Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Replay: 9

The team at Sierra is not entirely new to the production of real time strategy games, but not as experienced as the teams from Microsoft and EA, making it very hard for them to create a game to compare to the Command and Conquer and the Age of Empires series. Sierra has released RTS games such as Pharaoh, Homeworld 2 and the new Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring. With the release of Empire Earth, there were many concerns about the impact it would have on the gaming community. Blowing all sceptics away, the release of Empire Earth and its win for 2001 PC Game of the Year has now raised the standard of all strategy games.

As soon as you enter the game, you're presented a very sleek introduction to the game showing battles through time such as Prehistoric wars between rival tribes, battles during World War II and even futuristic battles with cyber robots. The menu features much the same as most strategy games such as campaign, custom games and online games. The campaign spans throughout the entire history of man and even into the future with the Greek campaigns with their rise to be one of the ages most influential powers campaigns, British campaigns during the medieval times, German campaigns during World War I and the Russian campaigns based in the future. What set's this game out from all the others is the timeline that is available and the extreme advancements. In other games such as Age of Empires the timeline includes Dark Age, Feudal Age and Imperial age. With the game Empire Earth the sheer technological advances that are possible sets this game out in a league of its own. With epochs spanning over 500,000 years from the Prehistoric age to the far future the Nano Age this game has everything you would ever want.

The game play is quite simplistic with the same controls as most strategy games making it a very easy game to "pick up and play". One thing that is noticeably different about this game is the methods to upgrade troops. With most games of this type there is usually a blacksmith or a place where you are able to purchase upgrades for your units such as more amour better attack etc. With Empire Earth you are able to select a certain type of unit and there will be stats on that type of troop in the corner of your screen. With this you are able to pick what you want to upgrade that certain type of unit whether it the range, attack, health, attack radius for siege weapons and amour. This gives the person a lot more freedom which to alter their units. One of the problems with this setup is that when you advance to a different age and the units become more advanced as well it resets itself and the upgrades start again.

The graphics on this game are astounding, while some little glitches can be seen it offers sleek, first-class animation. The AAT guns rotate in order to get a better shot at a plane, when the planes are low on health they start to smoke, when they are shot down they spin out of control and crash into the ground, the units grab at their body drop their weapons as they die, the chassis of vehicles remain after they are destroyed and the buildings actually fall and crumble to the ground unlike Age of Empires where the buildings simply disappear. This game has everything.

The game also offers very good sound effects with individual sounds for each type of unit that is available. The sound of the guns that are fired and the stones that are thrown are near to the real thing, this game also offers fairly good music that usually fits the timeframe that you are playing in and which civilization that you are playing.

The replay value of this game is very high, if you have the urge to wipe out an entire city in a matter of minutes with fleets of ships and nuclear attacks; this is the game to play. It offers as almost every strategy game the ability to play online; although I have never played EE online myself (due to not having broadband) I have heard great things about its online abilities.

If you are a fan of strategy games, this is definitely the game for you. If not a fan… still give it a go, you might be surprised with the quality in Empire Earth.