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Star Wars: Empire At War

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Jesse James:
A new classic trilogy era RTS is on the way according to reports...  News has been out a little bit now, but the first article on it is coming from Europe I guess.

Not much to say for now other than it seems to include fleet battles as well as ground combat, and the TIE Crawler's making an appearance for the first time.

While I welcome a new RTS with open arms, the idea makes me curious if it will actually be any good. 

Force Commander's a legitimately SOLID game that was built from the ground up by Lucasarts, rather than a knock-off game of a "popular" RTS game that was outdated by the time they basically did a Star Wars version of it.  Battlegrounds had support from casual gamers, but I don't think the game ever appealed to anyone who played RTS's often.

Force Commander's difficult interface ended up being its major downfall then, and we were left without a RTS that appealed to everyone.

If this game doesn't have:

A) Good gameplay
B ) Good interface/controls
C) Good storyline
D) Excellent graphics
E) Epic scale (IE: Lots and LOTS of units on a big map)
F) Scaled playing units (IE: An AT-AT isn't as big as an AT-ST on the field)
G) 3-D gameplay, units, maps, etc.
H) And a continuation of ground units ESTABLISHED in both previous games and EU, as well as the films.

Well then this game isn't going to be a great success.  LA's gotta get their crap together with this.  Force Commander was close to a home run.  Galactic Battlegrounds was nothing more than a mod to an existing ANCIENT gaming engine (It's like playing Doom with Star Wars characters...  It's nothing original whatsoever).

LA better nail this one...  3rd time has to be the charm or RTS is just something they'll never get right, or even try to again I think.

And then they better get off their asses and make a new flight sim, because the X-Wing/TIE Fighter series...  arguably the most profitable series for Lucasarts ever...  Has faded.  Make a new game already...  Finish the damn story for the Azzameen's already...  Move on into the post ROTJ era already...  Just do something!

Jesse James:
And the front page now has more information on this game with links to a magazine article soon to be on shelves.

Interesting if true...  I truly dislike seeing this game's developers take it upon themselves to "rewrite" EU as they see fit though.  EU's supposed to at least TRY to work together, and they're simply scrapping past RTS designs it appears.

The TIE Crawler looks NOTHING like the craft that appears in numerous EU writings as well.  This is a design as old as EU itself since it came from the old West End Games books, and the game's developers seem to have felt that they could redesign the vehicle as they saw fit.  Not a good move IMO.

Hope the game is as good as they boast, otherwise we'll see more the same opinion about Star Wars RTS gaming.  It's not been good over the years, so let's hope that doesn't happen.

Vator:
It could be a varient of the TIE Crawler? Yeah, I got nothing.

Jesse James:
Eh, yeah, but I just hate when they do dumb **** like that.  Take the old design, use it, and just bedone with it.  I'd say they felt it wasn't logically laid out, which I can't say I disagree with, but respect those who "created" it, ya know? 

And the Alliance tanks look to NOT be the Force Commander/G Battlegrounds tanks, which were perfectly designed and quite "Star Wars-ish" I thought.  Again I think they're taking themselves too seriously with bashing the old RTS games and trying to distance themselves from it.

The irony is they took the EU design of the AT-AT barge that Force Commander actually created, and that the ICS books adapted for their own use.  I think they didn't realize that FC came up with that design. :)

Jesse James:
Another article...

There appears to be a COMPLETELY new tank of some sort too, which I can bite on but I still dislike them NOT running with the Force Commander tank designs.  Those 2 Rebel tanks were perfect...  All the Rebel tanks were perfect really.  Stick in those ones from the original Rogue Squadron game then,a nd you've got one hell of a diverse armor unit line-up for the Alliance.

I don't even see anything in the screenies for the Empire other than the TIE Crawler I can't stand and the AT-AT and AT-ST.

I see no troop transports, no AT-PT's which have become BIGTIME EU vehicles in a lot of games, etc., etc...

I just wonder if this game's gonna dumb stuff down and try rewriting EU which I can't stand.  I mean, if you're gonna be par tof EU at least try to keep it right and show you get off your ass and research things, but I dunno they're gonna.

I'm happy to get a new RTS, and in the classic era at that (great news), and one that incorporates multiple planet management ala rebellion to an extent, is 3-D terrain and all, is keeping scale relatively well (at least on the groudn missions), but in the end I'm irked at the creators simply disregarding all previous established EU.  That just seems arrogant to me.

It's like trying to rewrite the films (unless you wrote them in the first place) to suit you rather than you conforming to suit the films.

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