May the Force be With You....(Dark Side or Light, Your Choice).

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Lucasarts games gave fans of the Star Wars saga three uniquely different ways to conquer the galaxy they knew and loved so well. The first, Star Wars: Force Commander, was a squad level adventure that worked fairly well, if it was a bit unwieldy in the execution.

Not good enough for you? Then of course there was Star Wars: Rebellion, which allowed you to control entire star systems, quell their unruly populations into submission with a visit from the Death Star, manage production, and stage land and space battles on a strategic level.

Finally, there was (and is) perhaps the best of the lot: Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, modeled after Microsoft’s Age of Empires. This game allowed players to mine and farm resources, produce units, and engage in battle with them.

If you liked any or all of these games, I have good news for you. Lucasarts has gone each one better, rolling them all together into one game that takes the best features to combine into a greater whole. The result: Star Wars: Empire at War.

Behind The Game
Empire at War allows the player to choose your destiny: extend the grip of the Evil Galactic Empire across more and more star systems, or join the Rebel Alliance and fight to restore truth, justice, and the Jedi way. Choose you must, but carefully, carefully. Depending on how well (or badly) you play, you, padawan, may change the entire history of the galaxy.

Playing the Game
There are two ways to play. You can follow a campaign that will progressively assign you a series of missions to fulfill using an ever increasing array of spaceships, armored vehicles, and troops. Or you can simply set the galaxy up as a battleground and fight it out as you see fit.

Initially, the campaign is probably the best way to go. As in Rebellion, you’ll be presented with a star field of planets to conquer, and you can move ships and troops about from planet to planet. You’ll receive resources based on the number of worlds you control, which in turn will allow you to build more ships and troops.

Between missions, you’ll receive briefings from Darth Vader, The Emperor, Grand Moff Tarkin, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and more. Characters the likes of Vader, Han Solo, and Boba Fett can be used in missions, and they each have special powers (Vader, for example, can crush buildings and vehicles with the force, or kill large numbers of enemy troops with a “force push”). Many units have such special abilities, so be on the lookout for them. Boba Fett’s Slave I, again in example, can destroy enemy fighters with a seismic charge.

Engagements occur both on planetary surfaces and in space. The space battles are lots of fun, as you manipulate fleets against each other. Land battles are somewhat similar to those from Galactic Battlegrounds, though you’re more directly involved with battle and don’t have to worry so much about production of new units at the same time. You can even call in bombing runs on opposing units with Tie bombers or Y-Wing fighters.

You can command a wide array of spacecraft, too: Imperial Victory crusiers, gravity well generating Interdictors, Imperial Star Destroyers, Rebel Frigates, Mon Calamari crusisers. In a particularly foul mood? Just send out the Death Star to destroy the closest planet.

An interesting variation on the unit formations is that you can break them up into smaller if you like, say, attacking an enemy with one of your AT-STs while holding back another. Best of all, you can switch to cinema mode at any time and watch the action unfold like a movie before you. Then too, scrolling the mouse zooms you in and out of the action, so that you can see broad sweeping fields or detailed battle action.

Playability
The game can be played at varying levels of difficulty, form easy to difficult, depending on how much you want to challenge yourself. It will provide hours and hours of fun, too.

Graphics
The graphics are good enough, but considering the grand scope of the game and the number of units on the board at any given time (plus the terrain, starfields, etc.), they’re really very good.

Sound
This is one of the best aspects of the game. All of the authentic sound effects are included, from blaster shots to TIE fighter engines to lightsabers. And while James Earl Jones doesn’t do Vader’s voice, it’s hard to tell the difference. All of the voiceovers closely resemble their theatrical counterparts. Then too, there’s the wonderful music, drawn from all of the Star Wars films.

System Requirements
Empire at War is certainly not system intensive. It will take up about 2.5 gigabytes on your hard drive, but a 1.9 Ghz processor and 256MB of RAM will get you playing; 512MB of RAM will serve you better. Windows 2000 or XP are a must, as is Direct X 9.0. A 3-D compatible graphics card is also indicated as essential.

My aging Dell computer does not have a 3-D graphics card, but the game works fine. The video is at times choppy, but that’s more due to the shared video memory than any failing of the game. Bottom line, the game should play acceptably well on basic systems, much better on more game-friendly models.

Overall
Empire at War is the best thing to come along for Star Wars gamers since lightsaber-sliced bread. The game is even online play enabled, so you can match your skills against other fanatics around the globe. Four and a half stars in my book. So what are you waiting for? Man your ships. And May the Force be With You.