Star Wars: Empire at War

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Star Wars: Empire at War
The box of Star Wars: Empire at War
Developer(s) Petroglyph
Publisher(s) LucasArts
Designer(s) Petroglyph Games
Engine Alamo
Version v1.05 (July, 2006)
Platform(s) Windows, Mac OS X
Release date NA February 16, 2006
PAL February 17, 2006
Mac April 2, 2007
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer, Campaign, Skirmish
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (13+)
Media CD (2), DVD
System requirements Windows:1 GHz CPU or equivalent; 256MB RAM, 32MB graphics card with Hardware T&L, 2.5GB hard drive space, DirectX 9.0c, Windows 2000/XP. Mac OS X: Mac OS X version 10.4.8, 1.83Hz Intel processor (2GHz recommended),512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), 64MB video RAM (256MB recommended, 3.5GB hard disk space,DVD drive ,Internet multiplayer requires broadband connection
Input methods Keyboard, Mouse

Star Wars: Empire at War is a real-time strategy game released in February 2006. It focuses on the fictional struggle between the Empire and the Rebels that begins in the time frame between Episode III and Episode IV. It was developed by Petroglyph, a company comprising many former members of Westwood Studios, best known for their work on the Command & Conquer series.

Empire at War uses an entirely new engine that Petroglyph developed, known as Alamo. The most recent patch was released on July 20th, 2006. In October 2006, an expansion entitled Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption was released.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

There are four different game modes: Skirmish, Storyline-Campaign, Galactic Conquest and Multiplayer.

[edit] Skirmish

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Skirmish mode is the "classic" RTS mode. Skirmishes come in two types: land and space. In land skirmishes, all players start with bases, and must research upgrades and capture resource nodes, while ultimately destroying the enemy's base. In space skirmish, the base is replaced with a space station that can be upgraded. The player "buys" ships to attack the enemy with, until the enemy space station is destroyed or the enemy forces are destroyed (depending on what option the player chooses). The player can advance in "technology levels" to access more powerful ships as the player gains more money. The space station can also be upgraded to better defend itself without requiring the player to leave ships behind to defend it. Skirmish battles require the least time investment, and so are best suited towards casual players. It also has some 'free-play' to it. You are also allowed to use Jedi in Skirmish battles and you can take heroes off and on. You can do some changes to the Skirmish battles like non-built buildings. Maps can support either 2 or 4 players, and the difficulty is scalable between easy, medium and hard.

A screenshot of an active Galactic Conquest (player is playing as the Empire).
A screenshot of an active Galactic Conquest (player is playing as the Empire).

[edit] Galactic Conquest

Galactic Conquest is the sandbox campaign, where the player controls the struggle for freedom with the Rebel Alliance, or galactic domination with the Empire. Grand strategy, production, and resource management is facilitated through a two dimensional galactic map. The player receives funds from controlled planets to research, build defenses, and train troops. Furthermore, each planet confers different advantages to its owner, although some bonuses are specific to a faction. For example, controlling Kuat reduces the price of Imperial Star Destroyers by 25% (but gives no bonus to the Rebels).

When enemy forces meet (either fleets in space or when one side's ground forces invade another's planet) a skirmish-style battle ensues. In Galactic Conquest, unlike Skirmish mode, the player can use only what equipment was brought to the battle (be it an X-wing or AT-AT). Factions must battle across both space and land maps. Each faction has at least one of three broad objectives for Galactic Conquest, which vary depending on which scenario is being played: kill the enemy leader (Mon Mothma or Palpatine), protect/destroy the Death Star, and/or completely remove the other faction from the campaign map.

All four modes are played in real-time. Days on the galactic map continually progress. When a battle occurs, Galactic time is paused while skirmish time begins. After the battle, the Galactic day timer resumes. When playing against the computer, the player can accelerate time or pause time on both the Galactic and Skirmish maps.

[edit] Campaign

The campaign follows a semi-open linear path, where the given side must complete mission objectives (such as stealing X-wing prototypes) in sequence. Campaign missions build up to the plot of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and eventually, the Battle of Yavin.

[edit] Development and release

The official demo of Empire At War was made available for download on January 18, 2006 for Microsoft Windows systems.[1] The full Windows version was released on February 16.

On November 3, 2006 Aspyr Media Inc. announced that Empire at War would be coming to the Mac OS X platform in April 2007. It accompanies Heroes of Might and Magic V (Freeverse Software) and Myst Online: Uru Live as one of the first Mac games to have been developed that will play only on an Intel based Mac. The Mac version was released on April 2, 2007, making it the first Intel-only game to ship for the Mac.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critical Reviews

Critics positively received Empire at War, with a GameRankings average of 80%.[2] GameSpot gave Empire at War an 8.7 out of 10, commenting "Empire at War delivers a true Star Wars experience".[3] IGN gave the game a 7.6 out of 10, saying "Star Wars: Empire at War definitely scores big in terms of style....If you're hoping to enjoy this game because you really like Star Wars, you'll probably be satisfied for quite a while, but if your interest in the Star Wars property takes a back seat to your desire for a solid strategy experience, the few innovations aren't going to be enough to overcome the repetitive nature of the fights." [4]

Patches were released by Petroglyph to fix the heavily criticized multiplayer connection protocols. In some cases before the patch, these problems caused multiplayer games to be almost unplayable. However, some have found that the latest patch (1.05) contains a bug that causes the game to "lock up" when the Death Star destroys a planet where Han Solo and Chewbacca are on the surface. This happens been seen to occur in both GC map-mode and space battles.

[edit] Expansion

An expansion pack for Empire at War, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, added new units, planets, and a new faction.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Star Wars: Empire at War demo. Download.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-09.
  2. ^ Star Wars: Empire at War - PC. GameRankings. CNET. Retrieved on 2007-06-28.
  3. ^ Bob Colayco. Star Wars:Empire at War. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2007-04-09.
  4. ^ Steve Butts. Star Wars:Empire at War. IGN. Retrieved on 2007-04-09.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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