Empire Earth III Review

Sierra's series Empire Earth was widely approved by gamers, but it never really managed to stand out in the heavy competition on the RTS scene. This was true of Stainless Steel Studios' original EE game, as well as Mad Doc Software's EE II. With the third installment, Mad Doc promised to make some changes in order to streamline the gameplay. Unit design and several other aspects of the game were perked up as well.

Great, we've assembled the fleet. Now what?

Burn, burn, buuurrn!

You know, I have to say that one thing that's bound to disappoint you from the start is the absence of a storyline. Some of you may not see this as a problem at first, however if you want a truly satisfying single-player experience, you won't be too thrilled with what this game has to offer. Granted, when it comes to strategies (or any other game for that matter), we've seen many exceedingly tacky stories over the years, but at least they gave some depth to the game. C&C 3 and Supreme Commander both feature solid, though slightly corny, stories. Still, in both cases, the narrative gives you an incentive to keep playing. Sadly, that's not the case with EEIII.

The single-player denotes a World Domination mode. You select one out of three unique factions: Far East, Middle East and Western. No matter which one of these you choose, your goal is to conquer as many territories on the world map as possible. In addition to that, you collect imperial, commerce and tech points to help improve your civilization over the epochs. The game progresses at a relatively slow pace, which means you'll have to pass through many generic missions and scenarios before you can reach more advanced technologies and units. The objective is to win these random scenarios either by war or diplomacy. You may also use and improve spy units to discover what the enemy is up to. None of these features are innovative or a particularly noteworthy improvement over earlier EE games.

There are also certain drawbacks that make the game rather repetitive. For instance, if you wish to resolve a battle automatically, chances are you'll be beaten by your opponent. Then again, that depends on how far you've advanced in terms of technology and how strong the military presence is in your provinces. However, I often tried it both ways. First I'd finish a battle automatically and then I'd return to my saved game and re-play the same battle in real-time. In most cases, I lost battles that were resolved automatically, but emerged triumphant after playing the same battles in real-time. The developers obviously didn't do a good job of balancing this. Overall, it just appears as if the game forces you to go through a series of meaningless generic and uneventful missions in real-time.

Each turn moves time forward for 500 years. Mind you, before you can get your mitts on more advanced units, you'll have to spend most of your resources on research. The system shouldn't be too difficult to master. You earn military, imperial, commerce and research points throughout the campaign and later you decide where and how to distribute them. Unless you make the most out of your tech points and invest into research, you'll soon find yourself facing technologically overpowering enemies. Tech points are a bit hard to earn, but are well worth the effort since they are used to obtain siege weapons or heroes. This brings me to another off-putting facet. In the beginning, when you have units like swordsmen at your disposal, your siege units sort of become obsolete. Swordsmen are extremely efficient at torching enemy structures and if you've assembled a lot of them, you can easily level a town very quickly. This was one of my most frequent tactics in the game's first epoch and, as a result, I stopped producing catapults and similar siege equipment.

The good news is that once you advance, you'll unlock new units, buildings and technologies. It may take you a while to reach this stage of the game, but in the end you will find it rewarding. By improving technologies, you'll eventually reach the Future era where advanced weaponry comes into view, as well as new land, air and naval based units. Nuclear missiles are a nice touch - something that's, apparently, become a must in RTS games lately. The destructive power of the nuclear blast is quite an effective method of annihilating most of your opponent's forces. The nuke blast isn't too big and may not bring you instant victory, which means you have to strike at the right time and the right place. Another good aspect of EEIII is that each faction has completely different units, structures and tactics. The Far East faction, for example, uses a number of unique abilities that separates them from their Middle East and Western counterparts. Their infantry has a great advantage with its "Dig In" ability; they basically set up field fortifications and barriers to strengthen their defenses. The Far East faction is also good for players who prefer massive armies, cheap structures and military units. With shorter build time, you can produce reinforcements quicker than opposing factions. The only trouble is that Far East buildings are very easy to tear down, so you must never leave your base undefended.

All this is just not enough to warrant a decent overall experience. Reducing the single-player portion to World Domination and omitting an important element such as storytelling is quite a blunder. They wanted to keep your attention on the gameplay itself, but if it's not your cup of tea, there isn't much left to reel you in. The scenarios are uninventive and offer occasional side-missions. These random tasks are a nice refreshment and may benefit you in certain ways if completed. If you quell a gladiator mutiny, they will join you later on. Sadly, these challenges give but a smidgen of connotation to the otherwise dreary single-player campaign.

As far as enemy AI is concerned, it worked okay during most of the game. Pathfinding had its weird moments, especially when I tried to maneuver larger armies through narrow canyons and such.

Empire Earth III, understandably, looks way better than its predecessor. Units, structures and maps were designed with care and precision. Some environments are quite eye-catching, while each unit model (and there's quite a lot of them) was animated realistically. Trouble is, the frame-rate tends to drop even on stronger PCs, particularly when large armies appear on the screen. Lowering some of the details helps, but it significantly reduces the game's overall visual quality. You'll enjoy the music, as well as the ambient sounds. On the other hand, most gamers are likely to be infuriated by unit voiceovers - a really terrible job by the sound team there ... had to switch the voices off so I could play on.

Technically, the game is pretty polished, though I've read numerous complaints on the official EE forum about players experiencing multiple crashes. Personally, I played the patched 1.1 version and I didn't encounter any serious technical problems.