Empire Earth III for PC: Review

Fans of the Empire Earth series have been waiting since 2005 for the next installment to emerge. Empire Earth III (EE3) was finally released in early November 2007. Does it live up to the reputation of its predecessors or does it fall short? Read this review and find out for yourself if EE3 is everything fans hoped it would be.

Developed by Mad Doc Software, EE3 is a real-time strategy (RTS) game for the PC. In this single or multi-player game, players choose between three different factions, including Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, and Western. Each faction has it's own type of game architecture, technology and units. Each faction is then broken down into the countries that lie within those factions. There is also a World Domination game play that changes from RTS to turn-based. The object of the game is simple enough: conquer the world. This is done by taking your civilization from the ice age through the future as it passes through five distinct eras of history.

The graphics on this version are better than earlier ones but fall short of what they really should be. Some of the units look good and buildings look good as they get torn apart but you'll sometimes have trouble with some of the units starting and stopping across the screen. Basically, most of the graphics look decent but their performance often falls behind most other games currently available.

The soundtrack for EE3 isn't bad and I found it enjoyable. What I found annoying was the bad one-liners that are continually spouted out by units. An occasional comment is fine but these come out often enough to detract from game play. On the other hand, if you like bad puns and light-hearted humor, you just might appreciate the comments and jokes. In either case, the game gives you the option to turn off the voices. With this in mind, I found the audio in this game to be pretty good.