LucasArts keeps the public supplied with continual doses of Star Wars memorabilia, paraphernalia, and, once in a great while, rich new content. The original story of a small rebellion finding a leader in a farm boy and overthrowing the galaxy's evil tyrants has proved to be so captivating, so enthralling, and so unique that it has spawned hundreds of novels of side stories, prequels, sequels, and in-betweens each with their own flavor and additions to the universe. In the last dozen years or so, there has also been another major contributor to the Star Wars cornucopia of knowledge: video games.

With each new game comes new takes and usually new details on some particular portion of the chronology. This time around, Petroglyph and LucasArts have brought us a new view of the time between the rise of Vader (post-Episode III) and the coming of the catalyst Luke Skywalker in Episode IV. The game continues, allowing players to change the original story and see what would happen if the Empire won many of the major battles, or if the Rebellion had many more advantages.

This game has its presentation down. From the game box through to the very units and ships themselves, everything feels like Star Wars. Playing Empire at War is a great deal like taking control of every actor in the movies. In fact, there is a button on the console that allows you to watch the action you're commanding in a cinematic camera mode. The game becomes very, very cool at that point - even more so than it was. Sending in a fleet of Y-Wings to take out the shields on a Star Destroyer looks cool in normal mode, but in cinematic mode it's downright awesome.

Graphically, it's one of the best looking games ever. Just the sheer level of detail, everything looks movie-perfect. Units reflect and shine realistically, animations move pretty close to realism, and explosions are simply gorgeous. Some of the graphics are a little off, but usually this is confined to cinematic mode and cut scenes. In cut scenes, the models drop to a medium quality of detail and animation - not bad, but a disappointment compared to the rest of the game. While in cinematic mode, everything looks fantastic, but the animations and AI of flying seem to break down and cause ships to fly in crazy, erratic swirls and spirals and zigzags around and over each other. Not quite a problem, but somewhat strange to see.

Somewhat more integral than graphics, however, are the elements that make up gameplay. In Empire at War, there are three modes of play, each with an insane level of tactical depth. Don't let that scare you away, though - if you're not a lover of deep tactical strategy the game can be played without paying much detail to the deepest levels of advantages and flaws.