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Worth Buying

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 16
Date: December 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you are a fan of the Empire Earth games and own EEI and EEII such as myself, then you'll love Empire Earth III. It's somewhat different in the graphics department and you don't advance as quickly as in the first two games, but this is ok. I always felt I was advancing too quickly and not getting to play certain eras for as long as I would like. The game play and enjoyment are still there and I think I might even like EEIII better than its' predecessors. It is definitely worth buying and I highly recommend it to fans of the game who want to upgrade to a newer version or to first timers who want to experience a great game.

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...

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.

A bit laggy...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: February 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I experienced a lot of lags when playing this. Things slowed down a lot, screens took long to load. Maybe the game is too taxing for my system.

However, the Multiplayer was quite entertaining and I kept playing longer than I would have ever guessed.

It's just a little sad to see the third installment of this great series going down the hill.

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.

Expected more...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Those of you that still remember the first Empire Earth, will know that if you set-up the game for 2 players, the difficulty to the default setting and hit the start button... you'll be sit on that chair for 2hours++ just to get through the stone age.
I could still remember that I use to play one battle for more than 2 days.

For me the only really weak point of Empire Earh III is the game play duration. If you start a Skirmish battle with the same setting as meantioned above you'll probably finish the game within 2 hours. (So much for RTS). The rest of the improvements are quite nice, they have added "World Domination" mode (almost like the board game: Risk). Improvements are made on the character/object modeling an the enviroment.

For those of you that like the long game play... stick to Empire Earth I. Other than that, the overall game experience is really nice.

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.

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

Great delivery, and condition.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: March 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I received the product in good time and good condition. Had no problems whatsoever. The game wasn't like Empire Earth 2, but like all other commercial RTS games. The way they changed the game wasn't for the better, but closer to the standardized money making version of other games. This is my own personal preference of course, but I would have liked more of Empire Earth 2 in the game supported by bright new ideas in a third series of the title.

I am going to wait.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 47
Date: November 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The reviews of this product showed an undemanding version that takes away from play instead of improving it. What a shame. I will reevaluate this game at a later date.

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