Empire Earth

Empire Earth was released about 2 years ago. At that time I thought the game was the best thing ever created. I bought the game for Christmas 2002 and played for about 2 weeks... then suddenly, I realized something: This game is nothing more then a watered down version of AoE that moves at an agonizingly slow pace and has little variety and strategy. I came back again to playing it about 3 months ago, and quit again both in frustration and disappointment of what a missed opportunity this was. And now, I'll tell you why this is one of the biggest RTS disappointments in history.

No doubt about it, the graphics in this game are jaw dropping. Some effects could have been worked on (mostly the deaths of some units) but over all there not bad. However where this game exceeds almost all other RTS games ever created is in the animation category. I have yet to see more beautifully animated planes or more convincing seas. Units move naturally and everything fits the bill perfectly. The resolution can go pretty high up so that you can enjoy hi-res gaming but can also be lowered for less powerful CPUs.

Voice-overs are horrible for the most part. Extremely stereotypical actors are used thought the German and Russian campaigns, which only adds to the frustration. The music isn't exactly top notch either, but this is the PC, just reduce the music's volume to zero and have MP3s playing in the background. The SFX are pretty good, nothing special. Exactly what is expected of a RTS game.