Empire at War

I don't think I can say it enough. I love this game. Lucas Arts has finally created a good Star Wars strategy game after no less then three dismal failures. The action comes at you fast and hard, and just doesn't stop. The graphics are wonderful, as I've said to others there's nothing quite like watching 4 Star Destroyers jump into a system turbo lasers blazing and launching Tie fighters.

I'm really floored by the fact that for the first time in its history it seems like Lucas Arts finally learned from their mistakes. They took everything that worked in Rebellion, Force Commander, and Star Wars Battlegrounds, combined them all into one game, and chucked all the utter crap that made those games such complete flops.

At its core Empire at War is Lucas Arts older game, Rebellion. They've streamlined it, getting rid of the 'sectors' in Rebellion, and reducing it down to a core set of around 50 planets max. Game speed has also been drastically increased. Where Rebellion needed hours to construct a unit, or move a fleet from one sector to the other, Empire at War needs seconds. The biggest change from the Rebellion engine, however, is combat. The lifeless blobs of ships from ages past are gone, replaced with crisp lifelike battles. The ships move of their own accord, tell a frigate to attack a star destroyer, and it will move to attack, then continue moving to achieve the best firing angle of its own accord, setting up devistating broadsides and missle attacks. For both ground and space combat Empire at War has truly taken the best of Force Commander, and Battlegrounds.

I do miss some of the 'epic' strategy feel you got with Rebellion, and the computer tends to be pretty stupid in ground conflicts (I've held an entire planet with just one unit of tanks against an entire assault by the Empire before) but there's no doubt in my mind that this is the better of the two games. So to sum it up, buy this game Nicky. :)