Empire at War
February 28, 2006I’ve noticed that its hard to please most gamers some of the time. Star Wars - Empire at War is one game that had plenty of hype and fanfare, but has been released to a pretty tepid response by most gamers. As for me, I’ve enjoyed it thus far - it’s a very ambitious game that achieves most of its objectives, but I still think it could’ve done with a little more fine tuning.
Firstly, I wish they’d gone turn-based with the Galactic Map. If it works for popular strategy games like Civ 4 and Total War, why shouldn’t it work here too? Unlike some reviewers, I found tracking my units not to be a problem. My only caveat is that I wish they’d put icons for the minor heroes (eg. Infantry and Fleet Commanders, Bounty Hunters and Smugglers) in the top-right hand corner too.
Land combat is my biggest gripe - it’s too much of a throwback to Command and Conquer for my taste. And the units look too large for the maps they’re on - I sometimes wish they’d made the units smaller, so when a squad of tanks climb a hill you really believe it. Space combat, on the other hand, is definitely the best part of the game. Everything looks to scale, and the directors view is really satisfying - especially when your Y-Wings are about to take out an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Another aspect I like is the voices (mostly). The guy voicing Han Solo is, to my ears, pitch perfect. The dialogue between him and Mon Mothma is the highlight of the campaign (at least for me). The voice for Obi-Wan is pretty good too. On the other hand, the voice of Darth Vader sounds a bit too rap-artist-Fifty-Cent for my taste.
I also tried out a multiplayer game with my brother last night. Fun! I tried to persuade him to attack the enemy space stations hangar bay first, but he kept on insisting on destroying Boba Fett with his Millenium Falcon Squadron. :rolleyes: What do you expect from somebody who had Boba Fett wallpaper on his PC?
So all-in-all, Empire at War was actually better than I expected.
