BlueSmoke - Review : Star Wars : Galactic Battlegrounds

		Date	: Dec 3rd, 2001
		Genre	: Strategy
		Developer	: LucasArts
		Author	: Jin-Ning Tioh

LucasArts used to be the epitome of a great gaming house. There was a time when every game it produced was a certified winner, especially games inside the Star Wars universe. X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight and so on ranked among some of the best PC games ever produced. However, that image has suffered greatly over the past few years, as it started to appear as if the company was milking the Star Wars name more than it was concerned about making top-notch games. Titles such as Battle for Naboo and The Phantom Menace, among others, simply failed to live up to the Star Wars standard.

Now LucasArts is attempting to recapture some of the old magic with its latest real-time strategy game, Star Wars : Galactic Battlegrounds. Their return to the real-time strategy genre has shocked many, considering the poor reception given to Force Commander less than a year ago. However, what really rocked the house was that LucasArts was seeking outside help in order to ensure that it gets this second attempt at the real-time strategy scene right. It's all part of the plan to finally make a good RTS that truly lives up to the Star Wars name. Using Ensemble Studios' Genie engine as its backbone, which consequently powered Age of Empires II, this news bodes well for those who always wanted a fun Star Wars strategy game. The benefit of using the Genie engine was that LucasArts no longer has to waste valuable development time reinventing the wheel. A graphics engine, scripting language and other required features were already done. What the designers could thus concentrate on was the actual design, parlaying their expertise in art, story, and mission design, something in which LucasArts is very good at. Learning from their past mistakes on the titanic failure that was Force Commander and using a proven engine, LucasArts seeks to overcome its mistakes and finally deliver an RTS game which should please Star Wars fans and real-time strategy fans alike as well as live up to the promise of epic Star Wars battles with a powerful, customizable random-map generator as well as a promising campaign editor. So let's take a look and find out if Age of Empires II, one of the best and most successful real-time strategy games to date, can successfully blend in with the Star Wars universe.

Story

Throughout history, strife has been a constant way of life for many. Whole armies of Gungans have clashed among themselves on the peaceful planet of Naboo. Wookiees have fought for centuries against the oppression of both the Galactic Empire as well as merciless slavers. The Rebel Alliance leads the struggle for freedom against the evil empire. The Royal Naboo fights the greed of the powerful and influential Trade Federation. Entering the fray, these fearless warriors from different planets, different eras and different species, with heroes and villains alike leading the charge, battle in fierce, intergalactic wars. The fate of whole planets and the galaxy hangs in the balance, lying in the hands of these skilled warriors and tacticians...

Join the fray in six different, carefully crafted, story-driven campaigns as either one of the six civilizations at war - The noble Rebel Alliance, the evil Galactic Empire, the money-hungry Trade Federation, the peaceful Royal Naboo, the native Gungans, as well as the intimidating Wookiees. Led by the Dark Lord of The Sith, Darth Vader, OOM-9, a battle droid commander in the Trade Federation's armies, the fiery Princess Leia of the Rebel Alliance, Chewbacca of the Wookiees, and Boss Nass, leader of the Gungan Grand Army, they alone will decide the final outcome of the Galactic Civil War. Take control!

Similarly to the popular Age of Empires II, many missions will also be available, such as treasure-hunt missions, monument-building missions, resource-collection missions and search-and-destroy missions. However, your goal will typically be to wipe the enemy forces off the map by building up your own forces, researching new technology, expanding your territory, and laying siege to the opposing bases. Advancing through the tech levels are also important to keeping your forces armed with the latest in technological weapons. For instance, deploying the Galactic Empire's devastating AT-AT walkers requires you to advance all the way up to tech level four. Thus, powerful units won't be available to generals until late into a match.

Age of Empires II featured huge skirmishes between hundreds of opposing militias and champions. Similarly, massive, diverse armies of powerful troopers, mechs, starfighters and naval ships will clash in titanic battles. There will also be a 200-unit limit during multiplayer sessions between opposing generals and warriors.

The introduction of air units changes the game dramatically, as it adds another dimension to think about when fielding armies. Walls can no longer be used to shut out invaders long enough to marshal your defenses. A general who builds up only his ground forces such as repeater troopers and strike mechs is courting defeat. Armies such as these only need encounter a squadron of TIE Bombers, Y-Wings, Z-95 Headhunters or TIE Defenders to be wiped off the map in a matter of minutes. However, all is not lost. To defend your armies against such aerial assaults, one must employ the services of anti-air troopers or anti-air mobiles. All it takes is a blast or two from these nasty troops to reduce starfighters to shredded pieces of junk metal. Attacking a base defended by anti-air turrets with a squadron of fighter or bombers is nearly as good as suicide. Still, players will have to be mindful of an enemies' air capabilities.

Power stations also add a new twist. These stand-alone stations are required to power up various facilities in a large base. Upon constructing a station, a blue circle displays where your power is maximized. If you build a structure outside of your power base, it will operate at only 25 percent efficiency, causing your troops to be trained slower, starfighters and mechs to be constructed slower, and your research to proceed at only a quarter of its capabilities. Thus, building up several of these power stations is essential to keep everything running at maximum efficiency.

Animal nurseries are also crucial to the survival of a colony. Housing creatures such as nerfs and banthas, these supply your troops with a steady amount of food. Each animal nursery houses up to ten nerfs or banthas. The more nerfs in a nursery, the faster your supply of food increases. Of course you can kill a nerf or bantha for a quick supply of food, but in the long run, housing them in nurseries prove to be more beneficial.

Troop centers and mech factories are also crucial to the war effort. From here, armies train regular troopers, mounted troopers, grenade troopers and anti-air troopers. As you advance through the tech levels, troopers are better trained and generals gain access to new types of units entirely. At the mech factory, you can assemble strike mechs, mech destroyers and assault mechs. For game balance purposes, each civilization's units, despite appearances, are meant to be roughly equivalent. It would be frustrating to have to flip through the manual to see whether a Gungan Faamba is a mech-type unit while in the middle of a pitched battle. While the more basic naming convention sounds uninspired, we can see the logic in going this route, especially if it makes the game more balanced and easier to play.

The interface has changed somewhat compared to Age of Empires II. LucasArts has brought the top banner of information, detailing the resources, down to the bottom interface bar. And there is now a section just above the unit and building information display that shows relevant information about the selected unit or structure, such as whether the object has shields, whether it needs power, whether it has stealth technology, and whether it is a detector unit. While these changes and minor additions aren't big, they do serve to make the game a tad more user-friendly and intuitive. Also, the interface bar changes ever so slightly with each different race.

Also worth a mention is the Data Bank found in the main menu. It contains a wealth of information for the die-hard Star Wars fan on the history of several key planets, the heroes and villains including Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Vader, as well as the development of unit types over the centuries and the six civilizations.

Identically to the massively popular Age of Empires, several game modes are available to future generals. Six different campaigns will be made available, including a tutorial campaign. Each campaign has up to seven missions, including a bonus "What If?" mission each. For example, scenarios such as "What if the Gungan Grand Army had truimped in the battle on the grassy plains?" are considered. Mostly however, campaigns tend to revolve around the exploits of several major heroes and villians such as Darth Vader, Princess Leia and Boss Nass, all taking place at different time periods, spanning a total of 5,000 years. In the tutorial campaign, Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and his newly accepted padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi joins Chewbacca and his father Attichitcuk, nicknamed Itchy, in colonizing the lush planet of Alaris Prime. There, Qui-Gon will train the wookiee colonists in various basic tasks such as foraging, fishing, constructing crucial buildings, exploring and repelling the Trade Federation who has illegally settled there. In the second campaign, which takes place during the events in Episode I, you command vast armies of battle droids as the battle droid commander OOM-9, leading the Trade Federation to victory. In the third campaign, you command the massive Faamba Shield Generators and Gungan troopers as the leader of the Gungans - Boss Nass. In the fourth campaign, you assume control of the forces of the Galactic Empire and follow the Dark Lord of the Sith as he hunts down the rebel scum in the aftermath of the destruction of the Death Star. The fifth campaign has you leading the Rebel Alliance as Princess Leia in a desperate struggle against the Galactic Empire. Finally, in the sixth campaign, you lead Chewbacca and his smuggler buddy Han Solo, together with an army of angry wookiees against the forces of the empire as well as the merciless Trandoshan slavers.

However, multiplayer games are also available. Similarly to Age of Empires II, the multiplayer component supports up to a maximum of eight players over a LAN or internet connection. Players can also receive tributes and trade with each other by constructing spaceports. The game will primarily use Microsoft's Zone as its server-browsing medium. As the game comes with a scenario and campaign editor, capable of randomly generating maps and scenarios, hopefully we'll be able to see more campaigns and map sets springing up online soon in the future.

Before you can claim victory however, you need to build up your forces. Valued resources are required for this. Four different resources must be acquired - Carbon, Food, Ore and Nova Crystals. Let's take a more detailed look at each resource :

Ore	-	When processed, Ore becomes durasteel, which is used to make buildings, walls and turrets strong. These can be acquired from ore formations.
Nova Crystals	-	Nova Crystals are a valuable currency that is used as currency throughout the galaxy. These can be mined from nova formations.
Carbon	-	Carbon is crucial for the construction of buildings and troopers. These can be gathered from trees on jungle planets as well as carbon rocks found on asteroids.
Food	-	Food is necessary for the training of your troops as well as research. There are several ways to gather food. Your foragers will gather food from Muja Fruit Bushes. Farmers tend to their farms. Shore fishing is carried out by fishers. Utility trawlers go fishing for food in deeper waters. They also construct and tend to their Aqua Harvesters. Hunters will hunt down native creatures for food, including mynocks and nerfs. Nerfs may also be gathered in animal nurseries to supply a constant stream of food to a general's army. Each animal nursery houses up to ten nerfs.

Units & Creatures

With roughly 200 different units, units are divided up into seven distinct classes, with each of these classes playing a crucial role in your armies. These include troopers, mechs, heavy weapons, starfighters, fortress units, the Jedi and naval ships. Troopers consists of your basic infantry, mechs are heavy assault vehicles, heavy weapons include pummels and your artillery, starfighters perform aerial assaults, fortress units include cannons and unique units, the Jedi are powerful melee units who retain the ability to convert enemy troopers and mechs, and finally, naval ships provide support to your ground forces from the relative safety of the sea as well as participate in spectacular naval battles. Many memorable heroes and villains will also make appearances, such as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, C-3PO and Yoda. For more details, please read BlueSmoke's "The Factions Of Star Wars : Galactic Battlegrounds" guide.

Wandering creatures also play a bigger and more important role in turning the tide of war. Bursas are deadly creatures who are native to the planet of Naboo. Tusken Raiders roam the deserts of the planet Tantooine and attack your forces on sight. Hungry rancors roam the lands in search of prey. Mynocks are hunted for food. Nerfs are captured to provide a constant source of food. Sand crawlers can even be commandeered, providing a means of transportation to your armies.

The Factions

The game sports six civilizations - The Rebel Alliance, the Galactic Empire, the Gungans, the Wookiees, the Trade Federation as well as the Royal Naboo. Each civilization has its own unique artwork - For both structures and units. This is actually a nice change from Age of Empires, where everyone had identical looking units such as militias and champions. The units here vary from civilization to civilization. For instance, the Galactic Empire employs Stormtroopers as their troopers, whereas the Trade Federation employs battle droids. Gungans also employ an army of creatures mounted with heavy guns such as faambas as the backbone of their armies. Also, due to a Wookiee's naturally intimidating size, the most menancing-looking civilization would have to be the Wookiees, especially their mounted troopers, who ride great dragons into battle. However, these unique civilizations are unique in more ways than just its graphic set. Each civilization has a unique unit and inherent traits that allows them to shine on their own. For more details, please read BlueSmoke's "The Factions Of Star Wars : Galactic Battlegrounds" guide.

The sights that can be found in Battlegrounds are extremely detailed and smooth. The graphics look good, and you'll have no trouble discerning the many familiar units who populate the game worlds. From the smaller stormtroopers to the hulking AT-AT walkers, a full range of different-sized units are offered. Obviously, a lot of hard work and effort had to be spent on the artwork for the game, as the concept artists and modelers have outdone themselves. In addition to the more than half a dozen terrain tiles, there are hundreds of units and six civilizations, with every civilization expressing its beliefs and history in the looks of each and every one of their buildings or units. Each has a distinct visual style. The Royal Naboo, for example, have buildings that are beautifully carved and sophisticated, with gardens, columns, and intricate arches. The Wookies, in contrast, are a more utilitarian race who live in trees, and their buildings are propped up on stilts and constructed of a hodgepodge of metal and wood. The Gungans have buildings that are bulbous and glowing, with glassy bubbles similar to the underwater Gungan city of Otah Gunga. Each civilization also has a unique siege weapon, known commonly as cannons, which looks different, and even operate a little differently, although they fulfill the same role. And these sets of unique art don't even include the dozens of campaign-specific artwork being created just for the single-player missions.

LucasArts also felt that it was important to make each civilization easy for players to adept to. To that end, the designers made sure that even though the art for each civilization was unique, the buildings still shared the same silhouettes and shapes so that you could always tell what each building was, even if you were playing a certain civilization for the first time. Thus, the troop centers for the different civilizations will have different skins but similar shapes. If you move from playing as the Rebel Alliance to the Wookies, you won't have to relearn a whole new set of buildings. While they might have different textures and shades, they'll still have the same outlines.

The different terrain tile sets, representing homeworlds of the six civilizations as well as other neutral worlds, are also varied and unique in their own way. There are the spice mines of Kessel, the icy snow world of Hoth, the forests of the Wookie homeworld Kashyyk, the sands of Tattooine, the cloud city of Bespin, the Naboo capital of Theed, the forest moon of Endor and even an imperial held asteroid known as Hanoon. These worlds each have a unique look, emphasizing the diversity of the Star Wars universe. The Naboo tile set includes green fields and toppled statues on the ground, while the deserts of Tattooine feature, well, a whole lot of sand and rocks, punctuated by roaming herds of bantha. Bespin has a metallic and polished look to it, with great spires and floating metal platforms. In addition, these worlds are populated with indigenous creatures, such as rancors and bursas.

The sounds are also presented very well. There's a lot more speech in comparison with the Age of Empires series. As the team producer stated, "We explore more parts of Star Wars in this game. We're able to explore things that went on with the Wookies and Gungans. There is a lot more epic story here, bigger stories. We have a lot more voice. Age of Kings had like 800 to 1000 voice lines. We have over 5000." Each empire has a set of characters from the movies that are used in the campaigns. From the Dark Lord of the Sith to the noble Luke Skywalker, each character has a distinct audio set. Granted, you can tell that James Earl Jones wasn't used to record Vader's voice, but it sounds good enough. Just hearing Vader say, "All too easy" when ordered to attack a Rebel encampment is enough to bring a smile to your face. The atmospheric sound effects are also very good. The lush forests of Kashyyk is supposed to be filled with native wild live. Thus, players can hear the sound of crickets and other denizens of the forest crystal clearly. Each unit has distinct audio, as well. Again this makes sense, as a Rebel Trooper shouldn't sound like an Imperial Stormtrooper. Also, the entire collection of music from the Star Wars saga is included and adds tremendously to the game's overall aesthetic value.

A game which is an artful blending of two worlds, one of which is the tried-and-true engine and gameplay of Age of Empires II, as well as the storytelling, art, and design of the seasoned Star Wars designers, Galactic Battlegrounds certainly seems to combine the best of both worlds. It is also a far more successful treatment of the subject matter than LucasArts' last attempt, reversing the trend of disappointment. While it would be naive to think that the game would be as well received if not for the Star Wars license because in truth it's about as innovative as indoor plumbing - But who cares? At this point, it has been so long since LucasArts released a top-tier Star Wars game that none of that matters. We just want to watch a legion of AT-AT walkers lumber through the snow with stormtroopers swarming around their feet. We want to see Rebel soldiers holding the line with airspeeders coming to the rescue. And we want to hear the Imperial marching theme or that splendid "Duel of the Fates" riff while we do it. All we can say right now is that we're just happy to send in a legion of Fambaa assault mechs accompanied by a team of Fambaa Shield Generators into a Trade Federation base and crushing some greedy viceroy. And innovative or not - That's a lot of fun. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some battle droids who need frying...