His vision when he formed this new development company was to create an RTS on a truly epic scale, in which the gameplay spans a massive , years of human history, starting with primitive man and ending with a sci-fi future.
EE's central theme is to take an empire - either customised or one of 12 predefined ones - and advance it through periods of history. As each epoch passes, your empire will grow more powerful and more advanced, and you'll even be able to reshape the past due to Goodman's insistence on historic accuracy. This means you could find your nation embroiled in the Napoleonic wars or battling against Alexander the Great's armies.
To an extent this isn't too far from the truth, as the simplest way to control the action will be from the overhead viewpoint. However, Stainless Steel has provided the option of zooming into the action, so much so that you virtually feel as though you're there.
You'll be able to watch the land, air and sea battles from a variety of viewpoints, and Goodman demonstrated this to us by moving the camera into the cockpit of a WWII fighter plane, from where we watched an entire dogfight unfold.
We were also shown how the 3D game engine works, with walls and raised ground obscuring or reducing a unit's line of sight. Rick was keen to point out that fun gameplay has always been more important to him than absolute realism. While many of the combat units are modelled on real-life statistics, it was never an option to sacrifice the 'fun element' as he called it in order to make everything as lifelike as possible.
Throughout the eras, there'll be five different resources for you to collect, depending on the needs of the time. There's also going to be huge scope to play EE the way that suits your playing style. If your leadership qualities are more Ghandi than Stalin, you can concentrate on building your empire up as an economic power rather than a brutal military one.
Depending on how successful you are, you'll be given varying amounts of Civilisation Points, which you can then use to upgrade the different sections of your empire in areas such as farming, economy and the military. We were treated to some truly epic battles, in which ground, air and sea forces all clashed at once. Goodman explained that every unit has its own particular strength and weakness, and every single one has a counter-unit. In addition to this, your planes will need rearming and refuelling, and you'll be able to customise each vehicle by playing around with their statistics in the game editor.
A scenario editor will enable you to create your own maps. Of course, no modern-day game would be complete without extensive online options. EE is set to allow eight players to clash online, and if development time permits, Goodman hopes to raise this to The online experience looks like it's going to be a huge amount of fun, as you'll be able to advance your empire through the ages, meaning shrewder players could well be developing tanks and irrigation systems, while their opponent's units are still dragging their wives around by the hair.
When I spoke to Goodman, I asked what the most exciting moment of this project was for him. That was an exciting day," he said. Perhaps we'd have needed to have been there to truly appreciate the excitement caused by a hot beverage dispenser floating on a blank background, as his zeal was lost on me and the blank-faced journalists around me. Each to their own though. Personally, 1 saw more than enough of EE to get excited about Finally, I asked Goodman how much Age Of Empires had influenced Empire Earth, as the two titles bear more than a passing resemblance to each other.
I'm getting the chance to do those things now in Empire Earth. That much is clear, as EE is a huge leap forward from those early days of the RTS, and its scope and ambition, if realised in the end product, could well put even the brilliance of Civilization in the shade. Only time will tell if it's just another RTS with a few novelties or a huge step forward for the genre, but if AOE is anything to go by, Goodman and co could well have a product that joins the much-welcomed recent crop of games which further their genre.
Empire Earth is without doubt one of the most stunning feats of endeavour since I Iannibal squeezed his elephants over the Alps. Covering more than , years of inglorious war spanning 14 epochs, this is the kind of game you can take to school, play during history and get away with it on educational grounds.
But let's not get carried away. Sure, the researchers for EE must have exhausted the world's supply of Prozac months ago, but the fact remains it's just a damn game. The influence of AOE is palpable, and diere are even sound effects like mining and building that are exactly the same. However, with this being a beta version, it's likely that the final sound files have yet to be added. What of the famous epochs then? The epoch system itself actually works in the same way as technology progressed in AOE.
In other words, once you've gathered enough resources and established certain key structures such as barracks and stables, you move onwards to new technology and a truly awesome amount of upgrades.
For example, once you reach into the Atomic Age, towers become 88mm AA guns and docks become naval shipyards. Likewise, special 'hero' units like Napoleon make way for the likes of Baron Richthofen. Basically, Empire Earth is all about speed. The faster you progress through the epochs the stronger your weapons, beliefs and heroes become, and thus you're more likely to trounce opponents. We hate to keep going on about it, but the whole framework of the game is virtually a copy of AOE even down to the collection of food, wood, stone, gold and iron resources.
When it comes to the multiplayer game Well, you'll hardly notice the difference. One notable difference though, is the option to call upon metaphysical powers. With a temple and a powerful priest you can bring forth such spectacles as volcanoes, earthquakes and tornadoes. Wonders also play a very major part in the spiritual side of the game, with buildings such as the Tower of Babylon and Library of Alexandria helping to reveal the enemy strongholds and to convert enemy civilians.
Although we've been informed that the A1 has yet to be finalised it's nice to see most of the units have a brain. Unit path-finding is good, and military types appear to know their stuff when it comes to battle positions - they even have the good sense to retreat when being pasted.
There are also four different behaviour patterns to choose from including guard mode, patrol mode, aggressive mode and defensive mode. Our personal favourite is the 'explore' icon that unsurprisingly sets your selected unit wandering off into the wilderness.
So, if you've had enough of manually exploring fog-of-war, you can understand what a stroke of pure genius this particular option is. Even panicky farmers seem to have lost their usual simple view of life by adopting a brave 'never say die' attitude that keeps them glued to fields in all but the most violent attack.
We only have one problem with the units at this stage of development and that's the way they keep getting lost behind buildings. But, it's a simple problem and should be easy enough to fix. By far the most striking thing about EE is the whole atmosphere.
The music varies depending on the epoch, and along with the graphical changes occurring throughout the game there's a real sense of purpose to the proceedings. EE also hints at a unique rawness that AOE never managed. The liberal use of blood and the ability to zoom right into the action helps of course, but there's something else there that we can't quite put our finger on So, with a couple of months to go before release Empire Earth is looking and feeling good about itself.
Our only major criticism at this point is the blatant lack of originality, but if Stainless Steel Studios is sacrificing that for good old fashioned playability, who are we to complain? Although Empire Earth bares many similarities to Age Of Empires, its one defining difference is that you can zoom right into the thick of the action. But can you really play from this view, or is it just a flashy feature that will look great but be useless in terms of gameplay? Having spent the best part of a week playing the Beta, I have to admit it's nearly impossible to play from this view.
However, it's pretty quick and easy to zoom in and out, so the best thing to do is issue your orders from the standard overhead view and then zoom in to take a quick look at the carnage, which you have to admit, looks pretty spectacular up close. There has to have been a time - perhaps when you're waiting for that bus that never comes or when your mind is drifting while you're talking to the world's most boring person - that your thoughts have turned to what could possibly be the perfect computer game.
While this is subjective to a large degree, there are certain game concepts that just cannot be argued with. One of them is a game called Civilization which is arguably the most original and addictive game ever created.
However, while RTS games are undoubtedly more exciting than their turn-based counterparts, they have never managed to display the sheer depth and complexity of the mighty Civilization. Civs graphical simplicity allowed it to give gamers a huge and diverse amount of choices in which to play the game, and a technology tree that RTS games could only dream about. It appears to be obvious then, that any game that could marry the timeline and complexity of Civilization with the edge-of-the-seat excitement of an RTS game, would surely be the perfect strategy game, or at least as damn close as you're ever going to get.
That hypothetical game has finally arrived, and its name is Empire Earth. Empire Earth takes you from prehistoric times right through to modern times and beyond, covering every important stage of human evolution along the way. Players cannot rely on one unit type, as it is still a highly developed game of rock-scissors-paper, or, in this case, spear vs.
Still, commanders can shape their strategies around key weapon types using these advancements, giving even more depth and variation to the solid design. While Empire Earth may be an offshoot if not spiritual successor of Age of Empires, it doesn't have the meticulously clean and crisp graphics of that series.
The polygons comprising the host of tanks, ships, planes, and people are somewhat blocky even at the best resolution and even worse when viewed close up. After a while, the flat-faced characters develop their own charm, but it is an acquired taste. Movement animations are fairly good. Planes tumble from the sky convincingly and ships sink realistically.
Ship battles look better than air and land battles, as the multi-tiered water makes for neat submarine and torpedo effects. The camera, unfortunately, fails to take full advantage of the polygon playing field. While it does a fine job of scrolling in for intimate cut-scenes, there is no swivel command, which would have been helpful in locating hidden units behind trees or buildings.
Also, the polygon count adds up quickly in multiplayer games with high populations, resulting in major slowdown for lower end computers. Continuity through the ages requires not only cohesive graphics, but sounds as well. Even though the clanging of swords is exchanged later for the clanking of tank treads, the sounds are uniformly superior to most other RTS games. The background music is also decent without being distracting, although after a few hours of play, the looping may start to grate on some players' nerves.
The only real blemish is the voice acting. Even with how complete and amazing it was, it seems to be a second place in popularity with Age of Empires. But how come that a game as huge, balanced and interesting as Empire Earth II has been even forgotten by the mainstream masses?
Probably because of the follow-up titles. On the other hand, we still get HD remasters of the Age of Empires titles , and that brings an entirely new audience. And given that Age of Empires released first by a long time, it's only natural we hear more about it. Empire Earth II is definitely one of those cases of amazing games that live in the shadows of other similar games. A lot like all the other Dark Souls-like games there are nowadays. Truth is that Empire Earth II presented a nice looking 3D map, with 14 civilizations available and different ages to play in.
Similar to what Civilization games do, but in a real-time strategy game set. Even though it's not mainstream, it is a cult game, with a big online fan base even now, so if you're looking for new tips and info, there are tons of sites you can check with an active community. Even now it is regarded by some as one of the best RTS games ever made.
If you want to take a civilization from the stone age to the future this is a game you have to check out. This game features three different campaigns. There is an American, Korean and German campaign and each one has its own story, side of the war to experience and things that you have to do.
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