Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
Amazon.com Review
A long time ago, an awesome real-time approach game set in Earth’s past named Age of Empires II was unleashed on an unwitting public. Nearly immediately, it took its place among the best sports meeting of its genre. Galactic Battlegrounds takes many of the elements that made Age of Empires II so excellent and gives them a complete Star Wars makeover. The gameplay is so similar, it’s hard to recommend it to anyone with a copy of AOE II. But, if you haven’t played AOE II, or you’re a hard-core Star Wars fan, you might just find this game to be strong in the Force.
Battlegrounds offers you the chance to become a leader in deciding some of the most vital battles of the Star Wars mythology. As in other real-time approach sports meeting, you’ll interest yourself with such things as keeping your troops fed, advancing technology, and trade. And, of course, keeping your base from getting completely wiped out is generally considered a plus.
Among the few enhancements Battlegrounds makes to the Age of Empires II engine is the larger technology tree (more stuff to invent and play with) and air and anti-air units (TIE fighters, X-wings, etc.). Most of the favorite races, machinery, and characters of the films are also well represented. Wookiees, Jedi, the Trade Federation, Darth Vader, Luke, and the rest of the gang (including Jar Jar) are all there for you to command in the campaign mode. Those looking to wage war in the battles seen in the films might be somewhat disappointed, as many of the missions, while no less vital, take place analogous (and usually very close to) those shown in movies.
Thankfully, a few of the better-known skirmishes have been incorporated in the game–just don’t expect to significantly alter Star Wars history. For example, when controlling Imperial forces in the Battle of Hoth (the snow battle from The Empire Strikes Back), you lead your troops in an effort to defeat Rebel scum before they can flee the planet. Can you change the outcome of the battle seen in the films? Aside from losing your commander and immediately losing the game, no. But the tales behind the skirmishes depicted throughout Battlegrounds do fit well into the Star Wars myth and are usually fun. There are also quite a few standalone missions, a random map generator, and tools for making your own battles. It’s enough to keep hard-core Star Wars fans ignoring their earthly responsibilities for a excellent long time.
Battlegrounds is, at its core, a modification of Age of Empires II and it plays about as well as can be expected. Fortunately, despite its somewhat outdated graphics, Battlegrounds‘ legendary characters and locales add just enough Star Wars flavor to help make it a solid game in its own right.
Pros:
- Puts you in command of AT-ATs, stormtroopers, and Jedi
- Familiar Star Wars locales, characters, and music
- Uses the familiar (and very excellent) Age of Empires II interface
- Fascinating main campaign that spans the films and goes beyond Return of the Jedi
Cons:
- Outdated graphics lack definition and are rather flat
- AT-ATs too small, TIEs and X-wings hover instead of glide
Amazon.com Product Description
The fate of a galaxy hangs in the balance, and you’re in command. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds lets you lead Star Wars armies to victory in intense real-time approach clashes. Penetrate the fray as the Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance, Trade Federation, Wookiees, and other civilizations or organizations in campaigns that will determine the final outcome of the Galactic Civil War.
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is an epic real-time approach set against a surroundings of the entire Star Wars saga. The conflicts involve six key civilizations: Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance, Wookiees, Gungans, Royal Naboo, and the Trade Federation. Do your campaign over land, sea, and air with more than 300 different units and structures in release-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 groups that include bounty hunters, Jedi Knights, stormtroopers, X-Wings, AT-ATs, snowspeeders, AT-STs, Wookiee Kas tanks, and droids. Manage your resources and integrate the potential of upgradable technology into your approach, such as Wookiee ingenuity, advanced Gungan biotechnology, and Jedi stamina. Each technology level brings new wonders and new forces. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds features accessible gameplay built upon the familiar RTS engine adapted from Ensemble’s well loved Age of Empires series. Use the scenario editor to make custom release- or multiplayer battlegrounds with virtually any Star Wars units and settings.
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I used to like this game. was kind of fun. not it bores me out out of my wits. Let’s start out with the graphics. Ok, the Millenium Falcon is huge in the movie, but in the game…(sigh)its the size of about ten people. Lets look at the Jedi and Sith. The only difference between the two is that they fight differently with different colered light sabers. If a jedi comes to an enemy building, why the heck would he hack at it with his LIGHTSABER? Its also a frame rate of oh, 3?! Now lets look at the mechs. There are, count em, 4 DIFFERENT MECHS! AWESOME! The Pummel has…whoa…2 ATTACK! there are also about 10 maps. the campaigns are just disproportionately dull. Chewbacca has a crossbow, yet he shoots lasers! How can ewok hang gliders hover? Why can’t they just glide in a circle like airplanes in Empire Earth? Also theres about 10 different animals. The terrains are dull. Grass and dark grass. If you walked by and said hi to a Gungan medic, would shehewhatever say unwisely, “Just a fleshy wound!”? Echuu Shen-Jon is a black character, but in the game he’s white. C-3PO Can’t walk that quick! Ok, Ok, Ok lets just leave it at that there are no Pros and many Cons. I despise this game. People who reflect this game is “The BEST GAME IN THE UNIVERSE”, should breathe deeply and rethink their life.
Rating: 1 / 5
this game is awesome, the best! I play it all the time! Anyone who thinks this game isn’t excellent has a conundrum
Rating: 5 / 5
I like Star Wars stuff.
When I saw this game, I knew that I just had to have it. I was not expeting all that much, so I got what I expected.
This review is for the Mac version of this game.
The game is OK. Some challenges and some just really simple stuff. Interface is clunky and not as excellent as Starcrafts. Basically, just go and buy starcraft. It looks better and is more fun to play.
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is a must for die hard Star Wars fans. But, if you are looking for a really fun game to play, try starcraft.
Rating: 2 / 5
The game plays alot like Age of Empires 2, but with alot more stuff. I’m not a Starwars nerd and i thought the game was cool.
Rating: 4 / 5
Everything looks splendid – it should be very fun. Even the pleasure of wiping out Jar Jar and all his kin doesn’t make up for the fact that this game requires you to spend FAR too much time managing your units, tech levels, structures, etc. There are few opportunities for any tactics other than ‘build to the highest tech level, then swarm the other guy’. This gets ancient FAST.
Total Annihilation, for example, is the granddaddy of RTS sports meeting, but still has the best gameplay I know of. You can go high tech, or swarms of low tech, or no matter what, and there are many many different ways to win any given level. Not right w/ Star Wars:GB. Ya kinda gotta do it the way they envisioned it, and by the time you collect the FOUR different resource types, build a few dozen buildings, and upgrade ten technologies, you (or at least I) am mighty tired of clicking.
The software also crashes my G4 800 running OS 10.1 pretty regularly. Only a full restart will bring it back up. The only other software capable of doing this is Microsoft Internet Exploer.
All in all, pretty dissapointing. I’ll go back to playing my 4 year ancient copy of Total Annihilation.
Rating: 2 / 5