The first-ever modern Star Wars RTS is here. And it's pretty good.
I won't go into a ton of depth here, but suffice it to say that the game focuses on three basic types of gameplay: space battles, ground battles, and galactic conquest.
Unlike other RTS games, in which each battle is a wholly separate affair from the rest of the game, Empire at War interlinks every single battle of the game into one gigantic war for the entire galaxy.
All your troops, ships, and other combat units are trained/built under the galaxy map, but it's only once you send those units in to attack enemy forces (or if you are being attacked) that the traditional RTS-style gameplay begins. Here, you either attack in space or on the ground. You can choose to either play the battle through yourself, or have the computer "auto-resolve" the battle, instantly determining which units will die on both sides, and which side will end up the victor. More often than not, having the computer auto-resolve the battle will end up worse for the player than playing through the battle. Conversely, if the player's forces vastly outnumber and out-gun the enemy forces, the auto-resolve feature will often result in a major victory for the player.
One major flaw with the game is that the ground battles are tedious, boring, horribly slow, hard to control, and unnecessarily difficult. It's extremely tempting for the player to simply hit the auto-resolve button and take a major loss, if only to avoid spending a good 15-20 minutes trudging through the ground-based combat.
The space battles, on the other hand, are where the game really shines. The cinematic, fast-paced, and mildly strategic space battles are exciting, fast-paced, and lots of fun to look at. There's a ton of depth in these battles, due to the fact that all large ships and space stations have individual sections to attack. If you want to lower a Star Destroyer's shields, all you need do is eliminate its shield generator. If you want to stop a Rebel Cruiser from blasting away at your space station, target and blow away its turbolasers. By selectively destroying specific sections of ships and stations, you can turn the tide of entire battles.
There's even an option (in both ground and space battles) to switch to a completely cinematic camera view, which allows the player to simply sit back and watch the battle as though it were a Star Wars film. Sweeping camera movements and shaky-cam effects for large explosions make the experience one of the most breathtaking visual Star Wars experiences. There are some drawbacks, however. The cinematic camera often rests on the least interesting aspects of the battle, rather than what you want to see. Fortunately, a quick tap of the space bar lets you switch to a different angle, but it's still a pretty big problem.
The space battles, while still very fun, are not without their own flaws. The AI of specific units doesn't appear to know what to do in rather obvious situations.
For every unit on the side of the Empire, there's a unit on the Rebellion side to counter it, and vice-versa. Bombers kill capital ships, corvettes kill fighters, frigates kill corvettes, and capital ships kill frigates. However, the game doesn't seem to know that. At the beginning of each battle (and constantly in the middle of battles), you'll need to TELL each unit what it's supposed to to. If you lose track of one unit for a moment—which is easy to do with battlefields as big as the ones here—you might find that unit destroyed because it wasn't avoiding or attacking the right units. It would have been great if there were an option to give orders to each unit BEFORE each battle (tell X-Wings to attack fighters, tell corvettes to attack bombers, etc). This can be a nuisance, but it's not so bad as to bring the space battles down entirely.
It definitely can be a huge problem for ground battles, however, because a good portion of ground battles involve just searching for enemy structures. However, if you've ordered a unit to move across the map, he might not necessarily stop to battle every unit he meets along the way. So if you order a group of Rebel troopers to move to a corner across the map, but they meet a squad of stormtroopers along the way, the stormtroopers will simply mow the Rebels down without resistance. It can happen in the blink of an eye, too, so you need to keep a CONSTANT eye on your troops at all times. It's stressful and frustrating.
There's a distinct lack of strategy in ground combat, to the point where it often feels that both sides are merely throwing units at each other until the computer decides that one army has won.
The Galaxy Map section of gameplay might be the most well-rounded, as it allows the player to use smart economics and highly strategic placements of troops, stationary defenses, and production facilities to strengthen their forces. A masterful Galaxy Map-player can dominate an entire game, even by only using the auto-resolve feature.
Despite a few major flaws, Empire at War is an overall good experience, made far better if you're a Star Wars fan (as I am).
8/10
