 Review By: David Pulgar |
Developer: | Mad Doc Software |
| Publisher: | Sierra Entertainment | |
| Genre: | RTS | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1-8 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | TBD | |
| Buy Now: |   |
I’ve never played Empire Earth I or II, but it doesn’t take prior knowledge to know Empire Earth III is an unfinished game. The concept is great, a historical-based RTS with three unique civilizations, but the implementation stinks. Glitches and overall poor design make playing Empire Earth III a chore. Like a B movie, it entertains, but the end result is a feeling that you’ve wasted precious hours of your life.
Traditional historical-based RTS games allow players to choose from multiple civilizations. Some get bonuses in speed, others build faster or have cheaper units. However, each of these civilizations plays similarly to the next. Age of Empires and Rise of Nations are examples of games that use this design. Mad Doc sought to break the mold with Empire Earth III. Instead of creating multiple civilizations, they narrowed it to three regions of the earth: the West, Middle East and Far East. Unlike other history-based RTS games, each civilization has its own play style. The West is your typical, balanced civilization. Units are strong and cost a fair amount of resources. Builders create all necessary structures and houses raise the population cap. Meanwhile, Middle Eastern units are mobile. Their fast cavalry is better suited to raiding, and buildings can collapse into a cart and redeploy somewhere else. Also, all Middle Eastern buildings are produced at the City Center (your seat of government in a province). Builders are not necessary with this race and the population cap is raised through building fortresses. Finally, the Far East dominates through numbers. Units are cheap to build but weak, so large numbers are needed to make an effective fighting force. All infantry units are capable of erecting buildings, which means labor is never lacking. Every building constructed will contribute to the Far East population cap. I liked this approach to the historical RTS, as the idea of three unique civilizations is refreshing, but this feature alone isn’t enough to redeem Empire Earth III’s inadequacies.
Empire Earth III’s issues start the moment RTS combat begins. First, unit design is uninspiring and their voice dialogs are atrocious. Next, the view camera is clunky and difficult to manipulate in certain situations (like when a mountain blocks your view). But the kicker is Empire Earth III’s lackluster AI. I would think advances in artificial intelligence would take some burden of micromanagement off of players, but not so in Empire Earth III. Units attack with almost no intelligence. Cavalry target lancers (units they’re weak against) like they were soldiers (units they’re strong against), they just can’t tell the difference. With equal stupidity, archers walk up to enemies instead of engaging them at a distance. After playing games like Rise of Legends and Company of Heroes, moronic AI like this is unacceptable. It’s like Empire Earth III takes a step back with RTS AI. I’m back to grouping all archers to one control group and all soldiers to another, as creating mixed combat units in Empire Earth III is not recommended. And where is the attack move option? Every strategy game has CTRL + A (or something similar) that commands units to move to an area and attack everything they come across. Although I guess that option would be meaningless when units can’t distinguish what units they should attack. Unit path finding is horrible too. Units, grouped and standing next to each other can end up taking two different paths to a target. Like with combat, you have to micromanage movement so much it seems like a chore.
A player’s options for winning through diplomacy are equally poor. Alliances are decided by a meter. If you have gained enough favor with a race, they will convert from enemy to ally. But there is no toggle for a country's diplomatic stance, so while trying to convert races to your side, player units will still read the other nation’s units as hostile and attack automatically, yet another irritating micromanagement task. There is also a limited way to gain favor with races. One is to tribute resources and the other is to have Shaman units “preach” to enemy buildings. With limited options, diplomacy is arguably the road less traveled when looking at winning a battle. The option seems to be an afterthought and another example of poor game design.
And then there’s the glitches. Graphics-related glitches included tanks that fire projectiles out of their sides (instead of having the turret turn in the proper direction to fire) and resource piles devoid of graphical textures. Gameplay-related glitches were much worse. My airbase would not let me launch attacks. According to the base, I didn’t have enough wealth to launch a bombing run (around 429 wealth is needed), however, my resource bar clearly displayed over 1000 wealth. And then there was a time in World Domination when a persistent upgrade I applied to my province disappeared next turn....
Bottom Line:
Playing Empire Earth III was love/hate all the way through. I loved the concept and the distinctive races, but hated the little things that interrupted the game experience. One thing is certain though - gamers who enjoy robust RTS experiences will not like Empire Earth III. If you’re new to the genre or aren’t a hardcore RTS gamer, you might be able to see through some of Empire Earth III’s less endearing qualities. In the end, however, it seems like an unfinished game. Even the manual is incomplete. It’s lacks detailed descriptions of each race and their unique units (only a basic summary of each race is provided). There’s also no quick reference chart for common commands or a build structure chart...simple documentation that’s standard fare for RTS games. I hate to say this, but Empire Earth III is incomplete and mediocre. It’s entertaining, but not nearly enough to justify it’s current price of $49.99.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 5.5 |
Posted: 2008-01-12 21:19:15 PST