User Reviews (1 - 11 of 44)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the funnest games we have ever played. Hours of fun!

Not as good as Zeus

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is an inferior version of Zeus. Although both games share the same basic principles of agriculture, housing, industry, distribution, religion, and arts, Zeus had a much lighter touch and thus was more entertaining. Emperor does not have as rich a voice acting portfolio as Zeus and instead of humorous voice portrayals like the John Wayne cavalry and New Yorker inspectors in Zeus, you get very tedious, borderline offensive Chinese accents in English. (Additionally, pronunciations of Chinese words are almost always wrong outside of the main intros.)

Like Zeus, combat has many bugs, which sometimes threaten to frustrate the player into giving up. For example, if you launch an invasion, an opponent will sometimes see this as a great opportunity to attack you. Fair enough, but what's stupid is when said invader is the city you are going to attack! And the two armies blithely cross pathes and you get defeated because (ha ha) you have no military. Or worse, the tendency for a defeated city to IMMEDIATELY and repeatedly rebel. Sometimes they will rebel, presumably because you are "weak," when you are returning from conquering them. Just awful and tedious. Also, the computer controlled cannons are like incredibly virtuosos with pinpoint accuracy, but your own cannons seem to be completely ineffectual. Also, sometimes your invasions will fail for no reason, and the program gives you mounds of weapons. I can only imagine that this is because for plot reasons the programmers don't want you to win yet, but they don't want the rigged outcome to damage you too badly.

The same factors that led me to become obsessed with Zeus way back when, the fun challenges of figuring out optimal housing and distribution, etc., are in play here, so all is not lost. However, the distribution system is so dumb sometimes, it boggles the mind. Suggestion for future games: provide different settings for accepting goods from industry and other warehouses, and for distributing to industry and other warehouses.

As a stand-alone game, Emperor would be quite commendable. But as a successor to Zeus, it is a step backwards.

Highly Addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have always loved this franchise of games and this version did not disappoint. Improved gameplay, story setup and graphics from Zeus. How can you go wrong? Impression games hit this one out of the park.

Very addicting game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It's sort of like SimCity meet age of empires. I would recommend it to anyone who's looking for a game to play in their spare time; it certainly kept me entertained for 2/3 of a summer.

Wrong Title .........

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: April 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As a Native Speaker of Chinese and as a Chinese Myself, I am confident to say
that "-"(Chinese characters meaning China) means Central Kingdom not "Middle Kingdom"

Totally Hooked

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love this game.....it is so addictive....in fact, this is my second time purchasing it because a friend of mine played it once and begged for the CD-ROM. It's a great game to break the monotany of the office. Kudos....Sierra!!!!!!

Terrific Game for the Micromanaging Person

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Good:
Anyone who's detail-oriented or a longtime real-time strategy player will love the extent to which you can manage your town. Breakaway's game spares no aspect from religion to industry to getting every morsel of food from the farm to your citizens.

The depth and realism of all the variables that must be managed will prove challenging to even the most elite of players and intellectuals. What's more, the ambience of the game, your town, and its citizens is visually and mentally engrossing keeping you hooked for weeks.

The Bad:
While there are some improvements in the gameplay over the previous city-building games by Impressions, more development could have been taken on the multiplayer feature which is very basic. An expansion of this game would have also been superb but most players can delight themselves with the dozens of custom missions made by fellow players.

The Ugly:
Those who are not detail-oriented will not like this game. One mistake can often make or break the well-being of your city, especially on higher difficulties. One game can also take hours while RTS games like Starcraft require you to sit down for an hour or so. There is no tried-and-true rule of thumb strategy, only the requirement to think on your feet and remember the game mechanics.

For some, this can be very troubling if they don't pay attention and don't realize why 1,500 citizens all left their city.

Conclusion:
Terrific game that is engrossing and addicting. Any SimCity fan will fall in love with this game as well as the ability to compete or cooperate with other players. The time and mental investment may turn off most non-strategy players or simply those who don't have the time or energy to spare.

Better then Pharaoh and Caesar 1, 2, 3 or on par?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A great simulation game, and I loved the political aspect as well. Very hard to weigh up if it was better then the Caesars and Pharaoh though.

OK But Microsoft Screwed Me Again

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

E:ROTMK is a great conquest and city builder game. Unfortunately, when I installed MS SP2, the game quits working. Well, not the entire game. The game will still funtion but you can't download the patch or the extra stuff so you are pretty much stuck with a game with all the bugs. I did enjoy playing it however and am planning on buying Ceasar 4 and probably Children of the Nile.

Emperor: Rise of Kingdoms

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Emperor is a real-time game in which you must fulfill stated criteria for each scenario. It has many levels of difficulty and if you start with the tutorial it allows you to learn the game as you progress. I have found it highly addicting. You must either build a new city or add a monument or complete other tasks in an existing city. It also gives a bit of a history of ancient China that adds interest to the game. However, if you like controlling your armies moves personally, this game will not suffice. The fighting is limited and you have little control. Your villagers do, however, get to build the Great Wall, and the Terra Cotta Army, among other things.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions