Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

"This is the best Star Wars game I’ve played in my life. Star Wars fans, you MUST buy this game!"

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is basically the same as Age of Empires, but it features Star Wars units, heroes, locations, animals, etc.. It is a strategy game in which you build a base and an army, research and upgrade technology, and you must defeat all of the opposing armies to win, or you can set another objective. Let's find out what makes Galactic Battlegrounds so special:

Graphics - 10/10

Don't be fooled by the 2D graphics, this game has some of the best graphics I have seen. I would much rather have beautiful 2D graphics like this than horrible, low-res 3D graphics. The units look just like their film counterparts, and are all unexpectedly high in detail. The terrain looks brilliant, as do the trees, lakes, and any other form of scenery you can think of. The different buildings are all distinctively different, and are made to the style of your army. For example, if you are playing as the Galactic Empire, you can expect to have lots of high-tech, metal buildings. But if you are playing as the Wookies, your buildings will be made out of wood, and other natural resources. Other graphical features, such as menus, also look very good. Overall, graphics definitely deserve a 10.

Sound - 10/10

Another great part of the game is the sound and music. Everything sounds as it does in the film, anything from lasers to Ewok's screaming sounds perfect. As you would expect from Star Wars, all of the music is brilliantly done. With the work of John Williams, the music is faultless. You will hear all of the classics in this game, including the much liked Duel of the Fates. There really isn't much else to say, as I see absolutely no faults with the sound, which scores 10.

Gameplay - 10/10

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is a very, very fun game to play. If you've ever played any other classic strategy games, such as Age of Empires and Advance Wars, you'll know what I'm talking about. The game plays like this in the regular mode of play: You start off with a command centre, a scout (speeder bike) and three worker droids. You have to build up a base with your three droids, create an army, and scout the area with the speeder bike to find out where your enemy's base is, or just to find resources, or to find an ideal area to spread your base into. When you construct so many buildings, you can upgrade to the next tech level. When you do this, you can make more types of buildings, create more types of units, and research more advanced ways. From here, you build up a large army and base, then you get ready to launch an attack on other players. To win, you must destroy the other player's base and units, or wait until he surrenders. There are many other modes apart from this, such as a mode where you race to build a monument to win. There are tons of options to choose from, you can alter how many units each army can have, how many resources there are, and many other things. The gameplay category scores 10.

Difficulty - 9/10

The AI in this game can very very difficult at times. It starts off fairly easy on the lowest difficulty, but as soon as you crank it up, you will notice a big difference. On harder modes, the enemy will launch attacks on you more often, with more units, and will upgrade much quicker. The high difficulty of this game leads to it lasting a bit longer, because it gets boring quickly if a game is too easy. The difficulty scores a 9.

Replay value - 10/10

This is the sort of game that will last you for ages, and one that you can come back to at anytime. The missions will take you a long while to complete, and the standard mode is so fun, you will almost certainly have a hunger to come back and play another game, or continue from your old one. The games themselves last a long time, too, they can last hours and hours. I once did a game that took me 20 hours. To add to the replay value, there is a level editor. It lets you make your own missions, you can make loads of different things with it. You can make missions from the films, your own missions, standard games, or you can even do fun and inventive levels. All of these things add up to make a game that lasts a long time, and that makes this category score 10.

Reminders:
Graphics - 10/10
Sound - 10/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Difficulty - 9/10
Replay value - 10/10

Positive points:
+ Great gameplay
+ Never gets boring
+ Very good graphics and sound
+ Good AI
+ Level editor
Negative points:
- Err…

If you are a Star Wars fan, and have not got this game, what are you doing?! Go out and but this game, NOW, you don't know what you're missing. If you like strategy games, the same applies to you. But, if you aren't a Star Wars fan, it may lack that magic that makes this game so special to the fans.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05