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StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!

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Seems like Lucasarts may have something truly promising coming around this time. The game is a realtime strategy game that resembles somewhat of a mixture between "StarWars: Rebellion" and "C&C: Generals" and takes place a few years before ANH. If you don't shun a 750MB download, you can check out the demo and play through five tutorial missions and one galactic conquest mission.

Here are the required system specs:
Supported Operating Systems
To be able to play the STAR WARS: EMPIRE AT WAR Demo, you must have Windows 2000 or XP installed and configured correctly, and your computer hardware must be DirectX 9.0c compatible.

Minimum System Requirements
Computer Required: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer

CPU
Required: Intel Pentium 1.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
Recommended: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2.0 GHz

Memory
Required: 256 MB RAM
Recommended: 512 MB RAM

Graphics Card
Required: 32 MB 3D Graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability
Recommended: 64 MB 3D Graphics card with Hardware Vertex and Pixel Shader (VS/PS) Capability

Sound Card
Required: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible PCI, USB, or Onboard Audio Device

Game Homepage
Download Link #1
Download Link #2
Download Link #3
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As usual, that game works only for PC... too bad...
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The website requires Flash 8. Got Flash 7? Not good enough, you're locked out. Odds are, the game is just like the website: All graphics and software requirements bound more to the upgrade cycle than technical limitations, with no attention paid to structure, standards, portability, or accessibility. It'll make a big splash, get a glowing 90% from some ad-laden industry mag, then quickly fade away as everyone goes back to the well-engineered, universally available standby -- be it Counterstrike* or HTML or whatever.

* I really don't know what the kids play today.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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Originally posted by: Scruffy
The website requires Flash 8. Got Flash 7? Not good enough, you're locked out. Odds are, the game is just like the website: All graphics and software requirements bound more to the upgrade cycle than technical limitations, with no attention paid to structure, standards, portability, or accessibility. It'll make a big splash, get a glowing 90% from some ad-laden industry mag, then quickly fade away as everyone goes back to the well-engineered, universally available standby -- be it Counterstrike* or HTML or whatever.

* I really don't know what the kids play today.


Hey, what do you think this technology is made for (and especially PC games)? Make people buy bigger and expensive PCs...
The other thing is that the "Flash 8 required" warn was not present in the very begining website and, even if we can enter it with Flash 7, the site was really bugy...
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They can stick the 750mb download in their ear... though, if I see a copy of the demo in any DVD from a game magazine I'll be sure to check it out. I might be alone in this, but I *really* liked Force Commander (the chincy cutscenes especially). Strategy's fun.
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Well, Scruffy. I was able to play the game on full detail levels without any impact on the fluency of the game. I understand your anger about the flash thing, but the system requirements are very moderate for a game that's supposed to be released next month.

Most "kids" these days play World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment - and even that game has very moderate system requirements, plus you have many options to reduce any graphical detail that you deem less important to you to improve the game's performance.

Same with Half-Life 2 and games based on it. You don't need most recent hardware to play it - especially HL2 and WOW really still look good enough on lowest detail levels to be fun to play (owners of an older computer aren't used to better graphics than that anyways). The first Counter-Strike: Source map I had perormance hits on full detail settings, was the one released for it yesterday: cs_militia.

The times were you needed a high end system to play a new pc game are pretty much over (the buzzword is "scalability"), because the difference in quality from a "middle class" system to a "bleeding edge" system doesn't really have that much of an impact on the gameplay experience anymore.

When it comes to the game itself, I played through the five tutorial missions and it was quite a bit of fun. I suggest you try the demo some time round instead of reading biased game magazines.
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Originally posted by: Zebonka
They can stick the 750mb download in their ear... though, if I see a copy of the demo in any DVD from a game magazine I'll be sure to check it out. I might be alone in this, but I *really* liked Force Commander (the chincy cutscenes especially). Strategy's fun.
I never played Force Commander, since most gaming magazines gave it a "thumbs down" back then. Yet I suppose there may be parallels to it, I don't know for sure.

What I can say is, that they incorporated quite a chunk of ideas from "StarWars: Rebellion": You need to conquer planets and build structures on them to be able to create troops and ships and you can send spies and saboteurs to infiltrate an enemy system (the political component is missing though - so no more angst riots when you use the death star as the empire, mwuharhar >: ).

The rest is pretty much like your average real time strategy game. You can have battles in space or on a planets surface (you can call in planetary bombardments if you have a fleet in orbit). The space battles take place on a 2 dimensional grid within a 3 dimensional environment - so it's not like in 'real space', but it's still a lot of fun. The atmosphere is pretty dense and I suppose if you liked Force Commander, you'll really enjoy this one.
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I'm not a gamer. What does "real time" mean? Is that anything like an interactive movie? Did they use real actors for the scenes? Or is it all CGI?
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
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The term "real time" specifies that the opponents in the game don't take turns (like in chess or checkers for an instance), but may move simultaneously. The term doesn't define the consistency of the graphics (photographed actors, or computer created models).
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I found this dissapointing.

It was a blizzard clone in Star Wars wrapping. WAY TOO MUCH micromanaging for my tastes. Your build queue is only 5 units long, and you can only build defensive structures in spots that they provide. The AI is extremely stupid, they just stand there while they get shot. The unit balancing is awful, 5 rebel soldiers taking out an AT-AT, with their guns? Come on!

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

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I was playing the demo by 3PM yesterday. I'm liking what I see. I'll most likely be preordering via amazon soon.
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Originally posted by: Zebonka
They can stick the 750mb download in their ear... though, if I see a copy of the demo in any DVD from a game magazine I'll be sure to check it out. I might be alone in this, but I *really* liked Force Commander (the chincy cutscenes especially). Strategy's fun.


Though my PC played it very poorly, I thought Force Commander wasn't half bad. The Hoth level being the funnest. Though the resource system stunk. I remember my friend having to stop everything else just to defend a single bunker. No sooner would he pull away then BAM. I think it needed like two or three walkers to guard it. I'm talking AT-ATs.

I'll give this a go. Though skyman brings up some valid complaints.

Thanks for the heads-up, Master Sifo-Dias.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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Originally posted by: skyman8081
I found this dissapointing.

It was a blizzard clone in Star Wars wrapping. WAY TOO MUCH micromanaging for my tastes. Your build queue is only 5 units long, and you can only build defensive structures in spots that they provide. The AI is extremely stupid, they just stand there while they get shot. The unit balancing is awful, 5 rebel soldiers taking out an AT-AT, with their guns? Come on!
I haven't played through the sample conquest mission yet, but what I have seen from the tutorials, the amount of micromanagement required to beat the missions can hardly be described as "way too much", in my humble opinion.

Warcraft 3 is the most micro-management intensive game I've ever played and this game doesn't touch that by far. Most units have merely one special ability and you have a global activation button if you group a bunch of identical units, wereas in WC3 you have to activate special abilities for each seperate unit.

The only case I could easily destroy a bunch of imperial AT-STs with a group of infantry was with two heavy weapon squads that fired some sort of photon missiles instead of blaster bolts and even then it took quite a bit.

When it comes down to dumb AI - well, that's symptomatic for the whole genre if you ask me. Either you have games were the units sit there catatonically letting themselves be killed, or you have the other extreme were the units will run head on into any enemy, thus getting lured into too large amounts of resistance and getting destroyed as well if you don't pay attention.

The one thing were I agree with you, is the defensive structure thing. I hope the full game offers more possibilities than the demo. The other things you criticised make it seem to me like you're not a big fan of real time strategy games in general.
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There are two RTS games I play. Total Annihilation and Red Alert 2.

These are games where absolute overkill and turtling is encouraged. It's great.

I may pick up Dawn of War and Homeworld 2, and Supreme Commander is a must-buy for me.

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

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Aaaah, I see. So you prefer games that allow the building of huge bases accompanied by excessive masses of troops.
Can't blame you that you don't like this game a lot then. You might want to check out "C&C: Generals" and "Battle for Middle Earth II" then (Dawn of War is great but may not be your cup of tea (eventhough massive amounts of troops are involved), but since it already landed in the bargain bin you can't do anything wrong with buying and trying it).

Alas, I think nothing will ever be able to top TA, when it comes to your preferrence of rts games.
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There is no overkill, only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."

The only thing that would make Empire at War redeeming for me is the ability to Base Delta Zero.

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

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Hahaha, the game just made it to my buy list: I had a detachment of Jawas led by Chewie - captured an imperial AT-AT and walked over a bunch of stormtroopers while taking out a turbo laser battery. Rawr, I love this game!

PS: I don't know at what difficulty level you played, but the AT-AT is one tough cookie!
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My favourite RTS was, until trumped by its sequel, Civ 3. I never stopped playing it, and Civ 4 is the same way. This game, though, well, it might take some warming. I enjoyed the demo, but I'll have to wait for the full version to give you a true verdict
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Civ isn't an RTS, it is turn-based strategery.

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

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Thanks for the info, Master Sifo-Dyas. I must say I'm observing this game for some time now, despite me taking recently a brake from Star Wars Some features looked interesting on its website/trailer video. However I'm overly cautious when it comes to strategy games made by Lucasarts (wasted my $ on Forced Commander, Rebellion/Supremacy and Galactic Battlegrounds were playable, but also partially disappointing to me) or recent LEC games in general... so maybe I should try the demo first.

I'd like to make few general comments about strategy games and SW universum.
For example part of my gripes about Rebellion was related to game scope. Knowing few Massive Multiplayer Online Games (e.g.: such as German OGame.de or Polish Kolony.net - which was originally written by my friend on Atari, back in ancient times ) the biggest set of 200 planets to conquer in the galaxy (see "Rebellion") is not big enough for me...
Skyman made an interesting point about balancing: I too find it somewhat silly that Rebel units are almost a mirror copy of Imperial ones. E.g Rebels also have heavy artillery and powerful armor etc. (see "Force Commander" and so on). They just come in different uniform colors
Ideal SW-based strategy game should have gameplay completely different for Rebel and Imperial forces. Both on the strategic (campaign) and tactical (battle) level. Empire should start with zillions of planets, but guarding it would require tons of troops and ships etc., which would make it difficult to react quickly to events (preparing an attack should take a lot of time). Empire would have access to large resources, but e.g. propaganda - maintaining loyality of the controlled planets (see "Rebellion") - would be very expensive, but not very efficient.
On the other hand, Rebellion would start in small numbers, spread across the galaxy, with their resources limited. However they'd be hard to be detected ( = destroyed) and their informational campaigns should have huge impact on planets' morale ("words of freedom spreading like a virus"). Rebels would have no access to the largest of weapons in the space arsenal, but their highly trained and motivated soldiers would have an edge over Imperials by having a chance to act quickly and catch the enemy "with their pants down".
Rebels would also have better (and cheaper!) access to hired informants and saboteurs, maybe they could also sway local pirate bands to their side (but what Admiral Ackbar would say about it? ).
Resource system should include regular convoys of freighters (no need to micromanage - these could be handled by AI - besides, remember the game "Stars!"?). The Empire's war industry and commerce would be dependant on those convoys (such as British Empire 65 years ago ) and Rebellon would have a chance to easily make a decent blow by interdicting Imperial supply lanes (or capturing supply ships!).

...too bad that LEC would probably have no interest in creating such complex and intelligent game (their games are getting simplified in the recent years...). I once imagined this could be made "by SW fans for SW fans", such as other Massive Multiplayer Online Games (see: Star Wars Combine). But I have long lost the will/patience/time to lead such project
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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Originally posted by: RRS-1980
Thanks for the info, Master Sifo-Dyas. I must say I'm observing this game for some time now, despite me taking recently a brake from Star Wars Some features looked interesting on its website/trailer video. However I'm overly cautious when it comes to strategy games made by Lucasarts (wasted my $ on Forced Commander, Rebellion/Supremacy and Galactic Battlegrounds were playable, but also partially disappointing to me) or recent LEC games in general... so maybe I should try the demo first.

I'd like to make few general comments about strategy games and SW universum.
For example part of my gripes about Rebellion was related to game scope. Knowing few Massive Multiplayer Online Games (e.g.: such as German OGame.de or Polish Kolony.net - which was originally written by my friend on Atari, back in ancient times ) the biggest set of 200 planets to conquer in the galaxy (see "Rebellion") is not big enough for me...
Skyman made an interesting point about balancing: I too find it somewhat silly that Rebel units are almost a mirror copy of Imperial ones. E.g Rebels also have heavy artillery and powerful armor etc. (see "Force Commander" and so on). They just come in different uniform colors
Ideal SW-based strategy game should have gameplay completely different for Rebel and Imperial forces. Both on the strategic (campaign) and tactical (battle) level. Empire should start with zillions of planets, but guarding it would require tons of troops and ships etc., which would make it difficult to react quickly to events (preparing an attack should take a lot of time). Empire would have access to large resources, but e.g. propaganda - maintaining loyality of the controlled planets (see "Rebellion") - would be very expensive, but not very efficient.
On the other hand, Rebellion would start in small numbers, spread across the galaxy, with their resources limited. However they'd be hard to be detected ( = destroyed) and their informational campaigns should have huge impact on planets' morale ("words of freedom spreading like a virus"). Rebels would have no access to the largest of weapons in the space arsenal, but their highly trained and motivated soldiers would have an edge over Imperials by having a chance to act quickly and catch the enemy "with their pants down".
Rebels would also have better (and cheaper!) access to hired informants and saboteurs, maybe they could also sway local pirate bands to their side (but what Admiral Ackbar would say about it? ).
Resource system should include regular convoys of freighters (no need to micromanage - these could be handled by AI - besides, remember the game "Stars!"?). The Empire's war industry and commerce would be dependant on those convoys (such as British Empire 65 years ago ) and Rebellon would have a chance to easily make a decent blow by interdicting Imperial supply lanes (or capturing supply ships!).

...too bad that LEC would probably have no interest in creating such complex and intelligent game (their games are getting simplified in the recent years...). I once imagined this could be made "by SW fans for SW fans", such as other Massive Multiplayer Online Games (see: Star Wars Combine). But I have long lost the will/patience/time to lead such project

I see your point and I'd say that what you describe would probably be the perfect game for any hardcore gaming StarWars fan. Ironically many features were already included in Rebellion. What Lucasarts didn't realize is, that that game didn't flop because it was bad - but because of the fixed resolution at 640x480, forcing the player into a menu clicking orgy.

Some of the things on your wishlist also reminded me of "Millenium 2.2" and "Deuteros" back on my old Commodore Amiga. Would've been great to have some features of this game in there.

I agree that the campaign mode of Empire at War should have included all the features from "Rebellion" (and more). I really miss the political component in the campaign mode. On the other hand when you look at Lucasart's portfolio of recent StarWars strategy games, I'd say we can be very happy with what came around this time.

The demo didn't give enough examples on the differences between the two fractions, yet I doubt we'll going to see anything as powerful as an AT-AT walker (let alone a death star) on rebellion side - although I agree with you when it comes to infantry, which really seems to be identical units with different looks. The rebel artillery is very fragile and has to be guarded by quite an amount of troops - and even then they're bound to break if you don't have a repair station nearby.

I can only say: This will be the first StarWars based RTS game I'll be buying from Lucasfilm since "Rebellion". I consider it as a "New Hope", a first step back "into a larger world". Who knows? Empire at War II might include more of all those dream-features you pointed out. Alas, the current game title will be as close as it can get to the ultimate StarWars strategy game (especially if you put into consideration that Jim Ward is at the helms of Lucasarts).
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Originally posted by: skyman8081
Civ isn't an RTS, it is turn-based strategery.


Point taken. Maybe that's more my style.
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Anyone ever play the Star Wars mod for Homeworld?
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings."
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Originally posted by: TheSessler
Anyone ever play the Star Wars mod for Homeworld?


Yep, but just a little, cause this mod requires many more ressources than the original HW2 game. But I liked it, it was pretty cool and very well done. And I must admit that the first time I've seen screenshots of the space battles in "Empire at War", my first though was "wow, it looks like very similar to that HW2 mod!".
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I used to play it as well.

Isn't it funny, that sometimes mods come before the games? Another example would be Star Wars mod for "Battlefield 1942" and "Star Wars Battlefront"... looks like fans know better what they want, long before market researchers and other "wiseguys" are able to notice it.
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...