Empire Earth (Preview)

Details: Category: Computer; By CCGR; 01.Jun; Hits: 7235

System Requirements

OS: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 CPU: 350mhz AMD/Intel processor (550+ Preferred) RAM: 64 MB (128MB recommended) HDD: 450 MB VIDEO: 4MB DirectX compatible graphics card (800x600 upwards) SOUND: DirectX compatible sound card

This is a very unique strategy game. It\'s designed by Rick Goodman, a lead designer from Age of Empires (AOE). What makes this game unique? Well you can play from any time period. There are fourteen different Epochs you can choose from. * Prehistory 500,000-50,000 BC * Stone Age 50,000-5,000 BC * Copper Age 5,000-2,000 BC * Bronze Age 2,000-0 AD * Dark Age 0-900 AD * Middle Ages 900-1300 AD * Renaissance 1300-1500 AD * Imperial Age 1500-1700 AD * Industrial Age 1700-1900 AD * Atomic Age 1900-2000 AD * Digital Age 2000-2100 AD * Nano Age 2100-2200 AD The fun doesn\'t stop there. You get over 200 types of combat units. You can also use famous historical people like Patton, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Cromwell. There will be battles in the air, ground and sea. So there will be plenty of bombers and ships at your disposal. There will be battles from the past present and future. History buffs will love re-making history. And yes, you can fight in the future! You can fight with mechs and cyborgs. Cool eh? The Demo has four tutorials and two scenarios. The tutorials tell you how to do combat and which units are effective towards other units. This makes a huge difference. In my opinion it\'s more accurate than AOE. Many of the features are the same as AOE. Building villages are the same, there are wonders, priests that can convert people and buildings. There are technologies to research etc. There are some differences too! Some I noticed were hospitals. If you put your wounded units close to the hospitals they will get healed. There is also a morale factor. The higher the morale your army has, the better they fight. Leaders and heroes can boost the morale of your army. Another difference is the upgradeability and customization of your units. You can increase some of their attributes to a certain point. You can increase their speed, armor, attack, etc. This is not free. It does cost resources. The standard resources are used. (Wood, Gold, Stone) There are two scenarios in the demo you can play. The first scenario you are Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) and you lead your army to defeat Napoleon and put him in his place. You are required to keep Arthur alive. This is not easy. The enemy has good AI and will go right for him. You will get allies along the way to help you defeat the French army. The second scenario you get to be the Germans in World War 1. This time, When you start you are required to keep two people alive! To make things worse you are only armed with a gun and a camera. Good thing you pick up some allies to help you along the way. You are to spy on and defeat the Russian army. Not an easy task. But you get a pretty good army and weapons to get the job done. From a Christian standpoint, there are just a couple things to point out. You are battling to rule the earth, so yes there is violence. No blood and gore, but when you kill someone, you hear their blood curdling screams. There are also references to rape and pillaging villages. A little more detail than I\'m used to in strategy games. Another thing I noticed is that there are religious elements like priests, prophets etc. They don\'t have a Christian faith, they believe in many Gods. You must take this into the context of the time period you\'re in. For example, the Roman empire had many Gods.(Roman and Greek mythology) On the other hand, the prophets are kind of cool. They can cast earthquakes, plagues, fire, volcanoes and more. Lastly, there is mild swearing in the game. The game was easy to install. The graphics were good it has some nice movie cut scenes. One glitch I found was FSAA didn\'t work. The text disappeared. The music was good, very fitting. The sound effects and voice acting was good too. The interface is similar to Age of Empires so there wasn\'t too much of a learning curve. Sometimes the maps weren\'t obvious on which direction to go. The only way you found out you went a wrong way was by getting your hinny kicked. You can\'t save or restore games in the demo either. Other than that no complaints. The game ran very stable on Windows 2000. No problems at all. Multiplayer will be available in the final release. If you like Age of Empires and don\'t want to be stuck in one time period, check this game out!