 "drop dead, gorgeous"
Six years ago, the idea of building a civilization from scratch and rushing it to the end of time really appealed to Sierra Entertainment. What if gamers were not satisfied with the way the Second World War ended? Or maybe they just wanted Chinese not to have been the inventors of gunpowder. Or what if they just wanted to explore the limitless possibilities the passing of time offered.. Developer Stainless Steel Studio played the part of the generous genie in this: by laying the foundation of the "Empire Earth" Series they would grant each dreamy gamer their very wishes.
Such, the first game was the one to give Empire Earth (affectionately called EE) its renown. It scored because of its complexity: though the 21 civilizations available in the game had scripted scenarios (all based on real historical facts), players could actually personalize the traits of the people they started with through the tech tree, thus building a whole new world history and also shaping a fresh future. You had to guide your folks throughout no less than 14 eras (from the Prehistoric Age to the Nano Age) and an Expansion Pack soon came to round things up with an additional Space Age.
Each of these "ages" came with its own set of military units and if at first you could guess the flaws of each type of unit (through a "rock-paper-scissors"-like system), as you advanced through time things would become more confusing and as a result, more challenging.
What critics envisioned to be a 3D clone of "Age of Empires 2"soon became to be thought as a hard-core strategy game – not only because of complexity but also because it would take more than four hours to get to the last age in normal play mode. For some, "Empire Earth" was even the game of the year 2001.
In 2005, Mad Doc Software Developer has released "Empire Earth 2". As there is no point in getting into details, it is sufficient to say that though the game narrowed down the number of civilizations to 14, it was a worthy sequel to the series which deepened the gameplay mechanics. And now, just when I were getting ready to once again whisper: "The king is dead.  Long live the king" with the arrival of "Empire Earth 3", some nifty details made the second part of the statement clog into my throat. I choked, as the king is dead, but there is no worthy successor.
It’s you against a simplified world, baby!
One could state that we may have judged too hastily. But any strategist that puts his greedy hands on "Empire Earth 3" will soon admit that the original concept is buried, DEAD. It’s surprising that Mad Doc Software found simplifying the game a way to success. Truth is, the game-play of Empire Earth 3 looks like a machine gunned cardboard panel. And the chunks that are missing are actually those that made the game unique and not those that made it impossible for some gamers to play.
In an effort to make the game system straight-forward, the developer reduced the civilizations in this sequel to only three, grouped as follows: the West civilization (which Europe corresponds to), the Middle East civilization (starting out in Mesopotamia, with a very "Arabian Nights" theme) and the Far East civilization (the yellow race mostly). The wondrous eras present in the other games have also suffered a drop in numbers and are now limited to only five: Ancient, Medieval, Colonial, Modern and Future.  As you may well realize, combining the 14 distinctive races and 15 eras of the previous versions in only three major civilizations spanning across 5 time periods resulted in a huge mess when it comes to cultural traits.
For example, the British also have Macedonian cavalry in their army, while for the Middle East, the producers used their own imagination to populate the military ranks with ridiculous units like "farting camels" which actually have "stink-bomb" superpowers. My favorite though remains the modern "Russian Howitzer". It seems that nobody cared Howitzers had been a sort of artillery that combined a "gun" with a "mortar" during the Second World War and which to their most have been used by the Nazi and the Americans and which were less appreciated by the Russians. In Empire Earth 3 Howitzers are plain, chunky, tanks which don’t even fire at long range, and that is a thorn in my heart after having played "Company of Heroes".
Leaving these aside, let us talk about other game "novelties". "Empire Earth 3" features only two play modes (besides multiplayer): "World Domination" (which was known before as "Campaign mode") and the classical "skirmish" game. In World Domination mode the player has to select one of the three civilizations to play with. He is immediately prompted the characteristics of the chosen civilization through a short introductory movie. |
