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Empire Earth
Game Type: Real Time Strategy
System Requirements: Windows 98+, Pentium II 300, 64 Mb RAM, 3D Graphics card, DirectX 8.0a
Game Homepage: Empire Earth
Demo download Download demo
GAMEPLAY:
From the lead designer of the acclaimed Age of Empires game now comes Empire Earth - a new realtime strategy game with a huge scope. There are hundreds of different units set in their respectives ages, from cavemen in the prehistoric times to cybernetic robots in the nano age. What's more, each of these units can be more or less customised by research - you can give them more punch, more speed, better armor or survivability. Another important item to research is the "age advance", which will take you to the next age just like in Age of Empires II. Each age opens up new buildings to build (ever saw an airport in prehistoric times?), and wil allow you to upgrade some units to better types.
The gameplay is very similar to Age of Empires II on the surface, but while the crux of playing Age of Empires II well is getting the balance between your number villagers (who collect the resources) and your army size, in Empire Earth it is vital to get as many resource sites as you can defend. Only a maximum of six workers can collect at any resource site, and the travel time to drop off the goods is almost non-existent, so if you want more gold, you will simply have to get another site (or wait longer, which is mostly an unacceptable option). There are five different resources in Empire Earth, with each Age having a more and less important ones.
A notable innovation is the explore button - you an orer a unit to go explore and he will walk randomly across the map. In the beginning this is a great option, since you can simply build a few explorer units, send them away and not bother with them for a while. However, they unfortunately walk a real random path, so more often then not a sizeable stretch of land next to your starting place will not be explored, and you'll still have to set waypoints for that manually.
The game comes pre-equipped with four different campaigns, each set in different starting ages. Each part of a campaign will have specific goals you have to attain in order to win. Of course playing on a random map is also possible, and then the starting age as well as the "ending age" (the best attainable technology) can be set. Here two winning conditions are present: you can either win the normal conquest victory, or win by building a preset number of wonders and defending them a couple of years. Contrary to Age of Empires II, the wonders you can build actually have functions - for example, the great library will make all buildings on the map visible to you.
Gameplay gets 4 out of 5 stars.
Sound:
The sounds are a bit on the meager side - the background music is uninspiring, and the unit sounds are not of a very good quality. However, given the sheer number of different ages and units, this is not unexpected.
Sound gets 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Graphics:
The game uses a true 3D engine. However, the models and the textures are not very good - they're fine for an getting an overview, but if you zoom in they're simply ugly. Once again, the number of units sort of makes up for this, but I would have left out the zoom option - it doesn't really add much to the game anyway. Also, the game window isn't really comfortable - why would I want to look at my predefined groups of units all the time? I feel that space could have been better spent on giving a better overview of the selected units.
Graphics gets 3 out of 5 stars.
Overall:
Empire Earth is unique in its huge scope - not only do the different units number in the hundreds (with each of them customizable as well), but the game also boasts 14 diferent ages. This sheer size can make keeping an overview of your tactics difficult, if not impossible. While the graphics are substandard for this game, the gameplay still is good. If you ever wanted to play a game like Age of Empires in another era than the middle ages, try out this one.
Overall Game gets 3.5 out of 5 stars.
SCREENSHOTS:
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