The Empire Strikes Out
By uFalcon

And I’m spent.

After playing what may have accumulated to 8 hours worth of Empire at War - this including the obligatory LAN sessions and Demo playing - I can safely say that it’s Star Wars. I can say that it includes Tie-Fighters and that it includes X-Wings. On top of that, I can even tell you that there are some AT-AT’s, Star Destroyers, Space Stations, Planetary Weapons and even Han, Chewy come into play. Oh, and you get the Death Star.

Missing something?

Right - then there’s Darth Vader. You won’t be killing him - or getting him killed. Emperor Palpatine also shows up. You won’t be seeing him much, because you’ll rather give the shower a good scrub then play out the ground battles.

Darth on his day off

I think there was something else -

Aha... there’s Y-Wings. They even get ion shots which devastate enemy capital ships. You’ll have a lot of those. You won’t need much else. On top of that – you even get those snow speeder things that have been in the AT-AT take down scene that was subsequently included in every Rogue-Squadron game.

There must be more...

Oh, I remember! You get capital ship heroes for space battles. The empire gets the Executor including that chump that Darth Vader mows down in the movie via Dark-Jedi stranglehold. It gets a tractor beam and a proton beam that seems to have some sort of effect. Plus it’s really huge. The Rebels get that totally lame-ass fish driven ship, which is apparently called Home-One(?). It’s actually sweet carrying something like 20 cannons, and even includes the standard Rebel special ability of not being killable by a regular sized army.

What else?

Who let the dog out again

Of course! I bet you were salivating at even the idea of getting to use those totally goofy, nonsensical, yet pant spoiling B-Wings from the movie! Too bad, none of them. Then there’s the issue of balance that you must be wondering about: how on earth could you balance gameplay in a multiplayer game where the Empire can get the Death Star? Simple - they can’t. That tech tree must be awesome too – think of all the more obscure Star Wars units that aren’t on the usual list! Think about the awesome maneuvers that you could pull!

Tie-Interceptors? Nope.

Kamikaze Strikes? Nope.

Taking out a Star Destroyer’s gravity generator? Nope.

Actually killing a Jedi/Sith? Nope.

Next one to move gets it

Instead, I sit and watch Han Solo and Boba-Fett try to kill each other in vain. They both may as well be invincible. They’re half-way through a shitty tech tree in a boring and incredibly easy game. I guess it’s time to build 10 squads of Y-Wings, 2 corvettes for covering fire and finish off this ‘hard’ AI opponent once and for all.

It’s only the comically bad voice acting (Darth Vader needs to be heard to be believed) that rescues this from 1 star obscurity.

April 2006

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