What? Another Star Wars franchise game? Can it be?
I've been keeping an eye on this one for many months. Its design concept really boasts two main threads of interest:
Their screenshots also look rather pretty, too...
So, another demo played, another quick review:
The Good
Base building and troop building is all done at the strategic view level. Basically, you capture planets and build stuff on them and use that stuff to build troops to capture more planets. All that stuff is done at the strategic/galactic view. This means that when you get into the fighting bit of the game you're not constantly playing the same base-build-rush combo again and again just to get to the interesting bits of the battles.
Combat, on the other hand, is handled through troops on the map and reinforcements that can be brought down. The game appears to pivot around bases, that are generated for you according to the resources you already have in place, and reinforcement points that grant you the rights to bring in your reinforcements. The more reinforcement points you own the more reinforcements you can bring to bear. Generally this means that a defender starts with an advantage as the attacker has to fight to gain a foothold, which feels right to me.
In some battles, the locals may join in on one side or the other. Playing rebels, it's nice to see the local people taking up arms to help you out. It's kind of a shame when these puny people are eviscerated by turbo-laser turrets.
Armour feels like armour, not just some unit reskinned. This means that AT-ATs and AT-STs can stomp troops and so you need to bring anti-tank stuff to bear to take them out.
There are wandering mobs that are dangerous to all sides. I fought on Tatooine and a Rancor came in and started random eating my mobs and smashing my light tanks. Oh my god. They're bloody hard to kill too!
Weather is a factor. Sandstorms on Tatooine might reduce the effectiveness of rockets, for example. Tornadoes might wreak havoc with your defences.
Battles in space look cool, especially if you take a moment to view them in cinematic mode where it does fly-bys and gun-cam shots of this and that. Starbases explode in parts. You really can target the shield generators.
Units do seem to have a different feel and functionality to them. Speeder bikes can use a sneak "thermal detonator" attack, where they scream in, drop a bomb, then scream off again and laugh as it explodes. AT-ATs just lay hell into everything. Hell, if you've got bombers in orbit you can call in airstrikes now and then. Of course, shield generators become primary targets...
The Bad
Ultimately, battles in space are just ground battles with different units and capabilities. Sure, they're more epic as the units are tougher and lasers look cool against a dark backdrop, but the lack of a 3rd dimension to them does beggar "space" somewhat.
The demo mission seems designed to be bloody hard. I've got my troops to Tatooine but I can't destroy the base because I run out of reinforcements well before I get there. Their turbo-laser towers are murderous, and the AT-ATs mincemeat my light tanks. I have their torpedo launchers as artillery, but they're a bit random and very vulnerable. So I have a lot of troops... did I say they've got AT-ATs?
The Ugly
The game looks pretty. Unfortunately, to make it look that pretty my map scroll speed falls off radically, and doubly so when the game gets going. I haven't played with my settings yet, but I'm running a 6800GT and it is lagging on 1240x1024 with 2x AA and high detail textures.
In Summary
I quite like this one, but the performance thing needs to be sorted. The maps feel a little cramped to be playing on low res...
The separation of strategy/base-building from tactical combat is refreshing and keeps the pace up in battles. This can leave you with unwinnable battles. They do account for this in providing a retreat option (that takes time to execute) but I could imagine that this becomes a rolling problem as a superior force gets more resources to become more superior...
I'll leave this one for a bit and take another look when it comes out.
I've been keeping an eye on this one for many months. Its design concept really boasts two main threads of interest:
- Ground and space combat.
- Tactical maps and strategy maps, both in a real time setting.
Their screenshots also look rather pretty, too...
So, another demo played, another quick review:
The Good
Base building and troop building is all done at the strategic view level. Basically, you capture planets and build stuff on them and use that stuff to build troops to capture more planets. All that stuff is done at the strategic/galactic view. This means that when you get into the fighting bit of the game you're not constantly playing the same base-build-rush combo again and again just to get to the interesting bits of the battles.
Combat, on the other hand, is handled through troops on the map and reinforcements that can be brought down. The game appears to pivot around bases, that are generated for you according to the resources you already have in place, and reinforcement points that grant you the rights to bring in your reinforcements. The more reinforcement points you own the more reinforcements you can bring to bear. Generally this means that a defender starts with an advantage as the attacker has to fight to gain a foothold, which feels right to me.
In some battles, the locals may join in on one side or the other. Playing rebels, it's nice to see the local people taking up arms to help you out. It's kind of a shame when these puny people are eviscerated by turbo-laser turrets.
Armour feels like armour, not just some unit reskinned. This means that AT-ATs and AT-STs can stomp troops and so you need to bring anti-tank stuff to bear to take them out.
There are wandering mobs that are dangerous to all sides. I fought on Tatooine and a Rancor came in and started random eating my mobs and smashing my light tanks. Oh my god. They're bloody hard to kill too!
Weather is a factor. Sandstorms on Tatooine might reduce the effectiveness of rockets, for example. Tornadoes might wreak havoc with your defences.
Battles in space look cool, especially if you take a moment to view them in cinematic mode where it does fly-bys and gun-cam shots of this and that. Starbases explode in parts. You really can target the shield generators.
Units do seem to have a different feel and functionality to them. Speeder bikes can use a sneak "thermal detonator" attack, where they scream in, drop a bomb, then scream off again and laugh as it explodes. AT-ATs just lay hell into everything. Hell, if you've got bombers in orbit you can call in airstrikes now and then. Of course, shield generators become primary targets...
The Bad
Ultimately, battles in space are just ground battles with different units and capabilities. Sure, they're more epic as the units are tougher and lasers look cool against a dark backdrop, but the lack of a 3rd dimension to them does beggar "space" somewhat.
The demo mission seems designed to be bloody hard. I've got my troops to Tatooine but I can't destroy the base because I run out of reinforcements well before I get there. Their turbo-laser towers are murderous, and the AT-ATs mincemeat my light tanks. I have their torpedo launchers as artillery, but they're a bit random and very vulnerable. So I have a lot of troops... did I say they've got AT-ATs?
The Ugly
The game looks pretty. Unfortunately, to make it look that pretty my map scroll speed falls off radically, and doubly so when the game gets going. I haven't played with my settings yet, but I'm running a 6800GT and it is lagging on 1240x1024 with 2x AA and high detail textures.
In Summary
I quite like this one, but the performance thing needs to be sorted. The maps feel a little cramped to be playing on low res...
The separation of strategy/base-building from tactical combat is refreshing and keeps the pace up in battles. This can leave you with unwinnable battles. They do account for this in providing a retreat option (that takes time to execute) but I could imagine that this becomes a rolling problem as a superior force gets more resources to become more superior...
I'll leave this one for a bit and take another look when it comes out.
. Ronin was refering to the fact that the space battles only happen in 2D, unlike say Homeworld which has a full 3D of control. (You guys should play Prince of Persia, that's got a whooping 4 dimensions of control!