Thankfully, R2-D2 doesn't have to work a farm in this game!
I'm also a long time RTS fan. So this is one game I actually pre-ordered (I think it's the first ever.) Didn't care much for the Galactic Battlegrounds game so I had high hopes for this one.
Anyway, yes if you're a fan like me, you'll love this game. Just go out and buy it! No question. Just buy it.
Pro: Timeframe
The timeframe is just before episode IV. Couldn't have picked a better place to begin!
Pro: Space and Ground Combat
Cool and unique blend of space and ground unit combat. From what I've seen, no other RTS to date has anything like it.
Space battles are just like the wildest frays you've seen in the movies. Fighters everywhere, capital ships breaking apart, lasers filling space like tracers over Baghdad. It's all good... There are also hero units to control in space. The Bobba Fett mission was easy but fun. I liked using the sonic bombs on Slave-I.
I think the ground battles are good too! I think a lot of people are so impressed with what's happening in space they sorta look at the ground battles as, "Ah, been there, done that." But really, I like the ground battle aspects. Using the hero units in battle is a blast, Darth Vader is a favorite. I also liked a couple of the special missions with just Han and Chewy.
Pro: Sound Effects and Music
Sound effects and music are wonderful. I thought the voice acting was pretty good too.
Pro: Cool Cinematic Camera
The cinematic camera is really well done. They modeled a bit of a shake in the camera and it pans and zooms around on action sequences as if a little reporter was standing there on an asteroid and a camera man was shooting raw footage. I was really impressed with the look of it.
Pro: Capital Ship Hard points
Huge capital ships with multiple hard point targets. The capital ships are all proper scale so tiny X-Wing and Tie Fighters buzz around dog fighting each other while the capital ships lumber through space and pound each other.
Pro: Units Live Through Battles
Losses and victories have ongoing consequences. I loved that I could go into a space battle, fight for my life, maybe take out 1 of 3 capital ships, and beat a hasty retreat with my tattered Rebel fleet. Whatever ships survive the battle live to fight another day! ...and if I return quickly to a battle, the 1 capital ship is still dead!
Pro: No Resource Gathering
No resource gathering!!! Thank you, thank you, and thank you! What army would actually stop fighting because a renegade enemy unit took out the harvester??? Thankfully none of that in this game. There's a planetary economic system instead that does effect how you produce units and seems much more appropriate for funding armies.
Pro: Air/Ground Control Advantages
Space and ground battles are influenced by air/ground control. If a space battle is raging and I control the planet, I might have a big gun down there to throw up a formidable attack against capital ships in orbit. Likewise, if I control the space above a planet, I can call in bombing attacks if the right units are in orbit.
Pro: Ground Troop Massacres in Space
There are situations in which you can anticipate the arrival of troops and send a "welcoming committee." You can actually catch fleets of ground units arriving in nearly defenseless troop transports above a planet and totally annihilate the ground attack before it ever gets the chance to put a soldier on the ground. There is something shamefully enjoyable about wiping out an entire army floating defenseless in orbit.
Pro: Call for Backup
If you arrive in a space and/or ground battle with a large fleet of units, you can call on them to provide reinforcements during the battle. Nice way to get around the unit limitation imposed, I assume, to keep the frame rate playable.
Pro: Resupply Points
On the ground, you fight for resupply points. This is cool. The more supply points you control, the more troops you can call in. Some points are more valuable than others. You'll notice a number appear with each supply point, which indicates how many units can be supported. The resupply points are VERY reminiscent of the resupply points in the Star Wars Battlegrounds series. I appreciated the continuity.
Pro: Rancor
Hehehe... the Rancor eats people.
Con: Restricted Camera Control
Um... the units appear to be nice 3D polygon models, yet I have very restricted control of the camera. I was disappointed that I could NOT rotate or control the camera viewing angle in either land or space conflicts.
Con: No Experience Bonuses
Although units that survive battles continue the good fight, they don't seem to get any better with combat victories or experience.
Con: Unit Limits
You are limited in the number of units you can call into a battle. The ground battles seem OK in this respect. I don't necessarily feel like I need to have thousands of storm troopers on the ground and I can fill the battlefield with a fair number of tanks, AT-ATs and so forth. But the space battles do seem to hold me back a bit. Seems like if I have 7 corvettes or frigates in a battle group, I'm limited to 2 capital ships. If I go with all capital ships, I've had as many as 6 Star Destroyers on screen at once. Not bad, but I'd like to compliment that with at least as many corvettes.
Con: No Tactical Foresight
One REAL SHORTFALL in my opinion is that when you enter a space battle with a huge fleet, the PC picks a standard load out of units for you. If I have a ton of corvettes and 10 capital ships in my fleet, the PC will pick a starting lineup of 7 corvettes and 2 capital ships.
There are times when I want a certain mix of units (maybe 5 corvettes and 3 capital ships) and I have no control over that. I can only lose ships in the fight and fill in with backup units to meet my needs. Seems like it would have been SO EASY to just ask the player which ships to start the battle with. I'm hopeful a future patch will add that ability.
Similarly, at the start of ground battles the PC just automatically puts (what it thinks is) your strongest unit on the battlefield and then you call down additional units. It'd be nice if I had the ability to choose who started a battle. Maybe I want a stealthy squad of soldiers to scan the area first... instead; I get an AT-AT standing there... ALWAYS.
Con: Cannot Send Units Back
I have no ability to send units back into orbit. Likewise I can't order individual ships to leave a battle, perhaps to make room for a capital ship now that I've swatted all the fighters with my corvettes. Again, this might be less of an issue if I had some control over which units started a battle in the first place.
Con: God-Like Rebel Rocketeers
There are some issues with certain paper/rock/scissor firepower abilities. The Rebel rocket troopers seem almost God-like in their ability to dispatch armor. Who needs snow speeders when I can send in these 3 crazed Al-Qaeda turned Rebel Alliance members? Ah well... I hear there's a patch for that one.
How many times in the movies do you recall the AT-AT drivers worried over 3 guys walking toward them with potato launchers? Yeah, it's that bad... an AT-AT turning tail and running from 3 ground troopers.
Mixed Feelings: Pseudo-3D Space
Space battle is pseudo-3D, the ships seem to be flying around in 3D space, but you control them on a 2D plane. Homeworld fans might scoff at it a bit. But if you really think about it, it's probably very much the way you play Homeworld anyway. Only without the irritation of sometimes being off on your navigation because you forgot to account for the z coordinate. I was debating whether this was a pro or con. I'll leave it to you to decide. I think I like it, and I might even like Homeworld better if it had such an option.
Mixed Feelings: Low-Poly Models
Close-up views of some of the units do show the polygon models are rather simplistic. I'll cut em some slack though, usually I'm looking at X-wings and soldier units from a distance that makes them look like tiny specs anyway. If you take that into consideration, they're really quite detailed.
Mixed Feelings: Base Construction
You don't spend much time building bases. You just select what structures to build on a planet and the PC plops them down on what are probably pre-determined points on each planet's map. Sometimes this can be disappointing.
Seems as though power generators are frequently positioned somewhere outside the force-field that's protecting the base... hmmm, how convenient. Not sure why the galactic architects never figured out that positioning the generator inside the force field is no doubt a good thing!
On the other hand, you don't spend a lot of time micro-managing base construction. Leaves more time for the fun part, commanding troops. So I'm a bit up in the air on this one.
Overall:
Fun game. Star Wars fans, it's a must have. RTS fans, you'll appreciate the blending of space and ground combat as well as not having to waste effort on resource gathering. Thankfully, R2-D2 doesn't have to work a farm in this game! (what were they thinkin?)
I'm hopeful that future patches will add the ability to control which units begin battles. Seems like such a glaring oversight... who did they get to play the beta?
Lack of good camera control (or no control?) on such a visually pleasing game is also a bit of an annoyance. I guess we're forced to sacrifice some features in the preservation of frame rate.
But even with its minor annoyances, it really is a well done game and deserves a place of honor on your shelf of favorites. So go buy it.