Pros: It's everything Rebellion and Force Commander should have been wrapped into one game.
Cons: View control is too limited, not all voices are done by the original actors.
The Bottom Line: Solid RTS gameplay, great music, voice acting ok, graphics dated but look good. Play battles from the movies or create your own with the cool editor.
johnenfield's Full Review: Shadow Of Destiny for Windows
Lucas Arts has teamed up with Ensemble Studios to create the first true RTS set in the Star Wars universe. Galacic Battlegrounds is a classic-styled real-time strategy game that is based on the game engine from the Age of Empires series. The game is classic-styled in that it does not have some of the features of most of the newest RTS games such as: maps that require a 3-D card, adjustable view angles, view zoom, and adjustable player control (some games have settings that allow you to turn over certain aspects of running your civilization to the computer in the form of a steward or govenor). The game does have features that are better than other RTS's I've played however, including: the best unit control system I've seen, very high quality opening cinematic cut-scenes with clips from the four films, easily recognizable units, the best-looking 2-D maps I've seen (they almost look 3-D), and a scenario and campaign editor that rivals the one in Tzar: The Burden of the Crown.
In this review, I will compare Galactic Battlegrounds with other RTS's I've played such as Tzar, Stronghold, and Alpha Centauri in three respects: graphics, sound, and gameplay. I will also discuss why it far exceeds previous attempts at Star Wars strategy such as Force Commander and Rebellion in the same three respects.
GRAPHICS:
Of the reviews I've read in magazines and the internet, this respect of Galactic Battlegrounds has recieved the most criticism. While I'll agree that the graphics in this game do not break new ground, I do not think that is such a bad thing. Force Commander tried to be ground-breaking with its fully 3-D graphics and amazingly adjustable view system...and failed miserably. Not that they weren't ground-breaking, but they made the game almost impossible to play. The developers of Battlegrounds were wise to abandon the graphics of Force Commander and go for the tried and true approach of Age of Empires. I do wish, however, that you could at least switch your view from one side of the "board" to another and have a close-up and distance setting adjustment like Stronghold does.
The units, buildings, and backgrounds have a distinctive Star Wars look to them and are quite pleasant to look at. You'll see familiar characters from the films like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, R2D2, C3PO, Darth Vader, Boba Fett etc. You will also be introduced to characters from the many Star Wars books such as Dark Troopers, Wookies other than Chewbacca, and Bothan Spies (mentioned in the movies, but never seen). The battles take place on familiar planets like Hoth, Dagobah, Tatoonie, and Endor and also on places only found in the books (so far) such as Kashyyk (where Chewbacca is from), and Space Bases located on asteroids. The units are pretty easy to tell apart, but if you'd like to see them even better, you can adjust the screen resolution in the Options Menu from the default setting to 800 x 600 to make everything bigger and easier to see (not as handy as a zoom control, but it's ok).
SOUND:
The sound effects in this game are top-rate with most of them pulled directly from the sound tracks made by Ben Burt. The music is also very good with high quality recordings of John Williams' music which has, thankfully, not been monkeyed with like it was in Force Commander. You get to hear the main themes such as Main Theme, Imperial March, and Duel of the Fates in sound as clear as the movies. The voice acting is pretty good for an RTS, but could have been better if they could have gotten more actors from the films besides Jake Lloyd and the synthesizer that made the R2D2 sounds. The rest of the actors do fairly well at sounding like the characters, but you can tell, for example, that Han Solo isn't being voiced by Harrison Ford. They should have at least got Liam Neeson to voice Qui-Gon since that character figures so prominatly in the tutorial and has the most lines in the whole game. The best "impersonation" in the game is that of Darth Vader by Scott Lawrence, he almost fooled me into thinking it was James Earl Jones.
GAMEPLAY:
To me, this is the most important part of any RTS. Shortcommings in sound and graphics can be forgiven if the game is fun to play. This game is very fun to play and may just take the place of Tzar as my favourite RTS because of it's solid, intuitive gameplay. I am especially impressed with the unit controls. They let you have a level of control over the combat that rivals my favourite battle sim Great Battles of Ceasar. The best part about it is that you can not only group units together and assign them a hotkey, then set a battle attitude for them such as guard, agressive, and patrol; but you can also make them maintain battle formations such as flanking, box, and straight line. You can add and remove units from a group without having to reform the group. You can even order one or more of the group to break off and do something else, then reselect the group and find that the ones you gave a special mission are still part of the group. In short, this is the least frustrating, most intuitive gameplay I've ever seen in an RTS. I've never played Age of Empires, so I don't how different or similar the gameplay is to those games, but as popular as AOE is, I'm glad Lucasarts used it and don't understand why some complain about it. It seems to me that Lucasarts learned it's lesson with Force Commander and Rebellion and realized that they can't re-invent the wheel when it comes to game engines.
SUMMARY:
You really should try Galactic Battlegrounds even if you were dissapointed by Rebellion or Force Commander because it's a totally different sort of game. It is everything the other attempts at Star Wars strategy were supposed to be. It lets you play the good guys or the bad guys even better than the previous games. The box describes the gameplay as "accessible" which is an understatement compared with Rebellion or Force Commander. The game may not break the envelope in any major way, but it's a considerable refinement of the classic 2-D RTS.
Young FBI agent Nicole Bonnet receives a mysterious package. Inside she finds a complicated logical puzzle that appears to be a message from a serial ...More at J&R Music and Computer World
Classic 1993 Fantasy Roleplaying Game; First in the Realms of Arkania series, set in The Das Schwarze Auge game universe Fully Animated, Isometric 3D ...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.