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Star Wars: Empire at War
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Star Wars: Empire at War is a 2006 real-time strategy game developed by Petroglyph Games and published by LucasArts. It focuses on the fictional struggle between the Empire and the Rebels that begins in the time frame between Episode III and Episode IV. Star Wars: Empire at War uses an entirely new engine that Petroglyph developed, known as Alamo. The most recent patch was released on July 20, 2006. In October 2006, an expansion entitled Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption was released.
e are five different game modes: Space, Land, Storyline-Campaign, Galactic Conquest and Multiplayer.
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Encyclopedia
Star Wars: Empire at War is a 2006 real-time strategy game developed by Petroglyph Games and published by LucasArts. It focuses on the fictional struggle between the Empire and the Rebels that begins in the time frame between Episode III and Episode IV. Star Wars: Empire at War uses an entirely new engine that Petroglyph developed, known as Alamo. The most recent patch was released on July 20, 2006. In October 2006, an expansion entitled Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption was released.
Gameplay
There are five different game modes: Space, Land, Storyline-Campaign, Galactic Conquest and Multiplayer. Skirmish mode is the "classic" RTS mode. Skirmishes come in two types: land and space (also land tactical mode and space tactical mode). 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. The player is also allowed to use Jedi in Skirmish battles and can take heroes off and on. They can do some changes to the Skirmish battles like non-built buildings. Maps can support either 2, 3, or 4 players, and the difficulty is scalable between easy, medium and hard.
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%.
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.
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.
Plot
Development
Star Wars: Empire at War was first mentioned in 2004, by then LucasArts president Jim Ward. He discussed the possibility of a RTS video game set in the Star Wars universe, stating "...there's a bright future there for games based on these new properties as well as original Star Wars games like a new real-time strategy PC game that Petroglyph is developing for next year". Ward described the game as taking the Real-time strategy genre in a new direction, and outlined plans to balance the gameplay between hardcore games and audiences familiar with the Star Wars franchise. The game was officially unveiled by LucasArts on January 21, 2005 with an original release date set for the end of 2005. LucasArts revealed that the newly-formed Petroglyph Games would be developing an original 3D game engine, entitled Alamo for Star Wars: Empire at War and that the game would support online battles for up to 8 players .
Lead designer Joe Bostic outlined the gameplay for Star Wars: Empire at War, stating the developer's priorities was for players to have easy control of ships during space combat, due to difficulties with the structure of the space aspect of the game. He added that the scaling of the various units in the game was another difficulty which the developers had to overcome in order to balance out the gameplay. In 2006, Chris Rubyor, a former employee of Westwood Studios, discussed the Galactic Conquest mode of the game, stating that the initial mode had to be overhauled several times due to the fact that that Petroglyph felt unhappy with the original mode. He further added that the game's skirmish mode incorporated a variety of new and traditional strategy mechanics found in the RTS genre. He stated their focus was primarly combat and unit tactics, while allowing units and new technologies to be purchased during skirmish combat, a feature which was not inserted into the main single-player campaign or Galactic Conquest. The game's score was composed by Frank Klepacki. Klepacki stated surround sound was an important aspect to look at for the game, as he believed many past RTS games did not take advantage of the features of surround sound. The game's audio took elements from the Star Wars films, as well as adding new elements to add more variety to the game. Much of the sound effects were created by Klepacki, including all sounds in the interface and structure.
A stage demo and trailer were on display at E3 2005. On July 15, 2005 LucasArts unveiled a new trailer and announced a release date of February 7, 2006. A playable build of Star Wars: Empire at War was well received at the 2005 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.
The official demo of Star Wars: Empire at War was made available for download on January 18, 2006, for Microsoft Windows systems. It features five introduction tutorials to the game, and one Galactic Conquest mission with the player assuming the role of the Rebels. 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. A demo was released in March 2007.
Reception
Critics received Empire at War positively, with a GameRankings average of 79%. GameSpot gave Empire at War an 8.7 out of 10, commenting "Empire at War delivers a true Star Wars experience". 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."
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 has been seen to occur in both GC map-mode and space battles.
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