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Thursday 6 March, 2008
Game log #2
Gameplay: In playing the game a second time I realized the repetitiveness of some levels. Although the main levels are fairly different and vary slightly, missions in which you must take over a planet can get very repetitive. There are times when you must conquer 2 or 3 planets before reaching the necessary level. These missions can get fairly boring, there is no big difference between planets, simply just landscapes. However, this is only a minor nuisance and is sometimes beneficial. A player can use these as practice or as a means of generating more resources. Still the main interest in the game is in the main story line planets. In these planets the player will faces varying challenges and receive new weapons and vehicles. The space battles also get extremely repetitive, yet there is always some sort of difficulty in these levels and they are set in a relatively smaller area so there is no needless wandering, its all a battle in space.
Receiving a new character is also an enjoyable experience. Characters like Darth Vader or Obi Wan all have great abilities that make land battles more interesting. After countless waves of soldiers failing to subdue an opposing force, it is fun to see Darth Vader use the force and strike down his foes easily with a swing of his light saber.
Design: One great aspect of the game is its ability to be relatively simple, and still create challenge. The game is simple because, for one, there is only one real resource, money. With thatm you do not have to be worrying too much if you have too little of one thing and too much of another so you might have to get rid of one thing to afford to buy another, there is no haggling with that at all its simply you have the money or not. Also, upgrades happen automatically throughout the game, so there is not worry to see if you have enough money to upgrade your army. Finally, there is not an ridiculous amount of space ships or ground units. Only a few that you can really familiarize yourself with and use them more effectively. Neither are there large amounts of special abilities that one can often forget about, just simple bombing runs, ion canon support, etc.
All of these elements create a more simplistic RTS, yet, that does not mean that it has lost its difficulty. The game is still very challenging, enemy A.I. is difficult to defeat, it also uses large amounts of strategy and a battle could easily turn out differently in the end than it first started when you thought you had the upper hand.
Like many other RTS games, Star Wars Empire a War has a sandbox mode that allows the player to do what they wish with an army. This is a great example of emergent gameplay, you can build your army, your opposing army, choose where to fight, if you download the software you can even create your own planet. The sandbox mode is very much up to player and can be useful for practice or as a way to measure your skill.
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