From spearmen to cyborgs
I don’t normally get hugely excited about the announcement of a new computer game unless it’s from an established developer whose work I am familiar with (essentially the latest version of Unreal Tournament, or something from Blizzard Entertainment or one of the studios formed by their former employees, such as ArenaNet and Flashship Studios), but I have to say that Empire Earth III has really caught my eye. The previous two Empire Earth games, which I must confess I haven’t played, look to have been real-time strategy games in the Age of Empires mould, but for this third iteration, it appears that developers Mad Doc Software are planning on really shaking up the formula, as outlined in an interview at Gamespot.
As with the previous two games, one of the main draws with Empire Earth III is that it allows you to play over a generously wide time period, going from prehistoric times all the way into the future, whereas most RTS games pick a single period (such as the Caesar franchise, or the Warcraft games, which operate during a fixed period in the history of their own fictional universe), or a relatively narrow period of a few hundred years (e.g. Age of Empires and its sequels). The main element that interests me with Empire Earth, however, is the radical new concept that the designers are proposing for the single player campaign:
The world domination mode is our version of the typical single-player campaign. Rather than play through a series of scripted scenarios, we allow the player to conquer the globe one province at a time. Each time you enter a province you have the choice of playing through a full RTS battle. At first, you will only encounter relatively easy native tribes, and you can ally with or destroy them. As you expand play, rival nations will expand their empires as well, leading to full-scale conflict.
The provinces that you hold on to remain yours, and units and buildings that you build will remain in them. You really get a sense of empire when you play, rather than going into each new scenario and re-researching and rebuilding up your base.
What’s great about this mode is that the player drives the direction and focus of the campaign. You can expand to any province, send armies and spies out across the world, and capture provinces with world powers, which are researched only in world domination mode. The events, or quests, that occur are related to what you do, what you research, the provinces you take, and who and where your enemies are. Each time you play you will have a very different experience.
Add to the mix some very pretty-looking graphics and the promise of some good old-fashioned RTS gameplay, and this is one title that is definitely going to the top of my “wanted” list for titles currently in development, alongside Hellgate: London and Guild Wars 2.
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