Publisher: Sierra
Ages: teens & up
Parental
Advisory:
None
An involving and amazing game, now in its second incarnation, Sierra's Empire Earth II offers an ambitious strategy experience that spans a wide range of civilizations and time. Like the first Empire Earth, the title is geared towards die-hard gamers who love strategy. But second time around, the game offers good enhancements and excellent game play to those who learn and play it.
The game is a comprehensive and involving real-time strategy game. As in all real-time strategy games, the goal is to gather resources, build civilizations and technologies, evolve and take over the known world.
The title adequately covers all of the strategy bases: war, colonization, diplomacy and invention, and starts players in the stone age and takes them to modern day and into the future. The game includes some 500 units that span all of human evolution. An excellent single-player campaign offers three challenging, globe-spanning campaigns.
For the first time, ambient weather and seasons such as sandstorms and snowfall affect game play. The complex interface now offers more precise control with Real-time Picture-in-Picture, to view different places at the same time; a War Planner, which makes it easier to plan strategy and coordinate forces during battle; and a Citizen Manager that makes it easier to track individual citizens and keep them productive. The interface changes are welcome, but don't necessarily simplify the complex game.
Players can now build roads and the game offers more diplomatic options to trade and gain alliances. There's fun multi-player supports that offers free online play for up to nine players in nine modes. Graphic wise, Empire Earth is good, but not outstanding.
While Empire Earth II is a great game and is fun to play, it is a complicated game that appeals most to die hard gamers. But those who are willing to invest the time will be rewarded.
6/12/05 www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff
