Empire Earth

The Good
The fact that it has 12 eras to play in which is really fun because you can practically transition from any RTS era to another (even sci-fi fantasy which is in the later ages). They finally put controllable airplanes in a major RTS game which is good because I love my squadron of bombers. Fighting in the modern era is really cool too because it makes you understand modern war tactics. Aircraft carriers are fun as well, but are sadly still disproportionate to other things on the map. For example a villager is as big as tall as a tank and an airplane is the size of a horseman. But the game is fun non-theless, it possesses a 3d landscape that you can zoom into during the game (there is really no reason for this but they added it to the game and its fun to use ocassionally). Having a hero in the game is fun too except for the fact that you have to trigger his abilities, its not automatic like in Warcraft III. Watching the midieval armies fight is fun too, and I like the buildings they drew for that age/era, they are authentic looking. Having snipers is cool too, thought it would be nicer if they laid down. Lastly the WW2 artillary is awesome! Sadly there is only one artillary unit, but you can supplement that with airplanes.

The editor is good in this one too, you can practically make your own detailed campaigns and movies! Yeah you can actually make those in-game movies you see in all the RTS games, though it is rather hard to learn with all the triggers and all.

The Bad
The transition from era to era is really sketchy which makes sense because human techonology changed so drastically so its makes sense. But I do recall that the Roman legions were more powerfull than the barbarians and that doesn't really happen in the game. The lack of more units makes it kind of annoying to because you want to totally experience an Era/Age when your playing and you only get a glimpse of it before you advance and go to the next. Eventhough there is a variety of units to play with in Singly player, in multiplayer everyone has the same units (there are no set civilizations with their own units). Although there are civiilizations in a sense, you have a 100 bonus to spend on your custom civilization and give your people special advantages like faster villagers or faster airplanes. Or you can pick from the preset civs which is just preset bonuses not really the civ (although it does almost match the people's military tendancies but that is irrelevant, because people would have better planes not the same planes that are faster!). Anyway, single player levels are really long and somewhat boring. The future ages make no sense with walking robots because it would be way more efficient to have the have wheels or fly and its hard to distinguish between them because its just an army of shooting robots (except one with a sword). The first ages are really useless too, fighting in the prehistoric age is really bland because there are only 3 land units to pick from, and a raft with a guy hurling rocks. They could have been more creative then that really! Oh, and what's up with only six people to a mine? I wanna mine gold damnit! Other things that are missing is cruise missiles which I really wanted to use, missile silos in multiplayer, more helicopters, any sort of long range missile too (scud for example), being able to alter the landscape with your army would also be a really positive revolutionary step which would have made this game really good (imagine being able to make bridges or ditches).

The Bottom Line
Well to tell you the truth I was going to get a job at SSS and I talked to Rick Goodman the head of the company and he told me his dreams and aspirations for Empire Earth. To tell you the truth the ideas in his head sounded like a splendid game, but I think when they actually made it, it fell short of his invisioned glory. Maybe with better artists and more production time they could have made it a really good game. But the sad reality is that Empire Earth gets boring pretty fast, after you've seen all the eras and have gotten frustrated trying to figure out how to advance (which I still don't exactly understand 'til this day) because there is either a need for another town center or building or more military units and its not written down in the manual either. Also the multiplayer can only go so far. It's too rigid in my opinion and winning in the modern age is easy. Make some anti tank guns and a huge group of bombers and bomb everything the enemy has. Add one or two B-2's and you've got yourself a win almost guarenteed (that is unless the other guy hasn't done that to you first).

If you want good strategy games that came out the same time as this one that are better you should check out Warcraft III which is very good, or Age of Mythology which is good.

The Good
First, the fact that you get planes and over 10 different Epochs is pretty darn interesting. They had a good idea for civ attributes too. The campaigns are mildly engaging for a RTS. Cool resources.(wood,food,stone,iron,gold). You get cavemen.

The Bad
The graphics. UGLY!!! You can zoom up real close to guys and that's a good thing, right?? WRONG!!!! Their clothes are horrible and their faces look like they have been transplanted directly from a game from the early 90's. This wouldn't be so bad if the building looked good, but they don't. They look so fake and are much poorer than AOE 2. Before I mentioned Epochs. Pretty much the same thing as ages in AOE. But now it takes a minimum of 6 hours to get from the pre-historic era to the Nano-Age. This translates into the game being an "age race" for the first 6 hours. The resources are ok, but you need tons of them to get to a new age. In Aoe, 1000 of anything was considered alot, but in EE, you need over 8000 food to get into some ages!!! This too could be overlooked if you could get some good tactical combat in, but NOOO!! It's pretty straightforward in the beginning, but after you advance a couple Epochs, there are over 15 units all with their weaknesses and strengths. Monks are also useless. You have so much micro-managing to do, that you don't have time to use them effectively. Planes have poor A.I. Instead of making it simple and just having it hover around or stay in the hanger, they fly around in circles!!?? Why!!?? This makes it very difficult to group them together or get them to go anywhere. Fuel is another pain. This fuel means that every few minutes, they have to return to the hanger to refuel. So you always have to have them "refuel" because they fly around wasting fuel and chances are it will be half gone before you find them. Stop Atomic Bombers is another pain. Diligent gamer as I am, I built turrets and aa guns all around my Island. This was useless, as I was informed that my aa guns were attacking something. Zooming over there, I find an atomic bomber fly past my aa guns, fly over 30 something villagers and nuke them out of existence!! I was livid. I had paid a pretty penny for those AA guns and they had been ineffective.They had not even done the job they were erected for in the first place. Another large bug was that, in the last Epoch, you get to build these big robot things. They are incredibly expensive, but I said to myself that they were worth it. They're not!!! They cost more than they are any good and seem to be good against nothing in particular. This is odd because nearly every other unit has a strength and weakness, but these robots apparently don't. Expect alot of waiting, as, unlike AOE, you do alot of waiting for resources. Forget about getting up a well balanced army.(i.e. I'll bring my infantry away from the calvary and bring in the pikemen) Battles are so fast and hectic that you can't move your guys around because 1. They don't instantly respond to commands and 2. They move slowly, even the Calvary.

The Bottom Line
This game is a poor RTS. If you already have Age of Empires, don't waste your money on this. If you don't have AOE, get that instead.

The Good
The campaigns were very good in this game. The objectives were easy to understand, and I had never come across anything like them in any other game. I had fun playing around with the camera which was eay to control and adjust. Last the units, I enjoy building up big armies, and so far Empire Earth lets me build the biggest [1200 units.] This means huge battles, and I don't know about you but thats the whole reason I buy these games

The Bad
The standard game mode can become boring, becuase the game's AI thinks the same each time. This leads to a lame game if you know whats basicly going to happen to you in the end. Last the game is just plain slow. It takes a while to produce a unit which is bothering when trying to build up a large army. My advice to solve this tiny problem is to make two or even three of each military building.

The Bottom Line
So basicly Empire Earth has good gameplay, but can become boring after a while if all you play is the standard game mode. I 'd say its worth the money if you want a game that not only lets you fight in modern times but also in the past. For me the goods outwayed the bad. Buy it for gameplay and graphics not for a game you think is new and different from all others, becuase it's not.