a few stormtrooper squads and then run off the moment he starts taking real damage. He will then show up at the reinforcement points (places that judge the amount of troops you can have on the battlefield) and take it over reducing the amount of troop you can have in the battle. Oh and Chewbacca is never far behind and he has the ability to take over armored vehicles and turn them on your own troops (like a certain AT-ST in Return of the Jedi).

Special units add a LOT of the star wars feel to the game. Each side has different special units with most of them as you would expect. Han, Luke, etc for the Rebellion and the Emperor, Darth Vader etc for the Empire. Many of these special units have special ships or vehicles that they fight in during a battle. So while Han may be sporting his pistol and guile on the planet, expect to be chasing the Millennium Falcon through asteroid fields on the space map. Admiral Ackbar only leaves home in his Mon Calamari star cruiser Home One and the Imperial Captain Palleon has a Star Destroyer that is VERY handy in the early game for the Empire. General Veers' AT-AT tends to stomp the enemy pretty easily as long as there are no airspeeders around.

I haven't mentioned the sounds, but it's probably the most star wars part of the game. It's really the little things that make the difference here. For example, when Boba Fett is fighting in space the cannons on his ship sound just like when Jango Fett went after Obi Wan over Geonosis in Episode II. Or when Darth Vader is being controlled on the map he is wheezing as normal and when he speaks it is usually a quote from the movie. ("All too easy") Expect to hear a lot of familiar "Star Wars" sounds in the game.

You are probably getting a feel for the game by now, but let me give you an overview of what it's like. First, it's not turn based, its real time and while you can pause everything is happening as you are deciding what to do next. You have the galactic map and as you might expect the more planets you have the more credits you get and the more units your forces can support. Some planets are connected by trade routes and if you control both planets then you control that trade route and your credits come even faster. If you are the Empire and you have 3 or 4 trade routes under your control, expect to start dominating the field in a hurry.

Each planet has space for ground units, a certain number of building slots (different number for each planet), and space overhead for fleets. The normal combat sequence is to send in a fleet and gain space superiority (on the space map) and then launch a ground invasion (on the ground map). That means that two battles must be fought for each planet (at least two). Bespin is an exception as there is no planet to stand on. On each map you can only have a certain number of units active at any one time. This is a very large number on the space map so usually every ship you have is fighting. On the ground map attackers take control of a reinforcement point on the map and can drop only the number of units equal to the reinforcement point. (So if the one you have is 5 then you only can drop 5 units) Taking additional reinforcement points is important to the invader so he can get more troops onto the planet at once instead of simply replacing his losses. The defender must counter this strategy but has all his units available (though often spread out).

That would be the game except for one small point. The Rebellion and the Empire are HUGELY different both in their units and their abilities but also their style of play. For example, while both sides can control planets it's not a good idea for the Rebellion to have large numbers of worlds under their control. Instead they steal resources from the Empire and don't have to control as many planets. Additionally while the Rebels can clearly see what the Empire are usually up to, the Empire can only guess where the Rebels are and what they are up to. And while the Empire is researching tech levels, the Rebellion must steal specific technologies (units or ships) from the Empire to gain new capabilities.

One of the biggest differences is the Rebels use of "Raid Fleets" that can bypass the space battle and directly attack the surface of a planet. This means that the Empire needs to keep Garrisons on most of its worlds or it will be constantly disrupted by Rebel attacks. A good Rebel tactic is to raid a planet and destroy something valuable and retreat offworld quickly.

Did I mention retreat? In both space and ground battles both sides can retreat if it looks like a lost cause or if their objective is completed. When you retreat it takes a few seconds to "make the calculations for hyperspace" and ships are sitting ducks for about 8 to 10 seconds before they zip away to safety. On the ground it is similar but units often fight up until the last second. Obviously, this tactic benefits the Rebels the most as the Imperials tend to group into fleets which are very powerful (though only in a few systems) so they are rarely outclassed. Many are the times that a Rebel hero has escaped from the tromping boots of my stormtroopers.

Oh and yes you can build the Death Star and yes it can be destroyed. ("You will now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation.")

Check it out if you like, it's not the best Strategy game I've seen, but it's the best Star Wars Strategy game that's currently available.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Not your typical RTS
When I heard about a Star Wars based RTS, I thought about Galactic Battlegrounds, which I didn't buy because it looked like a re-skinned Age of Empires 2 (which I already had). Anyway, I looked into this game and was impressed by the graphics and the description of gameplay. What hooked me was the concept of land and space combat; however, if you've played the Homeworld series, the space combat of Empire at War is nothing compared to Homeworld. The space combat is not done in a completely 3-D environment, it's still done on a single plane. A little dissapointing, but it makes the combat a little faster.

The game has multiple different modes of play, if you want to conquer every single planet mentioned in the Star Wars galaxy, you can. Or, you can take a small corner and use that. Also, if you'd rather just play individual battles, they have that mode too. The game comes with a bunch of pre-made battles set for you to try, both in space and on land.

The campaign mode is a lot of fun. It's basically a large-scale galactic conquest type mode with certain objectives being thrown at you to advance the plot. It takes place in the time before the first Death Star is blown up and eventually that becomes your main objective.

All-in-all, it is a great game. I still get urges to play it, so it does have replay value.

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