Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

"A decent middle east city builder game"

Along time ago, when China was in its infancy, there were few cities and large lands full of potential. You are the new city builder who is thrown into these lands and given the mission to take control of your cities future and guide it to a hopeful thriving empire. You are money, resources and land to start building your tiny village, only to set up your economical strategy and start thriving off the riches of the land. You will lay out these cities and make them grow.

Build farms, houses, kilns, temples, shrines, tax offices, guard towers, city walls, residential walls, wells, mud pits, mills and more! Don't forget that trade is very important too. You must first shower your neighbors with gifts to make them appreciate and respect your city. Then you can open up trade with them. Trade is extremely important. If you have an over abundance of ceramics, you might as well trade them for some beautiful jade carvings that your residential elite might desire. Have a starving city? Start importing some fish to feed your starving population. This game is very neat and clever and brought city building games some new ideas.

Your city will require many things and it is your job to fufill them. Feed them, keep them safe from illness, enlighten them with many religions, tax them, keep them working (very important), entertain them, and much more. It will be up to you how well your city does. While all this is going on, make sure you don't get invaded by the barbarians who lurk outside your city! Create a militia to thwart their invasion forces and encourage alliances with other cities.

Its a fun game that can be challenging, but in the most part is pretty easy. Your city will go through some hard times, but in the most part, you'll pull through. Its easy to play once you learn. There is about a thirty minute learning curve, mostly reading about what certain features the game has. It is a very original game to play and the closest game that compares to it is Stronghold's economic missions.

Unlike other city builder games, this one has a story to it. It's not a very complex story, but it has one. You are a small time leader who starts out building a small village and having being recognized for such a job well done, you are respected and given more jobs and tasks. You will be given several tasks from relocating the capitol city to supplying your empire with silk. There are many missions that will keep you busy for a long time.

Despite its not so graphics, I don't mind. Don't get me wrong, they aren't bad. They are well done and get the job done. You really won't mind the decent graphics since they represent what they are meant to represent very nicely.

The sound and music are done ok also. It doesn't get much better in a city builder. The people actually talk if you click them and sometimes give you a decent idea on what they are thinking. They will tell you problems and you can deal with them properly. The music is oriental and sets the mood well, but it does sort of get annoying after a few hours of gameplay since it does loop the same few tracks over and over again. The only downfall to the audio is the lack of sound effects. Through out the entire game, I realized that almost no buildings make noises. Some do, but the majority does not. However, this is a very minute problem with the game.

This is a city builder game. You could spend hours upon hours of playing these kinds of games if your like me. On the other hand, if you rather play a shoot 'em up game or a game with a little more competition, then this might not be the game for you. However, if you DO like city builders, this is a must. It will satisfy almost all your city building needs. I gave it a 7/10 just because I could enjoy a game more, but this is a top of the line city builder. If you decide to get this game based on my decision, good luck, and you made the right choice.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/21/02, Updated 10/21/02