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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK...WELL, SORT OF

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 75 / 87
Date: October 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The EMPIRE EARTH series have always been trying to occupy the ground between the CIVILIZATION and the AGE OF EMPIRES franchises. Their downfall was mostly their over-complication - in this way, limiting their audience. So EE2 (although a great game!) came and went mostly unnoticed; this was the release that should have been the comeback. Well, it managed to come back as AGE OF EMPIRES 2½ - at the most...

There are a number of "innovations" in this third installment. One of the first thing you may notice is the global perspective. In a (real or randomly created) planet earth map (similar to the one in RISK III, although more detailed and interactive) strategic movements and provincial decisions are made. Improvements are built and battles are fought in the provinces level, in maps both detailed and beautifully rendered.

The graphics you will either love or hate! Whereas AGE OF EMPIRES III went the way of unit realism, EMPIRE EARTH III features clear "cartoonish" units (similar to those of WARCRAFT III) with detailed natural movements. Buildings, aided by their size, are much more realistically designed and...destroyed.
Weather effects are a nice touch. The first time it snows and everything turns white you may find it amusing. Then you will realize that it actually makes it harder to discern both units and the outline of your own camp!
Zooming is possible, yet it too manages to feel uncomfortable as the camera movement follows a parabolic (not a straight) trajectory.

There are three cultural spheres of influence (Western, Middle-Eastern & Eastern) within which you can either choose or customize the civilization you will control. Each civilization group features its own tech tree and the gameplay is pretty much balanced. You do have to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of each to be victorious.
The controls are well designed and intuitive, do not clutter up the screen, and the building menus are at easy reach.

What is inescapable to notice is that EE3 is a much LESS complicated game: whereas EE2 featured 14 distinct civilizations spanning 15 epochs and in search of 4 resources, EE3 features only 3 distinct civilizations (with their respective tech-trees), spanning only 5 epochs (Ancient, Medieval, Colonial, Modern & Future) and collecting only 2 resources (raw materials & wealth). The number of units (and their possible upgrades) also got reduced.

So is this EMPIRE EARTH - FOR DUMMIES?
I guess experienced TBS/RTS gamers will be somewhat disappointed: not only is the level of complexity reduced, the game feels more like an action RTS than ever. More casual gamers, though, will enjoy it more - and I guess it is those later gamers that have been targeted by VIVENDI UNIVERSAL this time. Take your pick based on your experience.

I probably should had awarded it no more than 3 stars, but here is hoping they decide to clean up their act on the next installment.

This was once an innovative series. It did not deserve this...

Save Your Money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 39 / 45
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is the worst game I have ever owned. It seems like a cross of the video play of Zeus or Poseiden and Rise of Nations. Please save your money and spend it on a good game like pong.

Do not, repeat do not buy this game !

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 53 / 78
Date: November 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I loved the gaming experience of the open skirmishes of EEII Exp. and the graphic quality was good. These guys at MadDoc completely ruined this game. The graphics are poor at best even at the more extreme settings. Performance is atrocious. The user interface has changed for the worse. Game play suffers greatly compared to EEII. Apparently they were not able to use the original game engine and it certainly shows. I completely wasted $50 on this worthless gaming experience. I've been playing strategy games since the original Command and Conquer and beleive me you WILL be dissappointed if you buy this mess. Since we can't return opened games, please show these misrepresenting jerks by not purchasing this rip-off.

Medieval Total War III

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 16 / 23
Date: November 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

-The most disappointing for this empire earth series it's that it doesn't have any story-lines for the three factions.
-If you like Warcraft III, you're probably like the graphic in this game.
-The gameplay for single player campaign is more like Medieval Total War II with RTS features (like gathering resources and building units).
-Be aware of the system requirement, even with my thin gaming laptop, i couldn't play the game smoothly and had to turn all features to the lowest. below is my system:
2.0Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB of Memory RAM
ATI x1400 of 256MB

You've got to be kidding

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 20 / 35
Date: November 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

1) Graphics are terrible - far worse then EE2 but much higher systems requirements

2) Voices are annoying at best, grating at worst

3) Unit and building styling looks like a bad comic strip

4) The gameplay is just plain boring

What happened? EE1 and EE2 were so much fun, this looks like it was developed in 1998.

Extremely Disappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am extremely disappointed with Empire Earth 3.
Having played both EE 1 and 2, I had high expectations for EE3, especially considering how vastly better EE2 was than EE1. However, I have been let down for these two main reasons:
1. EE is now too simple. EE1 and EE2 had such complexity and depth of strategy and customization; the developers didn't treat the gamers as idiots. You had to actually think to play the game. Now, the techs are reduced, the epochs are not only short in advancing from one to another, but lack complexity in each epoch to make someone want to stay in a particular epoch for too long.
2. EE3 has performance issues. Granted, my computer isn't a dedicated gaming rig, but with a 8800GT 512mb video card, a Q6600 quad core and 3 gigs of ram, one would expect the graphics to run at least somewhat smoothly. However, at the lowest graphical settings and with nothing else running in the background, EE3 still manages to run slow during skirmishes, and unplayable in Earth-view during the world domination game. This is with the 1.1 patch.

On the upside, some of the graphics are admittedly nicely done, and overall the game is still playable for short periods of time, if you ignore the performance issues. This is definitely a game you'd want to borrow from a friend to try first before buying, EVEN if you've played the first 2.

Good game for casual gamers, but disappointing for hardcore EE fans.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Let me just preface by saying I owned both EEI and II and enjoyed them very much. I thought EEIII was going to be great, but it doesn't meet my expectations and it disappoints me. The game is a good one, it just is quite a deviation from EE I and II and I'm not sure it's worth $50.

There are only 5 epochs with an incredibly simplified tech tree/unit upgrade system. The world domination mode is neat and can give replayability, but single battle mode has predetermined maps to work from so that can be a hassle if you don't want to go through the time-consuming world domination mode. The resources are also much simplified(knowledge, raw materials, and wealth) which I feel tends to drop the skill needed for good gameplay. There are also much fewer units available to build. Coupled with the fact there are only 5 epochs, you could probably say there are fewer than 75 total units you can build(even with the fact that each of the three factions have entirely different available units).

I personally don't care about how pretty a game looks; if it's good, I'll play it no matter what. The graphics are pretty sharp and destruction of buildings is neat, however, I will say that EE III has a more cartoonish version of units and requires enormous computing/graphics power to run well. I've got a 3.6 GHz P4 processor with a Radeon X1850XT(512MB/256bit) graphics card and it just does the job on the lowest video settings possible.

Take home message: If you're a hardcore fan of the EE series, this game probably isn't what you had in mind so beware. If you're more of a casual gamer, then this is probably a really good fit for you. In the end, no matter who you are, I still wouldn't recommend paying $50 for this game. $30 would be much more economical.

Empire Earth III: If only...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If only someone else owned and published this title so perhaps the occasional crashes were distant memories along with Sierra Games 286 programs of long ago.

If only when selecting an item, the game would not pop me to the non interactive edge of the map.

If only the AI would not cheat and spawn fresh enemies from off the map.

If only automatic militia building placement had a tad forethought.

If only there was a minute of grace period at the start of a provincial war. Spawning in the middle of overwhelming numbers is quite rude.

If only the AI would not permit your units from blocking one another during moves.

If only troops could not fall off bridges and get stuck.

If only the game was not so addicting, I could have gotten the garden in on time.

Empire Earth III is still a fun must have for the serious collector and gamer of the series. Even when popping out to Desk Top often, game crashes and lockups are far less frequent than my other Sierra titles.

The character audio scripts are cute. When they begin to annoy, an option permits them to be turned off.

I retired from designing/publishing business software and the grandkids expressed an interest in Empire Earth III since last year I had given them each Empire Earth II. One is starting college this coming semester and an avid gamer. A great joy of his was to advance a scenario into a great pickle and leave it to grandpa to figure how to survive it.

Empire Earth III is fun, passes the hours and another enticement for the grandkids to visit their grandpa's farm. Gaming doesn't get better than playing with friends and family.

In spite of the "If only" roster, I recommend this game.

Dumbed Down

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have played each empire earth version always impressed at the strides made with each successive version...until this one. It looks like EE III was redesigned to better cater to players interested in a first person shooter (FPS) game instead of an RTS. The variations of the different cultures and their technology evolutions were completely thrown out in favor of 3 basic cultures: western, eastern and middle eastern. The more advanced technological stages were diluted and "cartoonified" into something resembling a weak PS3 game. The bottom line is that it looks like if you are interested in a rich gaming experience with plenty of variation and some realism thrown in, go this Age of Empires III. It is everything this game isn't.

A great destruction to a great series...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If all good things must come to an end, then this game is exactly that end.

What happened here MadDoc? What in god's name did you think you were going to accomplish by doing what you did here? You purposely dumbed down the game to try to appeal to a greater audience, to gain a larger market share, and, you failed. You turned your back away from the customers - because you got greedy.

In particular, MadDoc failed to realize that:
1) The market for gamers who play the EE series are history fans and RTS fans of whom have intelligence and enjoy depth and strategy. EEIII targets the market of the likes for Warcraft III, and guess what, remaking the same game is never a good idea, not to mention changing the game by changing the original target audience of intellectuals to a target audience to that of morons is just going to burn you. I'm almost certain that a number of people at MadDoc tried telling the head business jerks that this game idea was a dead end, and I bet the business people didn't even care to listen. These people developed the business-man-syndrome, this nose-in-the-air attitude that they know everything, rightfully certain of their inner thoughts as being truth among men, arrogantly and egotistically pushing themselves to unforeseeable financial failure, all on account of greed by simply not knowing their audience nor market.
2) The reduction in the number of epochs, the number of unique civilizations, the number of collectible minerals, the number of units, etc. is their major fault here. MadDoc dumbed down gameplay simply by removing gameplay, and their lead game designer should be fired as a result of this atrocity. We players weren't asking for unique assets for each unique civilization, but rather just more storyline behind them. We players weren't asking for a simplification of the epochs, but rather just more precision in historical accurate gameplay. We players weren't asking for a dumbed down version of EEII so our grandparents or nephew could play - we were asking for a game WE wanted to play; one with strategy, cunning, and most importantly GAMEPLAY! MadDoc removed the most vital part, can you not see the error?
3) MadDoc decided to add the world map, almost like a Risk-like layer ontop. This *is* what players asked for, but they did *not* ask for the above two. MadDoc, very literally, could have not even of touched EEII, but rather just add this world map part, and released it and it would have been 10x better than what it is now.

If you enjoy mindless Warcraft III like games, EEIII fits that bill nicely. I would save your money for something else. This game and its series is now under control of non-intelligent weasels who care nothing about players, but have let their greed consume themselves.

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