Empire Earth

The Good
Before I start I just want to say that I'm reviewing the game WITH the patch. It is needed to play multiplayer, and multi is the only way (more on that later).

The multiplay is by far the best part of this game. The idea that a game can go all the way from prehistory to the nano age is a good idea. This wide range of ages gives you quite alot of units to play with. They are basically broken up into three sections: pre-gunpowder, gunpowder, and tanks/cybers. Each section requires different tactics, mostly because you have to gather resources in different ways. One thing that helps this game is the random age start, as it injects a bit of randomness. With it you cannot just do one thing every game; you have to be able to play in each section.

There are five different resources: food, wood, iron, gold, and stone. Only six citizens are allowed to gather from any one resource patch at a time, however this doesn't really hinder anything, as they gather at a nice speed even in the start. The gold, iron, and stone patches have so much in them that I have never seen one run out. You will probably never encounter a shortage in anything you need, if you manage it right. This type of economy makes it easy to focus more on your military, which is really the fun part in this game.

Practically every unit has a counter, with a couple notable exceptions. One exception is the spearman in stone age. The only way to beat a bunch of spearmen is with your own spearmen. However, that is really the only weak point. Tanks, for example, are countered by anti-tanks, which are in turn countered by infantry, which is countered by tanks. In the early gunpowder ages the gunpowder units can be countered by the cuirassier, a heavy cavalry. However, halberdiers are a good unit for killing cuirassiers. It's all give and take.

The graphics are nice, being in 3d, but it doesn't really add anything. You can also zoom in if you want (but not if you want to win).

The Bad
Even though it does have so many ages, chances are you won't play in more then two in one game. If you age up too fast you won't have near enough military to fend off an opponent who has been working on that. The units in one age don't really have that great an advantage over units in the age below, unless it's at the breakpoints (first gunpowder, first tanks). You'll NEVER play a game that goes from prehistory to nano, unless that's exactly what you set out to do, and everyone co-operates. It would also take at least an hour and a half to do.

The AI is simply terrible. Now, every AI in every RTS game cheats, but this AI cheats so much. I think they just gave up trying to program the AI in how to correctly gather resources. Instead, it seems to just get loads of free resource deliveries. You could kill every single citizen, and stand outside the AI's capitol killing every citizen that comes out, and it will STILL make citizens, it will STILL make units, and it will STILL age up at a rate reserved for people who are booming. Another problem with it is that it doesn't know when to give up and resign. This forces you to hunt down and kill every last unit it has. If you let a citizen get away it will just keep making stuff with those free resources.

The multiplayer server itself is crap. There is technically a spam filter, but all it does is delay the spam for about three seconds, it doesn't actually block it. There is a way to ignore people (/i "playernamehere") but it's not in the manual anywhere I can find. Someone who beta tested EE told me. Even so, the chat still lags, especially when someone starts to spam. The filter only lags it up more.

The list of people in the room isn't alphabetized, and when you have eighty people in a room and you're looking for one person, it can get frustrating really fast.

There's another little annoying bug that affects some people. If you alt select a team, or double click a team icon to zoom to them, then start to scroll, the screen will jump back to that team a second later. This makes it quite tricky to jump to a team then have them attack something nearby, as by then the screen will have jumped back and you'll have clicked somewhere behind the team. In the heat of battle this is a Bad Thing.

The single player campaigns aren't worth mentioning.

The Bottom Line
Bottom line, if you can tolerate the chat problems, and don't encounter any bugs, this game is worth it. You'll never need to bother with the single player campaigns or the AI, which is half of the problem. If you're looking for a fun multiplayer game, you might want to consider Empire Earth.

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 game has new features, different from its predecessor Age of Empires II. I commend their "trying" to come up with something new, as well as their ambitious attempt to "compile" all ages, past and futuristic. So what do you have when you combine Age of Empires, Cossacks, Red Alert and Starcraft? I'll tell you later...(save the best for last).

This game has no races or nations like other games, instead the differences are given to "civilization bonuses", which if you play a normal game (not campaign), you get to choose what bonuses your "race" excels in, similar to character creations in RPG games only this applies to a race (or nation). For example you can customize your nation to excell in Tanks (e.g. 20% attack bonus, 20% armour, etc). Therefore it would probably virtually impossible to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of a nation in a multiplayer game!

Improvement of units are now delegated to the units themselves, not in buildings (e.g. barracks), however with a limitation. You can only improve only a number of improvement per type of unit, therefore also creation diversity in unit abilities. Example: If you maximize attack, defence to maximum, your unit may lack speed or movement, etc.

The graphics are sound features are very nice. I've noticed some detailed work when you bombard walls and buildings, which gives a more "real" affect.

I do commend the fact this is the only game (I know of) where you can actually play the part of the Nazi's although not explicitly expressed in the campaign description.

The Bad
Now for the good stuff, er bad stuff. What I don't like about this game. As I said earlier, what do you get when you combine Age of Empires, Cossacks, Red Alert and Starcraft? TOTAL CHAOS!

This game has NO FOCUS. Trying to bundle everything in one package, making this one very boring real time strategy game in the long run. But no matter that's not what's bad, it gets worse.

HORRIBLE INTERFACE! Not recommended for experienced players that take value of informational detail: You click on a unit and there is no description what so ever about the unit. Not even a help menu to explain the uses of units and buildings. BY THE GODS! What are they thinking? Do they actually think that gamers just play? That they do not actually like to READ and KNOW more about those little icons they move around in the game? If there were awards for IGNORANCE for EDUCATIONAL VALUES this game would win top awards. Sorry for being harsh, but games like this do teach much to those playing them unlike most games I've played.

Oh, and the campaign? You'd be better of playing Age of Empires I. Much better. Unfortunately, my personal opinion is if they hope to rival Age of Empires with this "game", they'd be better of making chess programs.

The beta testers (as well as the campaign programmers) failed big time in this game too (well not big time, but irritating enough). When you play the campaign, you'll probably understand what I'm talking about. Whoever produced the campaign needs to get another job! NO TASTE! And talk about bad acting. The story teller could bore you to sleep. No creativity and they keep limiting your options on what units you can or cannot do. In certain situations you cannot control your units because of the plot (They're my units, don't move them!). There goes the strategy!

The units are a little less irritating than of Cossacks. Units can actually bump other units therefore ruining their previous stance. Probably because using 3D features. Which also make units hard to move in tight situations, in addition they can't march in formation very good either. (Should've learnt better from Cossacks)

And there's the air units. If you know how to control those flying birds someone let me know. Forget flying in formation, because there is no such thing. Red Alert fans would laugh out of their socks seeing how the air units (specifically planes) operate in this game. They fly one by one, flying around like a pack of vultures. So you can forget about lightning attacks from the air. They get there when they get there.

Did I mention bad interface. Oh, yes I did. No pride, by gum.

The Bottom Line
Expect minimal brain activity. Better off playing Age of Mythology, worth being called Age of Empires III.