Pasted from computerandvideogames.com
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Keith Pullin struggles to come up with a heading involving the death of Jar Jar Binks, but doesn't manage it in the end
19 Oct 01 Learning from previous mistakes that may or may not involve the words 'Force' and 'Commander', LucasArts has taken the unprecedented step of using someone else's technology to get back on track in their latest foray into the Star Wars universe. And quite a tidy little job it is too. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds combines Ensemble's Age Of Kings engine with the most popular sci-fi brand on the planet, to produce a real-time strategy experience fit for Yoda himself.
IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?
If you're a Star Wars fan, it's sheer heaven. Name a character from any of the films - Galactic Battlegrounds has them. Name your favourite battle scene - GB has it. In fact, just to prove that they've left nothing out there's a handy databank on the main menu which contains details on everybody and everything in the game, not to mention profiles of all the races. No doubt about it, LucasArts has crammed in every last detail, but it didn't have an engine to program so it had some time to play with.
And time is what GB is all about. This epic journey through the history of the Star Wars universe contains six campaigns that each focus on a particular race. Wookiees, Rebel Alliance, Gungans, Galactic Empire, Trade Federation and The Royal Naboo all get their share of glory in equal amounts - it's what you might call galactic equality.
SETTING ASIDE DIFFERENCES
One thing we were promised with GB was that each civilisation would have unique tactical strengths and weaknesses. Thankfully we haven't been disappointed. The Gungans for example are not the greatest of flyers and don't pack anywhere near the overall high-tech strike power of the Trade Federation. When it comes to long-range artillery attacks though, the sneaky Gungans are the undisputed masters. These irritating floppy-eared kids' favourite are also the only race capable of building underwater cities. While this proves handy in setting up the ultimate secret base, it also means the Gungans possess wicked Bongo submarine stealth units, by far the best Naval force in the game.
And then you have the air superiority of the Empire. Any Star Wars fan knows the Empire has no equal when it comes to flying around hurting people. The Rebel Alliance meanwhile can produce Jedi Knights who are fearsome in close-combat situations and also act as priests by converting enemies. Only Wookiee berserkers and Sith Lords come close to matching the Jedi's fighting prowess.
ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR
But the big question is does it all balance? The only true way to test this is by pitching races from different eras against each other in a multiplayer or skirmish game. Here you get the chance to utterly annihilate every last Gungan with a squadron of TIE fighters, or watch the fur fly as Wookiees and Gungans tear each other to pieces. After numerous tests, the most joyful of which involved painful experiments on Gungans, we concluded the balance was pretty much spot on.
So what of this AoK engine? The truth is, it does the job and nothing more. Food, carbon, ore and Nova Crystals have directly replaced the food, wood, stone and gold resources of AoK. Bases are established by collecting these resources to construct new buildings and units. And again, the familiar process of advancing up through the four tech levels makes for some often frantic yet always focused base expansion.
GB also utilises AoK's superb combat system, which relies heavily on using the right units for the right jobs and not just throwing everything into the mix at once. You also need to think about the numerous unit and building upgrades; decisions on whether to upgrade armour, speed, accuracy or damage are a major part of your tactics. There's also scope for trading resources between allies as well as a bit of light diplomacy thrown in for good measure.
KING FOR A DAY
Clearly the AoK engine will bring quality to any RTS game, but there's still plenty lacking. It would have been nice to see a few multi-map missions; alas the AoK technology doesn't appear to allow it. With this being such a massive feature of Earth 2150 and more recently Conquest: Frontier Wars you have to say it's a major failing. Supply routes and ammunition refills are also non-existent; yet this is another angle more ambitious RTS developers have been experimenting with for quite a while.
Finally pathfinding on large groups of slow-moving units (and for some reason artillery in particular) is often quite wayward. Why does this keep happening? Surely developers have sussed the art of moving a blob safely from one side of the screen to the other by now. You may also be interested to know that your units can occasionally get blocked in by computer-controlled allies. At one point a Gungan grenade-thrower stood frozen for about half an hour between two buildings before letting my Jedi Knight pass.
LUCAS AREN'T EVERYTHING
As well as tactical differences, GB has plenty of graphical variety between the races. Building architecture epitomises this by emphasising the personality of its home race. All Empire constructions for example are very angular. Rebel buildings have very soft edges, and Gungan cities all have a kind of ethereal, bubbly look to them that makes you want to punch them repeatedly over and over again until they fall down.
Reviewed by Keith Pullin
Final Score 8/10
Wow! Here are some Trandoshan buildings:
Oops... that didn't work so well
Wanna see more: Here is the place to go (
http://swgb.heavengames.com/img.php?i=screenshots)
See that huge pink energy thing in one of the screens with the Trade Fed on the first page.
What is that?!?
do you mean the picture named
"That must have hurt" if so it is probably anexplosion if you mean the one called"The gungan mass" that might be a shield from a faamba:confused:
The guy who wrote that review is a m-o-r-o-n. Where does this guy get off saying they lack supply lines? What weapons in star wars use ammo? Torpedoes and missles...used by ships, and tanks which carry enough. Why would this guy put a troop between two buildings and watch it try to get out? he must be new to Star Wars, but even my 1 1/2 yeard old son knows TIE fighters cannot take a decent laser cannon hit.
That is very simillar . The difference is that there is a ball of the thing in the air.
Did u see the Trade Federation's Cannon(trebuchet)
It is a huge rolling destroyer droid.:D