So, I sat through the download this morning for Empire at War, opting to use Fileplanet for the speed factor (40 minutes roughly, once I got through waiting in line). Installed and ran easily, and ta-da! The Imperial March was blaring, and I was ready to go.

The tutorial was simple enough, with five levels covering basic ground, galactic, and space command on the rebel side, then switching to the imperials for more advanced galactic and ground missions. All were easy, and should be no trouble to anyone who knows how to read the subtitles or listen to the sound ;) The first thing I really noticed was how fast it ran. My system is three years old now, and had no trouble whatsoever with it. Going from Main Menu to the Galactic map was almost instant, with no loading screen, and the loading screens for space and ground battles each passed in under ten seconds. Though it's not the most graphics and hardware intensive game of course, it's still very respectably speedy for what it's got. Anyway, the tutorials were solid, if gone in the blink of an eye.

Now, the Campaign mode I have mixed feeling about. It offers only two battles, and they're both over quite fast as well, although I played through on Easy, I doubt it could have held me too much longer on Hard setting either. Once you get your fleet nicely assembled, you send them off to Vergasso, and make quick work of the small force protecting their space station. It's really over before it begins, with only a handful of fighters and bombers, two Acclamators, and a huge Space Station to wipe out. Didn't even get to finish my coffee before the Empire was in retreat :)

Of course, Vergasso is the stepping stone for the next bit of the mission, and this bit is a lot trickier. Do not underestimate the ground forces on Tatooine, else you'll be driven back and have to build a new army back at Hoth to try again. This happened to me twice, but eventually I found their weakness and managed to break in. And that was that, Demo over.

Now, I suppose I should get to talking about the game engine itself. It's quite intuitive really, not as simple as Battle for Middle Earth but not as complicated as something like Age of Empires or Command and Conquer. The heroes work nicely, acting as normal units, but with much more powerful special moves; the demo allows you to use Han and Chewie, who work together to disable and capture enemy vehicles, and in space they pilot the Falcon. Fighter squadrons have no chance against it's quick lasers and the power of temporary invulnerability. Galactic mode is where all the resource and army building happens, each planet able to support a certain number of units and buildings, and producing credits each day (time passes quickly in Galactic mode). Probably favorite fun feature is the Cinematic Camera button, which takes away the interface and drags you down to the battlefield for some close up action, with nice moving camera angles.

All in all, it's a very solid demo, although short and easy. The full game, no doubt, should have a lot more to bring to the table, especially with all the delicious mods already in the works.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Pros: Fast, Furious, Star Wars Fun.

Cons: A little easy, and a very short demo. No multiplayer, or hints at the mod-ability. Biiiig 750 meg download.