Star Wars: Empire at War DEMO OUT now > share your Impression of the demo :)

[SunnyD]

Personally, I really disliked the UI. The default UI takes up way too much screen real estate - over 25% of the vertical screen. To zoom out far enough in the fight to make any tactical decisions causes the full overhead view (not visually pleasing), and it takes away your UI (which helps, but the game looks ugly).

Ship selection is clunky too - the grouping box didn't always.

The AI - granted it's a demo - is rather dumb. On the ground combat part, it did a few hit and run raids, but I basically stood around and let the sandstorm kill off most of his storm troopers as this stood around inside the shield. Also, I basically ninja'd the AI's generator with 2 tanks, which survived the whole fight nearly untouched.

The cool points go to the ships - the ship hardpoint targets ROCK. You can cripple a ship and leave it without going for the kill. That and you actually get to blow chunks off of stuff is neat too. The graphics are good, but not spectacular - and I had everything set to HIGH at 1680x1050 with 4x AA.

Pretty, but not really that great.

 

[clamum]

I've just went through the tutorials so far to actually learn what the heck to do. I was surprised at how much there was to the game, or demo actually. There's standard ground-based RTS (which reminded me of a bit of Ground Control), space-based RTS (ala Homeworld), and then the space fleet part where you build fleets to gather resources and take over planets. I was kind of overwealmed with all the crap you could do at first but it's well put together.

 

[datalink7]

Go here to unlock the demo and play a full campaign.

Download the Bryant Mod.

After playing a "full" campaign, I'm still on the fence about this one. The AI is downright retarded, and I hope this is just because they didn't include the full AI in the Demo. The maps are too small and cluttered, though this is partly because it is a demo.

The battles are pretty fun though.

 

[ComatoseDelirium]

REALLY FUN, but the buggiest demo i've used in a while, I will be buying this game.

 

[Future Guy]

Originally posted by: datalink7
Go here to unlock the demo and play a full campaign.

Download the Bryant Mod.

After playing a "full" campaign, I'm still on the fence about this one. The AI is downright retarded, and I hope this is just because they didn't include the full AI in the Demo. The maps are too small and cluttered, though this is partly because it is a demo.

The battles are pretty fun though.

The AI was dumbed down for the Demo. It's says so in the README file.

 

[pontifex]

decent graphics...same old RTS game though. i'd go as far as saying they went backwards in some aspects.

 

[Busithoth]

I keep getting flashbacks of Rebellion, that horribly boring and interminable game Lucasarts put out a while ago.
This is much, much better, and more fun, but I wonder if they didn't try too hard to over micromanage the forces.
It's pretty enough on my lappy, with sub-par graphics card onboard.

I guess I'm also on the fence about the game, though I can easily enough see myself picking it up after reviews of the full game come out.

 

[spacelord]

I guess I suck at this game/demo.. I keep getting kicked all around when I attack on the planet surface. Are there any pads to build on that I am missing somewhere? The Empire sends in way too many units and I can only hold them off for as long as all my reinforcements hold up.
I can get through the asteroid ship battle with almost 1 attack fleet. My last attempt I needed to send in about 5 ships to clean up what my first large batch couldn't accomplish.

 

[crownjules]

Well. I've been looking for a Star Wars RTS (or a similar genre) where you get to command the space fleets. As far as that aspect of SW:EaW, I thought it was well implemented. As mentioned previously, the hard points on ships rock. Supposedly you're able to capture ships(?) but I wasn't able to in the demo, perhaps that's something that will be in the full game. I liked the special abilities of the ships (super shields on the Nebs, extra speed on the X-wings/Corvettes, ion blasts for Y-wings) although some are way more useful than others. Too bad you couldn't fight a space battle from the Imperial side.

I didn't really like the ground combat. It just seemed much of the same old RTS stuff rehashed. About the only thing I'd never encountered before was the reinforcement points on the map. I did like how you could call in reinforcements and bombing runs, so long as you had the necessary units in orbit. I was looking forward to building Imperial/Rebel bases. Again, maybe that's something that will be included in the full game.

I encountered tons of bugs, but that may have also been due to my computer (graphics card on the fritz causes me to crash out of most every game I play now).

 

[swtethan]

this game is soo tight, download the mods, they have all the things unlocked

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: swtethan
this game is soo tight, download the mods, they have all the things unlocked

Thief! Now, share the spoils! LOL, joking. I am going to try the mod when I get home as well. It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun.

The only thing I am not going to like about the game, is the lack of good rebel alliance capital ships. I know in the Star Wars Universe, they only had those Mon Calamari cruisers, but I remember in Star Wars Rebellion, they had some other huge capital ships on the rebel side... I wish they would have included them.

Can any star wars junkies confirm that the Rebel Alliance only had the Mon Calamari capital ships during that time frame? Did Star Wars Rebellion include ones that didn't really exist? Just curious is all...

I just cannot figure out how the Empire Lost, accoding to the movies. I mean, the empire had hundreds or so Star Destroyers and the Rebel Alliance fleet just looked pathetic in the third episode... I mean, how could three or four Mon Calamari cruisers do anything against the hundreds of Star Destroyers? Ok, enough of the 20 questions.

 

[Chompman]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777


Can any star wars junkies confirm that the Rebel Alliance only had the Mon Calamari capital ships during that time frame? Did Star Wars Rebellion include ones that didn't really exist? Just curious is all...

Been awhile since watching the original 3 but they only had the Mon calamari and other smaller capital ships for the most part. All the capital ships Rebellion had after it were made up.

I just cannot figure out how the Empire Lost, accoding to the movies. I mean, the empire had hundreds or so Star Destroyers and the Rebel Alliance fleet just looked pathetic in the third episode... I mean, how could three or four Mon Calamari cruisers do anything against the hundreds of Star Destroyers? Ok, enough of the 20 questions.

Well you have to remember that they were spread out over most of the systems and even with the trap with quite a few star destroyers and the death star that was just a fraction of their total strength really.

Also they never really engaged and let the rebals see that the death star was working and it was the rebels that closed with the star destroyers to prevent the death star from getting clear shots.

Also if you read the books you see while they killed off the emperor for a time, he had clones, that the death star required a ton of resources and alot of their leaders were on board the first one and 2nd and that costed them alot in man power also.

Also they didn't really beat the empire until years after the battle of endor and finally settled a truce of a type with them.

Also one of the main reasons alliance did so well was their ships like the x-wing and such were much better in power and survivorability since the tie fighters had no types of shields or life support or hyperdrive except for a very few like what Darth used.

Ah the memories of my star wars nerd years.

 

[Chompman]

Just did the tutorials, looks ok.

Ground battles need a bit of work since for instance you can't have a group in more then one party.

Such as having normal infantry in one party and a at-st or such in another and then having a 3rd party with both.

The space battles make up for it a bit and the cinematic view is cool, but nothing really that stands out all that much.

Going to have to try some the mods to play as the Empire ... must kill rebals.

 

[Fardringle]

My impression of the demo so far (based on the article and screenshots) is "OOOOOOHHHH!!"

I'll give a more complete review after I get home, download the demo, and actually get to play it.

 

[rwmega]

Did anyone notice that alot of the quotes especially in the ground tutorials were almost exactly what they say in some of the Command and Conquer games? And they tend to get pretty annoying after about 10 minutes.

 

[PsharkJF]

The quotes remind me of TIE Fighter. iirc, that's the same guy who voiced Zaarin.

 

[YoshiSato]

Willl the no resource gathering during a battle be a main stream part of this game?
If there is more of a "turn" base feel to the resource management but RTS for combat I'm sure this game will be sweet.

 

[potato28]

I like the mods :thumbsup:

 

[YoshiSato]

Where can I get some mods?

 

[nova2]

get a huge been there, done that feeling with this rehash and mix of old/fresh ideas game

I watched the nice 131mb HD trailer from:
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1880

imo:

pros:
> cool explosions
> the breakable model implementation looks sweet
> pretty nebuleas.
> probably other things I didn't get to see.

cons:
> the missiles and other misc. rounds shoot out from within the model (space ships: no rotating subsystems/etc like in Homeworld 2)
> I definitely prefer Homeworld 1/2's space implementation better.
> space element: doesn't look as good as Homeworld 2 in various ways.

overall: it doesn't interest me much.