Empire Earth II

Format PC

Developer Mad Doc Software

Publisher Vivendi

Genre Sim / Strategy

"Why are you playing that?" asks our bewildered editor when he casually glances across at my monitor and catches me deftly managing my gold and tin supplies with a few taps of the mouse. I may blather on about my macho leanings towards shooters that allow you to dismember enemies with an overpowering amount of brutal weaponry, but as Woods has now discovered, I'm also perfectly happy ruling over virtual kingdoms - especially ones that allow you to blow the shit out of large futuristic robots.

Empire Earth II is the sequel to the excellent 2001 empire-building RTS, and is promising to improve on the original in, oh, at least 17 new ways. As we said in last month's mag, EEII has14 civilisations (including British, German, American, Aztec and Greek), each with unique units, spanning over 12,000 years from 10,000BC to well into the future - hence my excitement at stumbling onto the mechs in the city. Each map is divided into territories that can be acquired through diplomacy or war, enabling you to expand your military, economic and/or Imperial empire.

The most obvious improvements when playing the new Empire Earth are the short-cuts that enable you to get to grips with your world much quicker and with less faffy micro-management. The Citizen Manager gives you unfettered access to your units (of which there are more than 270 in the game), so you can easily group them and, for example, move all the townsfolk from wood-collection to gold-digging in seconds.

Zoom In
Also, a new picture-in-picture feature (shown in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen) enables you to bookmark any unit, object or location in your empire and switch instantly between them, like having numerous interactive close-circuit TV cameras. You can now easily keep tabs on large areas of territory and even issue orders without having to zoom frantically around the main map.

Other major additions are the improved 3D graphics, weather conditions that can hamper operations, improved diplomacy for forming alliances (to be broken later at your convenience), and 'non-cheating AI' - basically the computer doesn't automatically know where you are and what resources, armies or firepower you have.

Meanwhile, single-player mode is broken up into entertaining campaigns and skirmishes, with 'turning points' such as WWII's Operation Overlord and scenarios that include the soon-to-be-famous USA Cyborg Insurrection of 2058. Multiplayer is included too, with the usual Deathmatch and King of the Hill modes accompanied by Quickstart, which is great if you're impatient to get on with the action. There's also Sole Survivor, where you can make alliances with other players, knowing that you're eventually going to have to screw them over to win the game - if you're a fan of Risk, you'll love this mode.

Ship-shape
With a few months to release, there are still a few bugs to iron out in this early code, including the quirky ship movement, which unfortunately turned my Normandy landings into a new Pearl Harbour. However, developer Mad Doc appears to be crafting a complex, yet hugely playable strategy epic that as well as giving you access to classic civilisations such as the Aztecs, puts your despotic finger on the nuclear trigger. And it has robots - did I mention that?

PC Zone Staff