Product Description

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga gathers the popular real-time strategy game Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and its dynamic Star Wars: Episode II mission expansion Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns in a single package. Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga challenges players with more than 50 battle campaigns representing the classic and prequel Star Wars universe.

Powered by the award-winning Age of Empires: Age of Kings core game engine, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga allows players to deploy vast armies of Storm Troopers, Clones, Naboo, Battle Droids, Rebels, Gungans, and Wookiees. Players manage their units, structures, and resources in single or multiplayer campaigns on Tatooine, Naboo, Endor, Hoth, Geonosis and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4525 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Released on: 2002-10-25
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review
Universal conquest, armed invasion of alien planets, Wookiees and X-Wing fighter squadrons. They're all in Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and they're all, happily, superb in this real-time strategy affair based on the highly successful Age of Empires engine.

There's nothing essentially new here for the hardened RTS gamer. Resources need to be mined, units built and technologies researched in the race to crush the opposition. What gives this the edge is the Star Wars setting and the quality of the graphics, which are visually appealing and stay accurate to the wealth of Star Wars information that already exists.

There are six basic "races": human Rebels, the Empire, Gungans, Wookiees, the Trade Federation and the Naboo, each with their own specific weapons and tools--there's nothing quite like sending a squadron of AT-ATs into battle and watching them smash the Alliance to bits.

In addition to the standard hardware afforded each side, Force alliances come into play and it's possible to side with either the Jedi or the Sith depending on your preference. It's also possible to conjure up Jedi Knights and Sith Dark Lords.

Clone Campaigns is the first add-on disk. This content mainly comes in the form of two new campaigns: the Old Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. You can choose to either take control of the shiny new Jedi controlled Army of the Republic, forefathers of those pesky Imperial Stormtroopers, or the combined armies of the Confederacy complete with the insect-like Genosians and Techno Droids.

The action in Clone Campaigns commences on Geonosis, with the aftermath of the big battle scene at the end of the movie. Each campaign features seven missions to complete and over 200 new troop, vehicle and ship units and takes you through the beginning of the infamous clone wars. New features are also added to the original game with new units, orders and effects all selectable in the older campaigns. All the new and old armies are selectable in the multi-player and Skirmish modes, ensuring you'll need to re-evaluate those tactics for warfare against the new combatants. Overall this is a great add-on which adds to and enhances an already fantastic game. --Laurent S Hall

Customer Reviews

Well made but nothing special
Star Wars games have been having a rough ride of it over the last few years. Lucasarts simply hasn't been able to call its efforts a real success beyond its seminal X-Wing series and the Jedi Knight (Dark Forces) first-person shooters. Force Commander was an unmitigated flop which had attempted to create a fully 3D real time strategy game to the line-up, and it's largely because of this that the developers went back to the conventional RTS formula for this title, Galactic Battlegrounds. This particular edition includes the Clone Campaigns expansion disc, which allows you to play as a General of the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy (from Episode 2) as well as for the previously included factions.

The game itself is basically Star Wars with the Age of Empires 2 setup, whereby you go through different technology levels depending upon how many resources you have and whether you have constructed the prerequisite facilities. These then allow you to build even more complex buildings and more powerful units, and so on. Then it's just a matter of preventing your opponent from killing you while you get ready to build a massive force and stomp him into the floor. Nothing too technical, really. It's an easy game to get into, the AI is occasonally fairly inspired if you stick the difficulty settings upa bit, and the pre-made campaigns will keep you going for a while (though normally you'll be more irritated by the limitations imposed by the level design than you will about your enemies). All in all, a good little runner if you want a decent RTS.

But this is also the game's biggest turn-off: it's nothing new. The graphics are OK, but that's about it. And it's Star Wars, so the kit is unusually well-realised, and it looks and sounds good. But to be honest (and probably a bit controversial) I have to say that the "old faithful" game Starcraft is still a better game than this, even though it's a good five or six years old now. This game has the usual Command and Conquer style build-huge-army-and-go-stomp-enemy tactic; it's not particularly challenging or balanced like a truly good RTS should be. Every faction has its own generic unit types that could be the same as the others', eg droid with blaster, rebel with blaster, gungan with blue ball thingey, etc so all you really feel you are getting is another clone of the same old trooper - just with a different top-coat. It's just too... generic. And it's this underlying blandness that makes playing the game feel like a bit of a flat experience.

So, if you are looking for an inoffensive Christmas or birthday pressie for someone who loves PC games, this will do nicely. But if you want something with a bit more challenge and character, I would recommend (1) Starcraft - available at a really bargain price, with its expansion included; or (2) Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings (also with its expansion). Both are good examples of what a good RTS should really be, because in this genre it's gameplay and concept that counts, not graphics.

For this game, however, I am awarding Four Stars, because while it's nothing new, it's well-presented, easy to play, and with its expansion pack it offers a lot more content for what you pay.

Best strategy game I've ever played
The game is fairly easy to pick up and get started, and the campaigns suck you into the starwars universe and get you learning how everything fits together. They get more challenging, and you work on to ever more complex scenarios from episodes 1 and 2. At any time, you can go into a standard game, and these are highly configurable, allowing you to change the map size, resource levels, population limits, etc etc. You can change the difficulty too.

Watching the films after playing this gives you a whole new insight, for example using starfighters to bring down at-at walkers, or using bounty hunters to kill jedi. It all ties in really nicely, even someone who's not really a fan of the films, I found the attention to detail impressive.

It has taken me 6 months to win on the hardest level, and it really needs some cunning military strategies, such as faking attacks in one place in order to break through at a weak spot somewhere else, and abandoning cities and relocating when a superior army attacks. This is an absorbing and rewarding game, and there really is nothing like the sight of 20 jedi knights fighting a fleet of 30 at-at walkers, while starfighters and anti-air defences fight it out overhead. Age of Kings and Age of Empires are the basis of this, and they were good. However, this is brilliant.

Great game for All STARWARS FANS
This game is probably the best Starwars game I have ever played ever it is just perfect for every one who likes starwars and any one who likes strategy games. If you like this type of game it will be just the PERFECT game for you and you will be sure to learn the names of different heroes like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo Chewbacca Yoda and so on Plus also the names of units from a trooper to a big ATAT.

Not only do you get to choose from Lots of units and heroes but there are also 6 teams to choose from wookies, royal naboo, the Galatic Empire, the gungans, the trade fedration and the rebels.

The music in starwars galatic battlegrounds is great too. Depending on which team you choose the different music you get. There is a map creator where you can make any building unit hero or any team to make, be and play on.

The campaigns on starwars galatic battlegrounds is also fantastic you get to choose from a training mission to the gungan campaign the trade federation campaign the rebel campaign the galatic empire campaign & Chewbacca's campaign.

Then you have the even better Clone campaigns where you get to be the republic and the bounty hunter clones plus not only these 2 teams but also get the two new campaigns and improvements on the other teams and new improved map creator.

If you want to, you can play against your friends on the internet or LAN play. On the internet you are given the address to play on msn zone or if you have a hotmail email address and if you have msn messenger service you can play privately against your friends the website for messenger is http://messenger.msn.com.

This game is a REALLY good game to buy and you will NEVER get tired of it ever especially if you are a starwars fan. Really good game and you should buy it.