Reviewed: September 4, 2002
Reviewed by: : Dave Larson

Publisher
Lucasarts

Developer
Lucasarts
Ensemble Studios

Released: October, 2002
Genre: RTS
Players: 8
ESRB: Teen

9
6
9
5
7.0

System Requirements

Galactic Battlegrounds offers these features:

• Epic real-time strategy set against a backdrop of the entire Star Wars saga
• Conflicts involve six key civilizations: Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance, Wookiees, Gungans, Royal Naboo and Trade Federation
• Execute your campaign over land, sea and air with over 300 different units and structures in single-player campaigns, skirmishes and multiplayer battles
• Combat arenas extend from interstellar asteroids and aerial encounters to submerged cities and ground battles
• Deploy vast legions of units into battle-up to 200 per side with units that can include bounty hunters, Jedi Knights, stormtroopers, X-wings, AT-ATs, snowspeeders, AT-STs, Wookiee Kas tanks and droids
• Manage your resources and integrate the power of upgradable technology into your strategy, such as Wookiee ingenuity, advanced Gungan biotechnology and Jedi stamina. Each technology level brings new wonders and new forces.
• Accessible gameplay built upon the familiar RTS engine adapted from Ensemble's popular Age of Empires series
• Use the scenario editor to create custom single or multiplayer battlegrounds with virtually any Star Wars units and settings

• Over 200 new units including new kinds of droids, troopers, bounty hunters, craft, and much more.
• Increase of the population limit up to 250.
• Featuring numerous enhancements for this release including upgradeable shields, power cores, new effects and new units for scenario editor.
• Mix and match civilizations from Star Wars: Episode II with those from the original Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds when playing in single player skirmish or multiplayer mode.
• New Star Wars locales from films, expanded universe and Star Wars: Episode II.
• Builds upon Age of Kings technology, adapted for the Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds game engine.
• Replay the original campaigns from Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds with Air Cruisers, Power Droids and all the new upgrades and effects from the Clone Campaigns expansion pack!

Galactic Battlegrounds, like its predecessor Age of Empires, has campaigns for each of the available races. Varying in degrees of difficulty, the campaigns for the Rebels, Empire, Trade Federation, Royal Naboo, Gungans (hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t write the game), and Wookies are a series of scenarios in which you must accomplish certain goals, such as mining 20,000 Carbon, freeing prisoners, or simply crushing the pathetic Rebels.

The real attraction of this game is playing other humans over the Internet. Then it gets interesting. After logging hundreds of hours playing Age of Empires, both on and off the net, this game was certainly easy for me to pick up on and become an expert. Note: I said that I’m an "expert", not a "master". You should see some of the players on the Internet. Even after my long hours on the game, I can still get my butt handed to me before I can say, “Strike me down with all your hate!”

At any rate, I’ve been playing these games on a stock-model Dell, with a Pentium 4 processor, 516 MB RAM, an in-house 3d graphics card and an equally average Sound Blaster card; more than enough system to run this game at maximum detail and resolution.

While you spend 3 minutes building a barracks, two houses, and ten troopers, your enemy just built all of that, and a complete artillery unit, supporting air cover, and two shield generators. It may not seem significant, but trust me. Live by the mouse, and you’ll die by the mouse, too. Still, the game is easy enough to run if you choose not to learn the quick-keys, and using the mouse exclusively early is a great way to learn.

This game, while listed as strategy, is really about economy. There are four types of resources in this game: carbon, food, nova and ore. If you’ve played Age of Empires that translates respectively to: wood, food, gold and stone. Build your economics, while slowing and interfering with your enemies’ production. In the process, you can build troops and research tons of technologies that do things like improve your troops’ range, damage, speed, and even allow other, special military units, (like my favorite, the AT-AT).

The combat system is simple, but elegant. As in most wars, the two main things are technology and numbers. While each troop type is effective against another certain type of troop, numbers will forgive most of your sins, if you forget what exactly your troops’ weaknesses are.

For all of its other qualities, this game has one serious flaw. Simply put, LucasArts didn’t put enough work into these games. Having played Age of Empires until my contacts had to be pried out of my eyes, I recognized the fact that the only things they did to this game were to change the music, troop and building icons; add air units; and slap together the cut scenes.

The only fundamental change to the game was the addition of power cores and shield generators, which were both great additions. The power core added a good dimension to the early play of the game — it is now easier to slow down your opposition by destroying their power core. The shield generators add a regenerating, temporary set of hit points to buildings and units in its range. The rest of it though, was taken almost verbatim from Age of Empires.

I kept expecting Marvin Martian to jump out and, as he would say, “blow my Empire up.” The real disappointment, however, came from the cut-scenes. From LucasArts, the company tied to the miracle of the Star Wars movies and many other games, we get…still frames! With scrolling text! That’s right, the best cut-scene shows Saruman, ahem, Count Dooku with scrolling text explaining how he will sabotage the Empire by using the Trade Federation. Gak. They could have done better by freeze-framing images out of a DVD.

The music is straight from John William’s scores, and was at least different enough that it didn’t get on my nerves after long hours of playing.

Your gameplay time will vary depending on whether or not you have played Age of Empires. If you haven’t, this game will last you quite a while. The minimum investment is about 15-20 hours, while most players will have this on their monitors for more than 60 hours.

For those that are enraptured, you’ll be able to go online, and you’d better have a second phone line. The Age of Empires veterans; however, can put as little as 10 hours in this game, or can also put decades into it. I honestly think dedicated AOE players will find this game entertaining, but run back home to mama once the newness of this game wears off.