Empires: Dawn of the Modern World 1.0

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: CNET Staff

Empire Earth expanded the limits of the real-time strategy genre with its massive time line and variety of fighting units. Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (EDMW) builds on that success with detailed gameplay from unique civilizations across five ages: Medieval, Imperial, Gunpowder, World War I, and World War II. The detailed graphics are impressive, especially during battles, but not nearly as high-quality as the recently released Rise of Nations, and the interface suffers slightly from the inability to zoom out far enough. The gameplay, however, is rock-solid, and the different nature of each civilization contributes to a high replay value.

Some complaints about Empire Earth apply to EDMW. Even though you're constructing B-52 bombers in the World War II Age, your citizens are still living off apple trees and mining rocks. In fact, the game doesn't deal with market economics at all, since each civilization must exist as a standalone economy.

Despite the massive download sizes of both demos, installation is painless and system requirements are reasonable. We did experience one system crash during a deathmatch with the computer in the multiplayer demo as well as a few moderate program hangs, but an auto-save feature allays some of that frustration.

Publisher's description

From Activision Value :

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is a detailed real-time strategy game that lets you completely command unique, historically accurate civilizations, from China to Germany and the United States. Whether in the Middle Ages or World War II, lead your nation to dominate the globe. Each civilization's strengths and weaknesses affect the gameplay experience. Your ability to adapt to these differences is only one of the challenges you will face as a world leader. Command battles with historically accurate units and abilities over land, sea, and air. From a cavalry charge to a surprise air strike, you will know what it truly means to rule one of the world's greatest empires. This demo is only available via the CNET Download Manager. If the manager is not already installed, both download links above will prompt its installation, after which the Empires: Dawn of the Modern World demo will automatically begin downloading.

CNET Editor's Note: This is a very large (274MB) file and may take several hours to download via dial-up modem.

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