Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

The Good
Very addicting game with a Warcraft III like feel to it, gathering resources and building an empire that will eventually strike at the enemy. There's a lot of options to choose from, lots of maps and so many different units to research and build. The graphics are pretty good, the character animations are really good. (ex. When the Gungans fish (food gathering) they jump into the water repeatedly until they fill their quota and make a drop off) it was rather amusing the first time i saw that.

The Bad
There seems to be no way to rotate the map, buildings, walls, etc which can make building a bit difficult at times. [If there is a way someone PLEASE let me know]. The game doesn't require much PC resources to run, however when you play a big game (200 characters max per team) the game slows down considerably, even freezes up for a short period too, it's really annoying! [i'm sure of course a better PC would correct that particular annoyance]. The attack units (Turrets mainly) can be really "dumb" at times. (ex. When built close enough to enemy units (buildings) they will fire at will (good thing) however when the enemy attack units become aware of this (foot soldiers, siths, etc) they will attack the turrets now rather than stop firing at the buildings and attack the soldiers they continue to fire at the buildings, in turn they take extensive damage, eventually the turrets will "wise up" and do the right thing, too little too late sometimes. All in all though it's a minor flaw. i still love the damn game!

The Bottom Line
Galactic Battlegrounds is a very addictive game, if you like games of this genre than give this one a shot, you'll love it.

The Good
When it was decided to make a real-time strategy game set in the Star Wars Universe, Lucasarts had the bold vision to use a 3D engine, let the player switch viewpoints to experience the action firsthand, and do away with conventional resource harvesting for a point-based system. Unfortunately the game, Force Commander, was hammered for having a bad interface, poor controls, an unwieldy camera system, and uninspiring graphics. As a result, their second foray, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, is a completely conventional RTS game basically modifying Age of Empires II for the Star Wars Universe.

After a well edited, but grainy, montage of famous Star Wars battles, the player has the option to choose one of six race-based campaigns (including a tutorial level narrated by Qui-Gon Jinn). Each campaign has around seven missions: usually six of which offer a loosely tied together narrative and then one or two bonus or challenge missions. The races, for want of a better term, offered are the: Trade Federation, Gungans, Empire, Rebels, and the Wookies.

Missions have variable objectives ranging from the typical base-building, enemy-crushing ones to ones where you have limited numbers of troops to complete a series of tasks or ones where you need to accomplish certain objectives in a limited amount of time. Some missions nicely fill-in the blanks in the Star Wars history, like what happened after the Death Star was destroyed above Yavin IV while others expand on side remarks, such as the Trade Federation mission where the objective is to disable Naboo’s communication array.

SWGB does have resource management (food, carbon, nova crystals, and ore), but there are at least five ways to get food, carbon is plentiful and nova and ore can be found. You spend the harvested resources to buy more workers, buildings, units, etc. Once you have certain levels of resources and buildings, you can then increase your technology level (up to level 4). Each level allows more upgrades, from studying the latest in armor design or a more efficient way to harvest carbon.

Each race has equivalent buildings and units, but the manual hints that there is some balancing—for instance, the Rebels have better aircraft than the Empire and the Trade Federation have better troops than the Naboo. I found in SWGB, more than in most RTS games, that it is important to balance your armies. Aircraft will need support from the ground to take out anti-aircraft turrets, naval units should have anti-air support, and ground troops will need to support your artillery. For the most part, there’s no tank rushing here. Artificial intelligence is mostly good, but I think that it’s more scripted (cued by certain events or time) than off the cuff.

Graphics are functional (see below) but each race has a definite look to it. Sounds are lifted from Ben Burtt’s archive and the score is a nice mix of John Williams’s familiar themes. Voice acting is… good. Hero units aren’t voiced as convincingly as the other ingame units but the campaign narrators are pretty good.

Not really sure where this should go, but on certain levels it pays to cheat a bit. You’ll find Mara Jade observing Vader’s activities, a ripple in time and space that connects Kashyyyk to Tatooine, and more.

The Bad
I really enjoyed the first 75% of the game. After that, the repetition set in. It’s nice that SWGB offers so many races, but in every campaign, the early levels have a tech level cap while the later (or last) levels let you use the full potential of the race. After a while, starting from scratch really bothered me. I came to a point where I said, either I can keep playing “more of the same” or I can move on to another game.

Mission difficulty is all over the place. Sure there are three difficulty levels for the game itself, but within each race there’s no progression of difficulty, so the level of challenge varies.

I’m not sure how much I can fault the game’s graphics. They are definitely functional rather than beautiful, but the game is limited by its 2D isometric view. It isn’t a game where snowspeeders fly under AT-ATs, tripping them with tow cables. Rather the snowspeeders hover next to AT-ATs and pummel them with laser blasts. Likewise, you won’t see TIE Fighters chasing X-Wings or vice versa.

Final quibbles: carbon from trees? Tauntauns on Bespin? After Darth Vader says, “Now I’m the Master,” being told he can’t convert a building because he’s not a master. Hero units you have to hide away so they won’t get killed. Tauntauns in space?

The Bottom Line
With Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, you get six campaigns, over forty missions, maybe 80+ hours of gameplay, and a fun and well-supported multiplayer game.

You also get average graphics and much repetition.

In the end, it’s worth it. I would recommend this game and playing it in short bursts rather than marathon sessions. You get a lot of value for your money.

The Good
I'm a fan of Star Wars (I'm sure you are all aware of that now) and I'm also a fan of Age of Empires. So I was expecting big things from this after it was announced a while back.

I'm glad to say, that after a few weeks of playing, it's a very clean package, with everything a Star Wars fan could want. A chance to lead the Rebellion and the Imperial march. Recreations of the movies most important scenes (like the battle of hoth) thanks to the multiplayer options. And, what I believe is the most important of all: An easy way to kill Jar Jar over, and over, and over, and over ......

Where was I. Oh yes. GB is fun for all the above reasons. The single player campaign's are actually very well put together. Similar to AoE they go by the timeline. So the you will start with the battle for Naboo and work your way through to the Battle of Endor.

And since its AoE all over again, controlling each unit and maintaining each area of the game is very easy indeed. It helps greatly if you have played AoE before. Even then, newcomers will find things simple to accomplish at first, then gradually increase in difficulty.

The Bad
Although its an easy game to get into, and there is plenty to do, its still AoE. And the fact that the graphics and gameplay are basically the same won't help the cause for those looking for something new. I did enjoy playing as each race in the galaxy that I love, but I found it wasn't a real challenge thanks to my many days with AoE.

The thing that hurt the most was the graphics. AoE was never a marvel to look at. Simple, yes, but nothing compared to say Battle Realms. Here's the killer though. Ensemble studios are working on Age of Mythology (i.e. AoE3), and so far the screenshots look very good indeed. The question is, why wasn't the same graphical engine used for this. Surely some of the new techniques in the engine could have been tweaked in.

The only other problem I found came from the AI. At times some troops will find themselves stuck at bad times during a fight, meaning I had to spend hard earned money to replace someone I shouldn't have had to replace.

The Bottom Line
As a whole. Galactic Battlegrounds is a solid title that is hard not to like. But there is nothing here that will make it a huge title for everyone to sit up and look at, since AoM, Empire Earth and Battle Realms has this covered.

Still, it's always good to log on and relive some of the best moments of the movies with pals. And a laugh is always had with Jar Jar (not of the movie kind!)