Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Demo

Age of Empires revolutionized the real-time strategy genre and it established itself as one of the most popular video games in history, thanks to its functional mechanics and freedom of choice when it came to army composition, build order and various other gameplay-related gimmicks. Over the years, the formula was improved upon, but the basic building blocks can still be distinguished even in today’s strategy games.

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is also a real-time strategy game based on the same formula, only with wookies and droids instead of archers and battle rams. Hence, in case you are a fan of the genre and you enjoy the Star Wars universe, this is definitely one of the games you must try out, given the fact that it contains a lot of different units and you are free to play it any way you desire.

The basic formula is the same as in any other classic RTS: gather resources, train more workers, build a base and use it to train your troops. After you’ve got yourself a large enough army, you can take it across the map and attack the enemy’s base, in order to kill everything and be declared the winner. Simple in theory, but the gameplay mechanics are flexible enough to accommodate almost any play style and tactic, depending on how you wish to approach the matches.

Just like in Age of Empires, there are multiple ‘nations’ you can choose from at the start of the game, only in this case they are different races. The Gungans, the Trade Federations and the Wookies are just some of the available choices, each one of which comes with different strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, the difference between factions is often just aesthetic, but that is primarily to maintain balance and keep the gameplay fun.

In fact, the game even uses the same graphic engine as the first Age of Empires did, which means that it might look incredibly familiar to those who toyed around with Microsoft’s product. The isometric visual style still looks beautiful even today, although you might be disappointed to notice that the available resolutions are not compliant with new monitors and you might have to make use of mods to work around the problem.

All things considered, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is definitely a good RTS, even if it takes most of its inspiration from Age of Empires. The factions are fun to play with and the gameplay is just as impeccable, while the battles are truly fascinating to watch most of the time.