There are various game modes available to try including Skirmish, Galactic Conquest, a Story Campaign and a Multiplayer option. War can be waged in outer space or on the surface of a planet and the game features a wide variety of unit types and some familiar faces from the Star Wars franchise.
Skirmish mode offers a quick battle option against the AI or human opponents. Land battles allow players to construct a base and compete to control various resource nodes with the ultimate aim of destroying your enemy’s base. The game-play here hasn’t advanced a great deal from the days of Command and Conquer and a top down view allows you to select and group units with your mouse and select various attack and formation options from the intuitive menu on the HUD. All of the familiar troops and vehicles from the movies are present and you can research upgrades for your base. The battles tend to get a little chaotic and the tactical choices are relatively limited, this certainly doesn’t offer the depth of something like the Total War series.
The space battles are much the same with players defending their space stations and aiming to destroy their opponents. Once again units can be selected and moved with the mouse and different attacks and formations can be chosen from the HUD menu.
Galactic Conquest is a sandbox campaign which challenges you to control a system of planets. There is an overview map where you can scout various planets and research and build structures to allow you to recruit different troops, build vehicles and construct economic resources and defences. Various planets have different bonuses associated with them and the action takes place in real time so if two opposing fleets meet a space battle will be triggered. Once the fleet above a planet has been conquered you can launch a ground assault to claim dominion over it.
The Story Campaign is a long involved war for domination of a large galaxy of planets. All of the settings from the movies are present and missions are assigned by various commanding characters you’ll recognise from the films. The missions vary in complexity and difficulty and the Story Campaign is a good way to get a handle on the various options within the game before you attempt a multiplayer battle.
The wide range of units is a nice facet of the game with X-Wings, Tie-Fighters and Star Destroyers in the space battles and AT-ATs, Snow Speeders and Scout Walkers in the land battles. There are also various hero units like Darth Vader, Yoda, Han Solo and even the Emperor himself and each has special powers which make them formidable on the battlefield.
