Empire Earth

"History made fun!"

Empire Earth
Introduction-When you first look at Empire Earth, it looks like another Age of Empires. It’s true that Empire Earth shares some similarities with Age of Empires but this time you get to play from the beginning of time to the technological future. Play a random map against some opponents or join history’s greatest on the campaigns. It doesn’t matter if you like your real-time strategy in the past, present or future because Empire Earth supplies you with all 3.

Gameplay-Like in most real-time strategy games, you collect resources and use them to produce units and buildings. You can produce different units in different buildings and the type of units you produce depends on the age. Empire Earth has a wide variety of units and buildings. You can tell your units to form into one of several formations and you can upgrade each type of unit’s stats when you have them selected. Many other upgrades await in the buildings. The unit: prophet can really stir up some damage and the things heroes do are great. The aircraft system is amazing; it’s realistic but at the same time you don’t have to worry about you plane crashing because it’s out of fuel. When the plane needs more fuel it will turn back to the airport automatically. Your units may tend to lose formation when in battle, even if you don’t want them too and changing between unit behaviors can get annoying but besides that Empire Earth has excellent gameplay.

Graphics-The nature (water, trees, animals etc…) in Empire Earth looks great and the units and buildings look great if you’re zoomed out. As soon as you zoom in you see just how pathetic the graphics are. The units and buildings look blurred and undetailed when zoomed in. So when you're zoomed out everything is great but when you zoom in most things look horrible.

Sound-The sounds fit in well and are very realistic. It’s also great to hear your troops say things like “For honor and glory!” The music could be a bit better though.

Control-If you’ve played real-time strategy games before, you’ll master the controls in almost no time at all. Many things to do with your units, easy to use zoom in and out feature, great way for grouping and managing the whole game with just the mouse just adds to the fun. Some things may annoy you but overall the control is great.

Difficulty- There are 4 campaigns and 1 learning campaign in Empire Earth and after you learn the controls well, you’ll have almost no problem with most of the missions. It will take you usually 1-2 tries to achieve victory in a mission. Some missions will give you a good challenge though.

Replay Value-With the random map feature and fun campaigns, you won’t get bored of this game fast. You can even create your own scenario, campaign or/and civilization. This game is fun to play over and over again. The real replay value comes in the multiplayer because playing against other people is always fun.

Overall-With only some minor problems and great gameplay, Empire Earth is truly strategy gaming at it’s best.

Gameplay-9.5
Graphics-6.5
Sound-8.5
Control-9.5
Difficulty-6
Replay Value-10
Overall-10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/20/02, Updated 04/18/03