GameStar Preview

[Cain]

I don't know if we had this posted:

 

http://www.gamestar.de/layout/grafik/home/heftcover.jpg

 

Quote after shadowsfm (eaw.net):

 

Power, light saber Gefuchtel ago: Also Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are only Puppets. Others pull the strings in star wars: the Emperor, Yoda... and a more mysterious third. Instead of carreing a cape he prefers Jeans, instead of a Light saber, he swings a mouse. Thus, he establishes star destroyers within seconds and, conquered within a few minutes, rebel bases and whole planets. and leaves Darth vader after his sweet moves. One more than a delightful role, as you slide into the real time strategy game, empire at war! for you We have already tried it out a few times and played deeply in a far progressed beta version, into the campaign inside.

 

Sherlock Vader

The history of Empire at war begins some years after the seize of power of the Emperor and the final conversion of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. Under their Command, is formed the first rebel resistance movement. Rumors over a new powerful fighter named x-Wing spread - a theft of the prototypes would be the first important success for the still young rebellion. On side of the empire, you search with Darth Vader a traitor in your own faction, and following the trail, the bounty hunter Boba Fett, you lead to a large space combat with Pirates. Both campaigns end with that enormous battle around the death star, the finale of episode 4. As an imperial commander, you are able to prevent the destruction of the space station.

 

Galactic Map

Despite well scripted missions with many pretty game graphic sequences, are both campaigns fully dynamic. thereby, Empire at war divides into strategy and Battle. On a map of the galaxy you produce and drag, in action packed Real-time - fleets and troops would combine, establishing mines, barracks, factories, ion cannons or space stations. And how does the story fit it in the game? Similar to the Senate missions in "Rome," you get tasks assigned on the strategy map. So we should, with C-3PO and R2-D2, land on the planet Wayland, and tap a computer of the empire. of course the computer is strictly guarded - for several minutes we must protect the Droids as even more violent imperial attack-waves builds up or instead we should try another planet, only you decide. Such extra trips are worthwhile themselves: Each conquered world gives not only daily Credits (the only Resource), but also provides very powerful Bonus for you. for example, if you control Alderaan, it equips your infantry with better arms, go with the industry planet, kuart, you accelerate The building of large spaceships of caliber, like Star destroyers, substantially. As in "Rome" strategy map and real time battles linked well with one another. Everything that you build in the galaxy mode, also appear in the battlefield; it can be accordingly destroyed. And if you have y-Wings in Orbit, you may, with ground combat, request support , then they bomb the assigned goals automatically. (as in the rts, "panzer")

 

Bang in the universe

filling troop transports Up until they burst is pointless, if a star destroyers blocks the planet. in empire at war, as soon as oposing fleets meet, you go in the real-time space battle. Also some the story-missions put you between the stars: Already in the first mission of the rebel campaign, you must destroy imperial dockyards. The space engagements plays itself pleasingly uncomplicated, it is in a third dimension - but compared to the Homeworld

game, space is flat. Despite the conscious limitations, fleet generals may look forward to some tactical tricks. So you can Aim at important systems on large ships and space stations. it would be a fright, if the The Nebulon b frigates engines blew up, or if you lose the hangar on the super star destroyer, while waiting in vain for those Tie Fighter reinforcements. And only if, as fast as possible, with y-Wings or Tie bombers attacking the shield generators, is there a Chance of success attacking a battle station . Also the many special abilities can be battle-decisive: for instance Corellian Corvettes can reroute weapon energy to its engines, ideally for the fast retreat. Still more powerfully, certainly are the heroes, who in the course of the Campaign joins your side automatically. Boba fett uses his spaceships pretty seismic shock wave, which destroys all small fighters in the radius. And, if necessary, Darth Vader calls two speedy Tie Fighters to his assistance. such abilities costs no resources, however need some time, until its available again.

 

planets parking

The star destroyer is now space dust, the troop transport has survived the Battle: Does the planet belong now finally to us? no: Only if, as in classical real-time ground engagements, all enemies of the map are destroyed, then changes the planet its owner. And a quantity already requires with the Landeonperation Gehirnakrobatik, because the place is limited, troop transports can only deliver one at a time. cannon fodder for the aggressive computer opponent, that attacks immediately from all sides. Now the correct landing sequence is desided by every Units strengths and weaknesses. If the empire attacks with at-ATs, rebel tanks that landed should wait, because only soldiers with Plax rocket launchers can take on the walkers. There where the barracks and command center on the strategic map take place, in Empire at war, there is no classical base building. however the small architect in you gets some work nevertheless: with something like combat points, you may place at certain locations repair stations and establish turrets, or should we leave the extra land? conquest of this valuable and usually hard fought secutery building functions after the battle-field-system: The more unused combat points there are, the faster this changes the owner.

 

bug in laser tower

there can still be so many , kick ass at-ATS stomping over the battleground: without the tactical use of your heroes, you have hardly any chances of success in many missions. that's why the empire has the planet, fresia, some what surrounded with laser towers. in the beginning of the campaign, is an almost impassable obstacle for your infantry. It is why, you have C-3PO and R2-D2 in the luggage, the small beep box can turn the towers from "agressive to rebels" to "agressive to the empire," a surprise for the coming stormtroopers. for the other faction, same principle: rebel center, fondor, is massive, it would be chanceless for the empire, unless darth vader could use his force push on dozens of infantry. other then that, he can use force-crush to lift individual tanks into air and destroy them. its unfortunate: experience points or other role playing elements is missing in empire at war, all heroes already have all thier special abilities when they first appear. figures like han solo, luke skywalker or Boba fett can not be "trained". They get those abilities automatically if it is meaningful in the process of the story campaign. some missions can only be done by a certain hero, should he die, you must repeat the mission.

 

jawa hunt

on the maps you do not only have to fight against the enemy: as in warcraft 3, it has numerous neutral parties, that may attack everything which gets in their cross hairs, until their main headquarters is destroyed. for example, on tatooine, you have to deal with the little jawas. everything will be quiet only after you blow up their enormous sandcrawler. on geonosis, you fight against the grouse looking insect people from episode 2. destroying headquarters gives you a thick lump of credits or other Bonuses. even the neutral, but far more dangerous are the tornados, that blow randomly over their routes on the map, and send infantry to their death. that should bring more action into the real time engagements, but however, after trying it, its rather annoying, because it forces you to constantly babysitting your unit. we liked the other influences of the weather much better, that you see during the army briefing, before the beginning of a mission. while rain worsens lasers accuracy around 50 percent, a sandstorm worsens rocket launchers.

 

towing-service

with the units, empire empire at war is set particularly close to the film classic: t75-snowspeeders ties up at-ATS with their tow cable. tie fighters have dog fights with x-wings, stormtroopers flee from one powerful and hungry rancor. and close to the end of the campaign, the empire generals can use the death star. but also, there are units from star wars books and comics, for instance the extremely fresh, but unfortunately quite weak, tie tank. it is good that petroglyph developers show every units strength and weakness. but still, in overview, you loose site of where your going, with it always appearing. but still you can zoom out even more then other 3d real-time strategy games.

 

pilot babysitter

the story missions still have no resimbelence to the films, however

nevertheless they are very varied stories. so we have finally found the location of the x-wings, and extremely weak pilots are to escort the prototypes. but of course, its guard by enormous turrets protecting the only entrance. also we must destroy their power generator in one imperial base, to pull the plug on their operation. the mission is a success as the two surviving pilots of five, finally reaches the x-wings. but then, all of a sudden, anti air turrets come out of the ground... so exciting is the story missions. so 2 dimensional are our beta version of standard planet compagns. we must always destroy all hostile units and buildings. alternative conditions for campaign , like to control of a certain building to win, are missing completely. nevertheless, in standard-battles, you can have the computer automatically solve the battle if desired.

 

comments

clearly, with a star wars game, we expect a fantastic atmosphere, but empire at war still gives a little more than its battlefront and jedi knight counterparts.

1: the vocal output is extremely clever with the most well-known quotes. if you instruct darth vaders to use his force push, as in episode 4, he comments with, "i find your lack of faith disturbing." simply cool.

2: by pressing on the space bar, it switches into a specific cinematic cam. at any time, it shows the combat with rapidly cut camera movements, like in the replay function in racing games. sounds like fun and games, transforms the monitor some what into a theater. in space engagements, which needs relatively few instructions, we needed cinematic cam surprisingly often. this camera also looks great with ground battles, empire at war has extremely detailed units - even age OF empire 3 cannot keep up. sometimes the extremely high graphic level landscapes lags somewhat. at present, empire at war will belong nevertheless definitely to the most beautiful strategy games. however, probably also the hungriest hardware unfortunately.

[Nevets]

Cool, and it sounds like the same things we think will be a problem they didn't like either.

 

Couple things:

Others pull the strings in star wars: the Emperor, Yoda... and a more mysterious third.

 

I thought Yoda wasn't in it? Is it talking about just star wars in general?

 

for example, if you control Alderaan, it equips your infantry with better arms

 

Wait this doesn't make much sense, Alderaan was a peaceful world that had no weapons.

 

its unfortunate: experience points or other role playing elements is missing in empire at war, all heroes already have all thier special abilities when they first appear. figures like han solo, luke skywalker or Boba fett can not be "trained". They get those abilities automatically if it is meaningful in the process of the story campaign

 

Yea it definitely needs more roleplaying and immersive elements.

[Zarbryn]

Wait this doesn't make much sense, Alderaan was a peaceful world that had no weapons.

 

they apparantly gave 'em to the rebels, so of course they got no weapons

[Popcorn2008]

Wait this doesn't make much sense, Alderaan was a peaceful world that had no weapons.

 

they apparantly gave 'em to the rebels, so of course they got no weapons

It is a peaceful world...

 

... from a certain point of view.

[Foshjedi2004]

Alderaan wasn't peacefull. It was through Bail Organa that Alderaan decommisioned after the Clone wars and were going to Re-commision their armed forces just before the Planet was destroyed.

[Hadoken13]

did anybody notice them mention a cetain super star destroyer?

 

.....this is disturbing...yoda and the ssd???

this must just be the writer trying to be clever...

[Popcorn2008]

did anybody notice them mention a cetain super star destroyer?

 

.....this is disturbing...yoda and the ssd???

this must just be the writer trying to be clever...

This is translated from German, so maybe the translator did a bad job? Because we know for sure neither of those are in the game.

[RogueCommander]

Yes the SSD has been mistranslated. The person who did the translation on the empire.net forums said that in german super means great so it is really supposed to be great star destroyer on super.

[Little.B]

I will buy the magazine tomorrow and will have a look at it and correct the translation if necessary.

[Hadoken13]

k good i didn't really think that either was in i was just wondering if anyone else thought it was weird

[Nevets]

Alderaan wasn't peacefull. It was through Bail Organa that Alderaan decommisioned after the Clone wars and were going to Re-commision their armed forces just before the Planet was destroyed.

 

Right from the source:

Princess Leia: But Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly...

 

And it is no coincedence that in EPIII, Alderaan was made using film of Switzerland.

[Xenomorphine]

Right from the source:

Princess Leia: But Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly...

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp

 

Mwah hah hah hah...

 

[Smikies]

She lied, Bail Organa had large storages of weapons in shielded off tunnels under his palace, in which they were planning on using soon.

 

But before they could... well you can tell

[Nevets]

She lied, Bail Organa had large storages of weapons in shielded off tunnels under his palace, in which they were planning on using soon.

 

But before they could... well you can tell

 

I must have missed this scene in the movie....

[Grand Admiral Thrawn 889]

Alderaan didn't have any weapons on it but it did have a way of recalling the Another Chance that held all each weapons however these weaponsare of CW era standard and are there for worse.

[Samheyn]

Yes the SSD has been mistranslated. The person who did the translation on the empire.net forums said that in german super means great so it is really supposed to be great star destroyer on super.

 

No, this is not true

 

I've got this magazine right here by my side (I'm german) :

 

German original version :

"Die Nebulon-B Fregatte verliert viel von ihrem Schrecken, wenn der Antrieb in die Luft fliegt, mit einem zertrümmerten Hangar wartet der Super-Sternenzerstörer vergeblich auf die Tie-Fighter Verstärkung"

 

"Super" in german has exactly the same meaning as in the english language 'cause its actualy a latin word and is meant to be a foreign word in both languages. Super Star Destroyer = Super-Sternzerstörer.

 

Trust me, I was as suprised as you are now when I read this, it must be an error. Perhaps the writer of this article, Heiko Klinge doesn't know the difference between an Imperial Star Destroyer and an Executor-Class Star Destroyer.

[Ghostly_Substance]

Watch this game now go to Episode 5

[Foshjedi2004]

Watch this game go to Episode VI!!

[Dorkthehunter]

Watch this game go to Episode VII!!!

[Foshjedi2004]

Ok Here EP VI:

 

http://photobucket.com/albums/b191/Foshjedi2004/th_SSD.jpg

 

Here EP VII:

http://photobucket.com/albums/b191/Foshjedi2004/th_Eclipse.jpg

 

*Click To Expand*

[Sergeant Bob]

Gotta love the shameless self advertising.

[Megajames2]

ep 7??

[The Saint]

Alderaan had scant weapons between the Clone Wars and its eventual destruction, Bail Oranga did plan on rearmming though to help fight the Imperials, but he couldnt do so in time to make any real impact. And Princess Leia was known to lie, remember what she said about Dantooine?

[Cain]

Gotta love the shameless self advertising.

 

It is poor self advertising - there are better ways to do it and to make it more succesful.

[Siddus]

Gotta love the shameless self advertising.

 

It is poor self advertising - there are better ways to do it and to make it more succesful.

 

Should be deleted

Well I have good news, French previews will come this week