The varied game modes include skirmish, single player campaigns, historical missions and multiplayer via LAN or Internet. If you need a quick crash course then head directly to the extensive tutorial where you play as a Wookiee (complete with Chewbacca as your commander) trying to oust Federation influence from a planet. So you can either elect to be one of the good guys - the Rebel Alliance, the Wookiees, the Gungans or Royal Naboo - or the more menacing Galactic Empire and Trade Federation. If you're already familiar with AoE (and shame on you if you aren't!), you'll feel instantly at home - once the initial movie is out the way (a compilation sequence from all four Star Wars films) you're then straight into the menu that lets you decide which nation you're going to fight as. Fortunately, Galactic Battlegrounds sees them straying back towards the correct space-time continuum, albeit borrowing from others' trappings.Įnsemble Studios' Age of Empires 2 engine provides the guts of the game, with the lovingly detailed Star Wars universe providing the mod. But then came a string of mediocre and disappointing offspring like Force Commander and Phantom Menace and the suspicion arose that maybe LucasArts had lost its way.
There was a time when every Star Wars PC game was eagerly anticipated, from X-Wing vs Tie Fighter to Dark Forces and Jedi Knight.
