Empire Earth

"Hey, looking for an awesome RTS? Your search has just ended."

Okay, so it's been quite a while since I have played a RTS game, namely Starcraft and Warcraft 2. The RTS's available at the time just didn't seem to grab me. Red Alert, Starcraft, and Warcraft, for example, were pretty good games, but they didn't keep me. That was about four years ago. Now I was hooked on Turn-based strategy, the Heroes of Might and magic Series. But after a while of playeing them, I longed for a really good RTS that would keep me. Well, that's where Empire Earth came in. What grabbed my attention was that you got to play in many epoches(ages). From the technologically challenged Prehistoric Age to the future. So I decided to try it out. And guess what? After four long years i'm back into RTS gaming.

Gameplay 10/10: Obviously this is why I'm playing this game. Awesome gameplay. You order your citizens to build and mine resources. For structures, you can only build if you have enough resources, which are wood, stone, iron, gold, and food. Then you start building up an empire. Watching your empire and military grow is always fun. The objective of this game is mainly to conquer and destroy. Sound fun? You're right, it is. The military pretty much consists of airplanes/ships/infantry/cavalry/artillery, and later on, cyborgs. There were so many units to keep me busy. Each have unique abilities(well not all of them), and those abilities can help you immensely in combat. Also, at the start of each game, you can choose some bonuses for your civilization. You start out with 100 points and each bonus costs a certain amount of points.
Also, unlike many RTS's, you could scroll until the bird's-eye view of the game becomes a person's -eye view. I usually scroll in when a battle occurs. Many cool campaigns to choose from, or you can just create a random game in a few seconds. when building up your empire, you can build walls and firing towers to protect it. Beware of enemy bombers, who can drop devastating nukes on your empire, but of course you can do the same!

Story: 10/10
Not much I can say here. Read a history book or read the manuel if you get this game. But some ages are made up, and the story for Digital and Nano Age are superb, basically man has created cyborgs and ''nano-machines''. good enough.

Audio: 9/10
Great, but far from perfect. I love the music, as it fits the mood of everything you do, and the music changes throughout the game, but the voice-acting is horrible, just plain HIDEOUS. Not all of it, but a lot of it. See(hear) for yourself. But action/battle cries are excellent. You hear flawless sounds of swords clanking or lasers firing, and when you command units from older ages, sometimes they go,''DEATH TO THE HEATHENS!!!!'' or ''ATTACK WITH SHARPENED STEEL!'', plain awesome. Okay, okay, only SOME of the voice-acting is bad.

Graphics: 9/10
Superb. But if you zoom in on the game, the graphics become slightly bad, but still pretty good. The units look really cool. So are the buildings and water. Sometimes you may feel you are a general watching and commanding memorable battles. All in all, the game looks fairly realistic.

Replayability; 10/10: This game will last a long time since it's equipped with a scenario-editor, in which you can create your very own campaigns and cinemas. Or you can just continue creating random games, much more efficient, but the scenario-editor is a great choice too. This game should keep you occupied for quite a while. The challenge it good too. The computer AI rocks.

To Buy or to Rent?
BUY!!!! Or if you are still unsure, download a demo or borrow from a friend. But I recommend just buying it.

Awesome, awesome game. If you like RTS's, you cannot pass this up. Oh, and also be sure to check out the expansion for this game, Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest.
Even if you are not familiar with RTS's, you should still check this out. This is a game defintely not to be missed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/02, Updated 10/10/02