Empire Earth II: The Art of Supremacy review

You can have too much of a good thing? What nonsense. Money, cake, sex, houses, cars: you find us someone who has too many of these things, and we'll show you a happy guy. But here's something you can have too much of: generic real-time strategy games. Since Age of Empires, new games and sequels alike have hopped on that bandwagon, waging their myriad wars in a way that makes you realize that history really is just deja vu all over again.

Empire Earth II was a hidden gem. Playing like the cloniest of clones ever to clone, it gradually opened up into a considerably deeper experience, embracing every technology from spears to tactical lasers. It was a little strategic pearl amidst a mewling chorus of swine. Art of Supremacy, on the other hand, is an expansion pack among expansion packs. Nothing less, nothing particularly more. It's primarily about tying up loose ends from the core game, rather than trying to tie your stomach into knots of anticipation.

Multiplayer is the biggest beneficiary, with a new campaign-based skirmish system, Tug of War, and the satisfying ability to make losing players pledge fealty to you in exchange for a sliver of the glory as your combined army conquers the world. On the single player front, there are three new campaigns - one Napoleonic, one Egyptian, one irrelevant - with a couple of new Turning Point battles putting you on either side of Rourke's Drift and the Battle of Kursk.