Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

Star Wars games have had a chequered history on the PC, ranging wildly between the very good (X-Wing/TIE Fighter) and the utterly awful (Force Commander). It's great to see, then, that LucasArts are firmly back on track with their newest PC release, a real-time strategy affair based on the highly successful Age of Empires engine.

There's nothing essentially new here for the hardened RTS gamer. Resources need to be mined, units built and technologies researched in the race to crush the opposition. All of this is handled in time-honoured format--build workers, cut down things, process the results through factories and hardware pops out at the end of the process. What gives this the edge is the Star Wars setting and the quality of the graphics, which are visually appealing and stay accurate to the wealth of Star Wars information that already exists.

There are six basic "races": human Rebels, the Empire, Gungans, Wookiees, the Trade Federation and the Naboo, each with their own specific weapons and tools--there's nothing quite like sending a squadron of AT-ATs into battle and watching them smash the Alliance to bits. The sound helps massively here with dozens of samples included that sound very much as though they've been taken from the movies.

In addition to the standard hardware afforded each side, Force alliances come into play and it's possible to side with either the Jedi or the Sith depending on your preference. It's also possible to conjure up Jedi Knights and Sith Dark Lords.

Unit balancing is pretty good here, there are no invulnerable units, everything has definite strengths and weaknesses and if you think tactically there are ways around any problem, provided you have the resources.

Tactically, the computer plays a nifty game and doesn't make too many silly mistakes making this a great one-player experience. Moving to the multiplayer game takes things to a whole new level, however, and provides genuinely exciting gaming.

As an addition to the current family of Star Wars games, Galactic Battlegrounds is a real winner, combining depth of gameplay with a genre that's familiar to the vast majority of gamers. This is top stuff. --Redfoo Khanzada

Epic real-time strategy set against a backdrop of the entire Star Wars saga Conflicts involve six key civilizations: Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance, Wookiees, Gungans, Royal Naboo and Trade Federation Execute your campaign over land, sea and air with over 300 different units and structures in single-player campaigns, skirmishes and multiplayer battles Combat arenas extend from interstellar asteroids and aerial encounters to submerged cities and ground battles

Deploy vast legions of units into battle-up to 200 per side- with units that can include bounty hunters, Jedi Knights, stormtroopers, X-wings, AT-ATs, snowspeeders, AT-STs, Wookiee Kas tanks and droids Manage your resources and integrate the power of upgradable technology into your strategy, such as Wookiee ingenuity, advanced Gungan biotechnology and Jedi stamina. Each technology level brings new wonders and new forces. Accessible gameplay built upon the familiar RTS engine adapted from Ensemble's popular Age of Empires series Use the scenario editor to create custom single- or multiplayer battlegrounds with virtually any Star Wars units and settings