Star Wars: Empire at War Review

During the battle, you can click on the 'Call for reinforcements' icon and choose from a list of units you have for backup. Just click on a particular unit and then drag the unit icon to a specific part on the battlefield. On land you are required to control reinforcement points, otherwise you won't be able to send for support. In space, things are a bit easier. Any available backup cruisers or fighters can be sent into battle anywhere on the map (so, you don't have to worry about reinforcement points).

Star Wars: EaW is not without its faults. Throughout the single-player campaign certain units (mainly land units) sometimes refused to obey my commands. One time, a group of PLEX soldiers got stuck and declined to move throughout the rest of the mission. Mind you, this only happened once, so I wouldn't regard it as a major technical mishap if I were you.

To my surprise, I experienced some general flaws in interface design. On the Galactic map, for example, if you wish to know more about a certain unit, you have to move the pointer over it and wait for a pop-up screen to disclose all the info you need. Although these pop-ups are useful at the beginning of the game, they can be a nuisance later on. For some reason the game doesn't allow you to turn-off the pop-up screens, but you can delay them, which sort of helps I guess.

Another thing that might annoy players is that the designers clearly haven't invested much effort and time into making the land battles look good. Unit models are okay and I really liked the water surfaces, the highly detailed explosions and some neat weather effects. But, somehow all of these effects appear nothing more than mere make up. If we take all that down, there probably wouldn't be much left to admire. The space battles are a different story. When two larger fleets meet, you'll get to see a variety of cool moments from laser fire, proton torpedoes, Tie Fighters, Y-Wings and X-Wings swirling around and engaging in dogfights, meticulously designed space frigates and so on. Also, destroying space stations, Star Destroyers and other cruisers is a really cool sight - tons of particles start drifting into space, enriched with a wide variety of well animated effects such as detonations, shockwaves, and pretty much any other effect in the book.

As you'd expect, the audio design is first-rate. When ordered around, units and heroes react with a variety of vocal responses and you'll also find the usual array of familiar sound effects from the Star Wars universe. The whole game is accompanied by J.W.'s well-known score, with an additional theme or two that was done by veteran sound editor Frank Klepacki.

Finally, we draw our attention to the multiplayer. I started off my multiplayer experience by playing a really lengthy head-to-head multiplayer campaign, which was immensely fun. Plus, the game allows you to save your progress, so you can continue the campaign at any time. You'll be able to enjoy an assortment of multiplayer skirmishes that allow up to 8 players via Internet or LAN. The LucasArts multiplayer matchmaking system makes it easy for players to find get matches going.

Another thing I should perhaps mention is that LucasArts and Petroglyph have released a Star Wars: Empire at War patch. About half way trough the game I decided to grab the patch and see if it'll make any difference while playing. Patching the game doesn't exactly offer any radical changes to the game itself, but it does fix minor technical issues, balances unit damage and adjusts the build-time for certain structures and units.

The simple truth is that Star Wars: Empire at War has officially opened the PC gaming season of 2006. It's an enjoyable real-time strategy with all the nifty Star Wars ingredients for loyal fans of the popular space saga. Gamers who are out for classic real-time strategies, might be repelled by the overwhelming Star Wars lore and the relatively steep learning curve. Still, once you get the hang of it, you're sure to find the game a rewarding experience, both in single-player and multiplayer.