Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns Preview

When Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds hit store shelves late last year, it only covered the Star Wars films released up to that point in time. That meant the original game involved or paralleled events in The Phantom Menace, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The adversaries in the game were the Naboo, Trade Federation, Gungans, Wookiees, Rebel Alliance, and Empire. Now, with Episode II finally near release, LucasArts is ready to publish the expansion pack to Galactic Battlegrounds. Titled Clone Campaigns, it covers the events of the upcoming Episode II film, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and features the main combatants from the movie, the Galactic Republic and the secessionist Confederacy of Independent Systems.

If all LucasArts was adding to the game was two new factions, that alone would be reason enough to pick up the expansion. But that's not all. The expansion will also include updates to all the pre-existing civilizations, including new units and technologies. Balance tweaks to existing units have also been added; in general, the design team took the opportunity to fix any problems in the original game raised by fans.

One of the new civs in the game is the Confederacy, whose primary constituent are the subterranean Geonosians.

The graphics and sound have also been updated. Since the visuals of the first game were somewhat disappointing when the game first shipped, that's also welcome news. The least of the tweaks is a new intro cut scene. The fat lasers of the mechs in the game, dubbed "magic markers" by the artists, have been thinned out and made leaner and meaner. The explosions are also new and more dramatic, with rings of debris and shockwaves to really liven them up. The sound that accompanies these explosions has also been improved. The artists also created hundreds of new pieces of art and landmarks for the scenario builder so that gamers can build their own unique maps of famous Star Wars locales. There is art for Tusken raiders, Tusken Bantha riders, Jabba's Palace, Jabba's barge, the crashed spaceship that frames the skyline of Mos Eisley in Star Wars Special Edition, a shuttle Tyderium, and many other pieces.

The slate of changes for Clone Campaigns is huge. Judging from the trailers for Attack of the Clones, the civil war in Episode II features gargantuan battles, and with that in mind, LucasArts has increased the pop cap to 250. In keeping with the theme of new Episode II content, there are also two new planets, Geonosia and Sarapin. Sarapin is a completely new lava world, while Geonosia is a variant of a pre-existing tileset. Additionally, the design team has added "attack move" functionality, so that units will acquire and attack enemy units along their paths, as in StarCraft. There will be no attack move button, but you will be able to hit shift and right-click to achieve the same result.

In addition to the new Galactic Republic civ, Clone Campaigns also adds a lot of balance tweaks, new units and technologies, and better graphics and sound.

Animal husbandry, which also wasn't used as much as the designers hoped, is also seeing enhancement. The animal husbandry building is now self-powered, so you don't have to build a power core near it to gain the full benefits of it. In addition, it now generates food at a faster rate. There are new predators on some maps, as well as new meat animals, including the womp rat and the shook. Power Cores likewise have been improved, gaining a greater radius of effect. In addition, all civs can now build an EG-6 power droid from the power core that basically functions as a walking power core to provide juice for unattended buildings. Shield generators are also seeing their radius of effect enlarged. They can also be upgraded to regenerate the shields of nearby friendly units at a faster rate.