Mac News World reports that Aspyr Media has released a demo of Star Wars: Empire at War for the Mac. The demo, which weighs in at 892MB, is free and can be downloaded at Macgamefiles.com. PowerPC users are out of luck, though, as the demo is only for Intel-based Macs.

Set a few years before Star Wars: A New Hope, the game lets gamers experience the creation of the Rebel Alliance and the Empire's struggle to keep its iron grip on the universe. Players can choose to play as one of the two aforementioned factions. As in all RTS games, they must collect resources, build bases, recruit units, and research new technology.

If you're thinking of getting a copy of the demo, here are the system requirements for the game, courtesy of Mac News World and the Mac Game Store: Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4.8 or later, a CPU speed of 1.83 GHz or greater, 512 MB of RAM, and one of the following video cards: ATI Latest News about ATI Radeon X1600, Nvidia Geforce 7300 or Intel GMA 7300 with at least 64 MB of VRAM.

Star Wars: Empire at War is slated for a North American release this week for a price of US$ 49.95.