I beg to differ, this game TO ME is really, really bad.
Pros:
Some good graphics, some cool technology, intro cinematic
Cons:
Everything else, basically. It seems like they were trying to milk the series
The Bottom Line:
Avoid this game. Try Rise of Nations, or one of the CNC games if you like RTS games.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
In order to make this an easier read, I will divide this review up into the good aspects of the game, and the bad.
The good:
Pretty damn good graphics, although fairly similar to the first one.
More unit types.
Interesting battle plan system.
Cool introduction video.
The bad:
Unit AI poor
Game not balanced (You have to balance it yourself in skirmish, why?)
Campaigns boring and short
No cinematics in campaigns, not even an EFFORT. Just some fogged out screen with a dumb voice over.
Nuclear weapons barely make a splash.
Unfair damage scale
Age advancement is too rapid
Buildings not involved, sole purpose of the game feels like it is to click silly techs at the university and garrison priests.
Clumsy battles, very little strategy involved.
Units have no personality, say the same crap over and over, die the same way, etc.
Really boring defense structures/buildings.
Boring, unoriginal units in general, especially for the future. Something should have been done to make them more unique. Weapons boring and unoriginal, shouldn't the early mechs have machine guns AND missiles like in the video?
Developers lazy on upgrades (transport does not upgrade from epochs 11-15), especially in the later ages. With technology increasing even MORE rapidly, one would think that the future units would be upgraded MORE often.
Explanation of epochs poor, 2030-2130 for one age wtf, and we still use assault rifle dudes and choppers. It should be 2030-2060 and 2060-2100 for the last two ages, and although this is not too important, better explanations for epochs would help.
Terrible, terrible lag on even most good computers.
Forced territory system, which also is a cheap ripoff of RON and feels very unnatural, which makes the gamer feel like they are being forced to expand instead of actually playing the game. Expansion is fine, but this just sucks.
Limit of defense structures per territory, this provides for easily getting the living daylights bombed out of you.
Units not to scale (commanders especially), including choppers, ships, and all that.
Where's the branched upgrade system from EEI : (
No way to eliminate the enemy, have to take out every single damn city and set my units on 'explore'.
So overall, this game basically SUCKS, and completely misses the epic battle/civilization feel. There are a few positives here and there, but I would have liked this game MUCH better if the graphics and all that were a bit less polished, and the game itself was more interesting. Please, I hope that EEIII is a huge improvement from this steaming pile of garbage, because this was just a pathetic attempt to make money! If this had been a low profile game with less graphics, it would have gotten less than a 5/10 from Gamespot and IGN, and I can guarantee this.
Empire Earth I may have been quite flawed and somewhat cheesy, but the campaigns were FUN, and it was somewhat enjoyable to play. This just sucks. Don't get it (or if you have to, get it off a torrent), and be wary of EEIII.
Again, I wrote this for Gamespot.com, I am user 'chaos_complete' on the site.
