Earth 2140

Review by Slim Vision

"HiTech War, Not A LowTech Bore!"

Info :
Earth : 2140, is a real-time war strategy originally created by Interplay for the PC, and has been ported to the Mac by epic Interactive.

Prequels ?

No, E : 2140 was the first.

Sequels ?

Yes, The next few in line are Earth : 2150 Escape From The Blue Planet, Earth : 2150 Lost Souls and Earth : 2150 The Moon Project.

Any Upgrades or Add-on's?

Yes, the Earth : 2140 expansion pack will upgrade the game so that it will have 80 new single player missions, a few new multi player missions, some new units and new buildings.
As of yet (21st December 2001) there are no expansion packs or upgrades for the Earth : 2150 series.

Underlying facts

Earth : 2140 is your run of the mill war game. And I quickly add that it's not an entire clone of Command & Conquer. However, as with all games like these, it's hard to create something better without using all the same ideas, thus to create something different requires a lot more time and effort, which is why many games like these are just passed as C&C clones. This is probably why E : 2140 is set in the far future, and has a apocalyptic story line to match.

Story

(Taken from the first two paragraphs in the manual).

The year is 2140. After numerous wars and several environmental disasters, only two world powers remain; The United Civilized States (UCS), covering the American continent, Western Europe, North Africa and Asia. And the Eurasian Dynasty (ED), covering the coherent landmasses of Eastern Europe and Asia. The damage caused by the long wars led both world powers to evacuate the population to recently built underground cities.

Australia and most parts of Africa were sacrificed during the long wars, which lasted several decades. Highly toxic biological and chemical weapons were developed on these continents, laving them so badly contaminated, that no human life can survive there. Not even the use of robots and machines is possible. The general opinion was that these continents would forever remain uninhabitable, and were wiped from every map. Most of the world's population forgot that this land even existed.

General Opinion

At the beginning, you can play either one of the two factions. And can choose from Easy to Hard settings for the missions. The missions, though easy in the beginning and slowly progressing to the harder stages, can overlap. Their is a constant stream at one point, an a plot builds, but them all of a sudden, the plot U-turns and your put smack bang in the middle of a different quest, and it usually has something to do with a mission you did earlier. The consistency is not really what you would expect, however, they are challenging. And you will find yourself stuck, trying to figure out a way to destroy the enemy. Which is what we want in a strategy, yes?

The multi player seems to be an excellent part of the game, however, unlike the Skirmish modes of C&C, you can not play with just you and some computer players, it is based on the Internet (network play is not available in the Mac version - but oddly enough they left the menu option in the game). To access the multi player you must first start an Internet connection, it will then let you decide on if you wish to be the server or the client - being the server awaits players to join, and being the client (which is probably the best option for a slow connection) allows you to join active servers. If you choose to be a server, you can change the settings of play, such as the Tech Level, if you start with a base or not, the number of units you acquire, and the number of computer players (The maximum amount of players altogether is 8 I believe). The bad thing about the multi player is of course the fact you can't play it on your own, without an Internet connection. Hopefully, just maybe they might have changed this in the Earth : 2150 games.

The graphics of the game are actually surprisingly good. I have not even encountered a glitch at all yet. Explosions are the main attraction, and even when a building blows, you just love to watch them fires' spread out of control, before it finally explodes. Another feature you might feel is worth a wow or too is the video. While it's constricted to how good your video card is, it's nice to watch something unfold in front of you. They could probably be better quality, but like I said, it's the hardware that constricts it. You will see the movie sequences as you advance through the missions. The main opening screen is a few minutes long, and does not really contribute to the game's story, but rather shows you an invasion of a base.

The game play it's self is mainly where you see a 'clone' of C&C appearing. But keep in mind, if this game came before C&C - would C&C then be the clone? I think so. You will find you get fed up with playing a mission you can't stand, and you end up doing something else. But you'll come back to it eventually, just because you want to kick arse. But, those who are hard core Red Alert fans may be left with little or no options in this game, as it is going back to the simplistic ways of the original C&C - just with a few extra goodies. As for it's 'Time To Live' factor, you may play the missions for one faction, then the other one, and then you'll forget about it, and mainly use multi player (if you can tolerate Internet play), or just put the game somewhere for a rainy day when you have nothing better to do. But, as the first C&C as the only C&C to appear on the Macintosh platform, E : 2140 has not really taken advantage of this, and developed into the Mac's Red Alert. I feel this is because it was made on the PC first, and it lost it's competitive edge before the Mac even had a chance. Shame.

If you have never played C&C ever before, you might like this game. As you will not have a 'biased' opinion. Graphics are excellent right down to the details on the map. The sounding is also clear, and unsurprisingly, the game has 8 music tracks for you. Though, many of them are quite odd actually. Giving you a sense that someone somewhere made the music sound like your in a garden, when really your on a desolate battlefield, to add a bit of humor. If anything, the music does not fit the game at all. But you can turn it off, or choose your favorite title to play, so it is, I suppose, only there for your enjoyment. The actual quality of some of the tracks is very good, and makes you think it was not just made on a keyboard, but then one or two come along that sound like they were...

Verdict

(All scores out of 10)

Game Play : 8/10

It's where the C&C 'clone' becomes apparent. But, you can't really differ much from this type of play without causing it to go way out of balance.

Graphics : 8/10

It's good, but, unlike recent games such as C&C ; Red Alert 2, it's got a simplistic view. Explosions are well emulated however, and when buildings go up you just have to sit and watch.

Re Playability : 7/10

It's a war game - and since only the missions allow you to play on your own (multi player is only available on the Internet), you may get a bit board of following orders set by the missions. For those who like missions in these games however, you will love it. But you may only play through the missions once, or maybe twice to get the gist of things. Then it'll end up in the rainy day spot on the shelf.

Overall : 7/10

Generally good graphics. Sounds excellent, playability's not that much different from other games like this. But still deserves a little credit.

The game's the only one of it's kind to come to the Mac for a long while. And though it's not very successful, it probably is a glimpse at what's yet to come.

- Slim Vision