8. Star Wars: Empire at War – Gold Pack (2006)

Massive space battles play out in real time, which are exciting and great to watch.

Ground combat and shooting not your thing? Are you more of an Admiral Viet than a Darth Vader? More of a Mon Mothma than a Han Solo? Do you enjoy games like Starcraft, Civilization, or Command and Conquer? If you like to direct units and plan big strategies, this RTS is the game to play. Star Wars: Empire at War should play familiarly to any fans of the RTS genre: you manufacture and battle groups of units and vehicles both in space and on the land, trying to out-maneuver and out-fight your enemy while managing resources and production times.

Empire at War features story campaigns for both the Rebellion and Empire, with unique units and buildings for each side, which demand unique approaches and strategies. With this game, you can take control of either side of classic battles like the assault on the snowy base on the planet Hoth or the Battle of Endor.

You can combine tanks, ships, and trooper units for large ground battles.

While the ground combat is a lot of fun, and similar to Starcraft and Age of Empires, the space combat plays a little differently, and looks gorgeous. Tons of small fighters swarm around huge warships while red and green laser blasts criss-cross the screen. All of this takes place with classic Star Wars music accompanying the whole thing for a good, epic battle feeling.

In addition to Empire at War, there's another Star Wars RTS game for PC called Galactic Battlegrounds. However, where Empire at War tries to do a lot of new things specific to Star Wars, and presents a really engaging in-universe experience, Galactic Battlegrounds is literally Age of Empires with a Star Wars skin. 100% the same. If you like Age of Empires and Star Wars, and would like to play more of that, check out Galactic Battlegrounds, too!