Empire Earth

The Good
The campaigns bring life to the history that you only read in books and articles. There's absolutely no end to variety as you not only play through the scenarios, but have the ability to customise your own in the editor. Even the random maps make for a nice break from the campaigns. And finally the tutorial is very helpful, although it doesn't teach you how to make tributes to another sect. The Russian Campaign is perhaps very creative for a hypothetical world domination by political extremists, then time travel fixes that.

The graphics are very well textured, the units smoothly animated even for polygonal voxelated actors and the camera pans well across the map. The unit, structure and ambient sounds are crisp and keep you aware of what is happening as you play. And of course there is a good selection of units, though you find yourself playing rock-paper-scissors (shock-piercing-arrows) against opponents in the earlier epochs.

The Bad
The campaigns could have done with better historical accuracy, especially the alternate history where the Germans won World War II, though that is forgivable. The use of prophets really makes playing scenarios far too easy.

The annoyances abundant in the game are the music tracks which sound very samey and don't really match all the epochs. Then there's the ever-irritating "We're under attack!" warning, which goes on and on. And some sound effects we could do without are the dying sounds of primitive period units which sound like puking. Leaving it at that, there's not that much to put you off playing at all.

The Bottom Line
You may think it's all been done before in the Age of Empires series, but Empire Earth's collection of all epochs in one game is ambitious for its time. It's really brought out the best of historical-themed strategy games. Audio isn't perfect, but just enough to make the game lively. After you play through each and every scenario the game has to offer, you'll be hungry for more.

The Good
Make no mistake about it; Empire Earth IS a copy of Age of Empires. It looks, plays, and sounds the same. The graphics are the same, the interface is the same, the game is the same, right down to the resources and what they look like. The ONLY difference is that this game tacks on more technological development, right up to modern times and the "nano age."

This is a shameless ripoff in every way, but to its credit, it does it well. Age of Empires IS a good game, and so is Empire Earth. The graphics are crisp and easy on the eye, the interface is smooth, the sound is great and the gameplay is just as good as when Microsoft published it as Age of Empires. And it IS an upgrade; there are some nice rules changes, and far more units.

The Bad
The game has two major flaws. the first is the AI - which, incidentally, doesn't play fair. The computer doesn't follow the same rules the player does, as a result of which computer players are absurdly strong. Even at the lowest difficulty level, giving the player every possible advantage, the computer seems to get free resources and buildings Winning is very difficult, and will only happen with some luck.

The second is that in an effort to expand the game to modern times, the game zips by the technology progression way too fast. Whereas Age of Empires had four or five "Eras," this game has 15. The differences between Classical and Byzantine techs don't seem really apparent when you're buzzing through them at a rate of one era every fifteen minutes. The game's "epic" Civilization-style scope of the entirety of human history seems very contrived against a standard Age of Empires map.

The Bottom Line
Not the epic masterpiece it's being described as, and not a necessary purchase if you still enjoy your Age of Empires II set.

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.