3/5 ★ – peacebrendanp's review of Star Wars: Empire at War - Gold Pack.

I wanted to start playing space games. So, I played a couple of space games. This turned into me playing a Star Wars game. Which then turned into me playing a bunch of Star Wars games and watching the movies. This may last for presumably the rest of the year? Either way, in comes, Star Wars: Empire at War. I do not have much of a history with RTS games. I have played some demos of some in the past, and have always appreciated how well they portray the fantasy of large scale battles. This game may be my first proper RTS (probably not entirely true). This game does a great job of simulating Star Wars. And, I applaud it for that. This would be a great Steam Deck game. Something a little mindless, but pretty fun and engaging at higher difficulties. The space battles are awesome. The land battles are okay. The soundtrack is phenomenal. I only played through the Rebel campaign, and after 20 hours of learning the game, I put an additional 17 hours into the game to finish the campaign and conquer the galaxy. Obviously, 37 hours is a decent amount of time to spend with a game. So, there is a bunch of fun to have here. However, the game can get a bit repetitive. The game follows the same formula for the most part. It's basic RTS mechanics, and they are good, just not great. I know the Empire campaign and the DLC campaign probably shook things up a bit, but I was pretty bored close to the end of the 37 hours. This game is a really good RTS game, with a Star Wars costume on. It's a good way to kill some hours here and there. But, if you are like me, you may be looking for games with more of a story and dynamic gameplay. This game does not have much of either (simply from what I played). Again, if you love Star Wars and RTS-games, this is probably a must-play. I really am glad I played this, I just didn't love it the way I thought I would. Space battles are definitely pretty awesome here, however. Lastly, I just wanted to say that I heard the mods for this game are where this game shines. From my understanding, there are mods that introduce the prequels, and most of the popular mods completely re-design how the game works. I may try them out down the road. But, for now, I just wanted to try the vanilla game out. Console Played On: PC (Steam - No Mods) Game Played: 08/2024 - 08/2024 Review Written and Published: 08/11/2024