GregHowley.com

I'm just about finished with the Star Wars RTS, Star Wars: Empire At War. It's actually pretty good. Perhaps the first non-Blizzard RTS that I've really enjoyed, unless I'm forgetting one. Which I probably am. And of course, I haven't yet tried Supreme Commander.

I first played through as the Rebellion, and next as the Empire. Got to say: the Empire's single-player campaign is much longer, if only because I ended up conquering nearly every planet. As the rebellion, I could conduct sneak missions to a planet's surface, bypassing space defenses. And such differences as that between the sides were very nice. But still, it lacked the depth of Starcraft, which to me is still the best RTS of all time.

The plot of the single-player campaign mirrors the plot of A New Hope nearly exactly, with the exception that the end of the Empire campaign of course ends very differently. You see heroes on both sides: The Rebellion gets Mon Mothma, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker, and the Empire gets Admiral Piett, Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, and The Emperor. These characters have special powers, but I've got to say that The Empire's heroes are much more powerful. Especially Vader and The Emperor.

The battles take place in two arenas: Land and Space. The space battles are more straightforward: Your ships, consisting of TIE Fighters, TIE Bombers, various heavy cruisers, and Star Destroyers, or else X-Wings, A-Wings, Y-Wings, and Mon Calamari Cruisers face off. The larger ships have hard-points which can be specifically targeted. These include missile bays, hangars, turbolaser batteries, shield generators, and engines. Once any point is destroyed, that weapon or functionality is lost. Once all are destroyed, the ship is destroyed. Defenders often also have space stations, which can launch reinforcements and provide large numbers of mounted weaponry to rival even a Star Destroyer, although the space stations are immobile. Certain ships also have special abilities. Star Destroyers have tractor beams. Missile Cruisers can bombard areas. Interdictors can use their gravity wells to prevent enemies from escaping via hyperspace. Nebulon Frigates can increase power to the shields, and Imperial Cruisers can intensify firepower, each at the expense of the other. And Y-Wings have a very useful Ion Cannon.

In addition, if you own the planet over which the battle is taking place, you can use certain ground-based weapons, such as Ion Cannons or Hypervelocity guns, against the enemies' ships, as the Hoth base did in Empire Strikes Back.

Ground battles are a bit more involved. You start at one of the map's reinforcement points. Reinforcement points can give you between three and ten points, and that's how many units you can bring down. That could be a unit of Stormtroopers, a unit of hovertanks, or Han Solo himself. The units available depend on what you've flown into orbit. Of course, you have to purchase or train the units first, then fly them to the planet. That takes money. Each planet you control is worth a certain number of credits, and if you build mines on the planet, its value increases.

As you move through the land map, you can capture build points. Once you control a build point, you can build things like turrets and repair stations, which are very useful. And as you capture more reinforcement points, you can bring down more units. Having those extra AT-AT walkers can make a big difference when you're trying to get through the rebels' Phantom Menace-style shield wall.

As you progress through the game, you can improve your tech level. You start at tech level 1, where you'll be fighting with Z-95 Headhunters and stormtroopers, and move up to tech level 4, where you can use air speeders and AT-AAs. The Empire improves its tech level by building improved factories, and the rebellion does so by stealing technology from the Empire. I found that as the Rebellion, money was really hard to come by, which was largely because I didn't own many planets. But that's the way the Rebellion rolls.

All in all, not a bad game. I found myself pausing frequently to assess the situation and issue commands, and I found myself wishing I could map a key to the pause function, but as it was I had to use the mouse, which was annoying. The game lets you zoom out much further than many RTS games, although the command interface vanishes when you zoom out too far, so as to give you a better view of things.

Not a perfect game, but if you're looking for a Star Wars fix in a game, you could do a lot worse than Empire at War.