Empire Earth 2 is a game I’ve waited many moons for. It is a culmination
to a wait that has caused over 600 hours of internet scouring and untold amounts
of time spent with industry insiders for the lovely taste I now have.
Empire Earth, for all who don’t know, was an epic RTS that spanned all
of human history. What you may not know, is that soon after Empire Earth was
released Stainless Steel Studios left Sierra leaving Empire Earth in a state
of disrepair; this major flaw caused more people to leave EE than anything
else. Luckily EE was picked up by Mad Doc Studios, who added an Xpack and a
great patch, making EE a viable game once again. Mad Doc is continuing with
their EE project by releasing Empire Earth 2 in April of 05. This title is
a much anticipated one to say the least, I alone received hundreds of requests
to preview the game. What is it about Empire Earth 2 that warrants such anticipation?
Will EE2 deliver to all its fans? I’ll help you to find out now!
The first time I started up Empire Earth 2 I was greeted with a great opening
cinematics, I was instantly put into a mood to beat up on anyone I could find.
Too bad
for me that there is still an empty multiplayer lobby so I wasn’t able
to jump in and out of games at will, (though I have a feeling I’ll be
able too soon). Anyway, I started up a skirmish game to use as a “get
the hang of the interface” game. EE2 offers tons of options to start
you off in a game that suits your play style. My style of play is quick match
because it lets you set the pace of the game by allowing you to select a starting
force. You are given many options to base your start game, on but I like it
aggressive so that’s what I go with. When I got through the load time,
which is very short (even in MP), I was greeted with the second dose of video
goodness! The weather went from clear to rainy and foggy, which slows troop
movement and also lowers line of sight. Weather plays a pivotal role in war
planning, you can gauge weather changes with your outposts, however as time
goes by, it becomes more difficult to gauge weather from your outposts, because
you need to keep building more outposts per epoch in order to forecast the
weather! After the first few ages you’ll stop trying to forecast the
weather and just pray for sun, it’s what I do now but there are ways
around some weather effects that I prefer. Certain civ bonuses allow for uninhibited
movement in bad weather which gives you a huge bonus when fighting. The slower
you move the more projectiles will hit you, moving faster then the enemy allows
for more hit and run attacks, you can also be awarded the Imperial Crown “drills” which
speeds up unit movement, (great for bad weather attacking.
