Empire Earth III review

Nov 14, 2007

There comes a time in just about every video game series' life when the producers have to cut their losses. For Sierra%26rsquo;s Empire Earth series of RTS games, that time was... a game ago. The original Empire Earth was an entertaining (if highly derivative) RTS. Empire Earth II was ambitious, but ultimately disappointing. By rights, things should%26rsquo;ve ended there. But like some degenerate gambler, Sierra threw yet more money at this moribund series. And with Empire Earth III, Sierra has truly created a monster.

This time around, developer Mad Doc studios took the path of least resistance on virtually every aspect of EEIII%26rsquo;s design. Gameplay is stolidly in lockstep with Age of Empires - the original Age of Empires: you gather basic resources with workers, build units (there are basically just four %26ldquo;types%26rdquo;), fight dopey, cheating AI, tech your race up to the next era, build better units, etc. But it%26rsquo;s not just the gameplay: the voice acting consists of poorly written groaners repeated ad nauseam by two-bit actors, there%26rsquo;s absolutely no story or campaign mode (the %26ldquo;World Domination%26rdquo; mode is little more than glorified Risk), and the multiplayer is as flavorless as diet water.