Is it good?

I didn't like the demo but I've seen many good reviews and it wouldn't be the first time that a game had a bad demo but was really great.

What I didn't like about the demo was that it just felt sloppy and most of the time I couldn't get a good overview over the battlefield. And it didn't run so well but I expect that to be resolved in the finished game.

I got it, just in the beginning, but I still like it.

(Even though it's not a suber I wanted it to be)

The space battles are really fun.

Though i'm not keen on the land battles:
-The maps are terrible to say the least. They're mini mazes which involve you basically taking a few troops around the maze looking for enemies theres no land battles like we see in the movies. I was hoping to have a proper hoth type battle with lots of forces and such. No such luck. What's more, all the battles are like this. It would be ok if there was some variation but they're all similar.

-You cannot command enough troops. The number of troops you can command is too low. You can increase it by capturing landing points but this is annoying when you have a massive army in space but can for some reason only bring down 3 squads.

-If the locals are against you it can be very difficult. They just keep on coming at you and you cannot bring enough troops down at once to easily advance meaning you need to rush the land points at the beginning of the battle.

-The infantry units are way too strong. I dont mean fire power wise but it takes about 5 shots from a tank/walker to kill a single soldier. Fighting soldiers vs soldiers is equally painful. It takes forever to get any kills. They keep shooting and shooting and eventually manage to kill each other.

-The vehicles aren't strong enough. None of the vehicles are strong enough. Most get taken down within seconds by rocket soldiers. (or even normal laser soldiers.) It's fair enough but the rocket soldiers are, as stated before, too strong. Even the AT-AT's dont stand much of a chance against more than a couple of squads of rocket troops.

-The best way to take out soldiers is to run over them! This shouldn't be the case. Tanks should be able to take out soldiers fairly easily. At most 2 shots to kill each soldier. Having running them over as the best way of killing them really goes to show how weak the vehicles are.

-Artillery refuses to stay put sometimes. Occasionally you can deploy artillery but then an enemy unit comes near it and it suddenly undeploys and walks off.

-The AT-AT isn't powerful enough. I know i keep mentioning this but the vehicles are nowhere near tough enough. The best way to use the AT-AT's is to keep them at the landing zone and just use them for dropping stormtroopers since they give you an unlimited supply but with 2 squads out at any given time.

-Sometimes you think you've won and you end up running around trying to uncover the whole map to find that elusive building which is covered by fog of war. Just plain annoying when you find that ion cannon hiding in the corner of the map.

Saying that, the space battles are fun. Though it suffers from the same not being able to command enough troops problem is is a lot better since you can command up to 20 (empire) or 25 (rebellion) "points" worth of craft per battle. This equates to 5 star destroyers. Which is usually enough for most battles. Still, would be nice to have a larger fleet. The space battles, in my opinion, dont suffer from the same problems as the land battles. The maps are better, the units do what you want them to, they seem to do the right amount of damage. Since you dont have to worry about rushing for landing zones you can concentrate on strategy making the space battles more fun overall.

One thing I haven't mentioned is the campaign map. If you played the demo you know how it works. It's kinda like medieval total war dummed down a lot. It's fun but it's quite easy. After i'd conquered about 6 planets I never ran out of money again. I never hit the unit limit and could basically just build whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.


Wow, this turned out quite long and it looks like I diddnt enjoy this game. I did. (Though i only completed the empire campaign so far.) it's just the land battles are a big of a dissapointment. It's a fun game. Don't know whether it was worth my £27 but it's not a bad game and i'm sure i'll play through the rebel campaign and galactic conquest, if only for the space battles.

Excellent. My brother wants it for his birthday.

He's 21, and his birthday was yesterday. I think I'll buy it.


Also, about that "Infantry too strong" point. That's one of the many things that piss me off in C&C-style games. A unit will get attacked 6 or 7 times, his health bar slowwwwly decreasing till he dies.

JKwhosaysNi pretty much hit the head on the nail there. The land battles are pretty pathetic, but the space battles (single-player and especially multiplayer) are excellent. The galactic map tends to be a bit generous with money and population as JK pointed out earlier.

I voted for the "OK if you like Star Wars" option because if you don't like the movies, there are so many better, nom-SW RTS options out there. Empire at War is a couple of design decisions away from greatness, but it's still pretty fun.

Yes I believe I must concur with that which has already been said: good space battles, naff land battles that had me stabbing the 'Auto-Resolve' button half the time.

The weakness of the vehicles is about all I agree with TheJkWhoSaysNi on. Everything else looks like an extreme exaggeration to me. Plus, some of the things he mentioned are very common in RTS games, even the best ones.

i read the thread title as "how is empire at walmart"

This is the only RTS I've ever been good at. I credit this to the lack of resource gathering. The space maps could be a little bigger. Other than that, I love it. In fact, I'm going to play it right now.