Empire Earth 4

You may have noticed a strange trend within the world of PC gaming over the last 12 months, which has had both a positive and a negative effect on the whole industry -progress. After years of being trapped in a virtual time loop, in which developers repeatedly churned out more of the same, all of a sudden the industry seems to have picked itself up off its sorry arse and tried to take games to the next level. Take Shogun and Ground Control, for example, or the trend towards online gaming, with classics such as Counter-Strike showing us the way forward.

The Gold Edition includes the original Empire Earth and the expansion pack The Art of Conquest Recreate and take part in the greatest battles in human history The evolution of war from prehistoric times to the hypothetical “nano era”. The Gold Edition includes the original Empire Earth and the expansion pack The Art of Conquest Recreate and take part in the greatest battles in human history The evolution of war from prehistoric times to the hypothetical “nano era”.

On the flip side, though, we're starting to see a negative outcome from this sudden ambition, with some developers whining that their dreams can't be fulfilled due to technological restrictions - Freelancer being a prime example. However, Rick Goodman and his team at Stainless Steel Studios have managed to resist falling into the latter category, and are currently feverishly working on the completion of their latest project, RTS Empire Earth.

I was lucky enough to get to see the game first hand at a presentation in San Francisco a couple of months ago, after which I got to talk to Rick Goodman about his latest brainchild.Empire Earth is Goodman's second games project, having previously been the co-creator of Age Of Empires. His vision when he formed this new development company was to create an RTS on a truly epic scale, in which the gameplay spans a massive 500,000 years of human history, starting with primitive man and ending with a sci-fi future.

Expand That Empire

EE's central theme is to take an empire - either customised or one of 12 predefined ones - and advance it through periods of history. As each epoch passes, your empire will grow more powerful and more advanced, and you'll even be able to reshape the past due to Goodman's insistence on historic accuracy. This means you could find your nation embroiled in the Napoleonic wars or battling against Alexander the Great's armies.

At first glance, EE looks little more than a cross between Civilization II and one of the Command & Conquer games, with its apparent isometric playing viewpoint. Big win football online game play. To an extent this isn't too far from the truth, as the simplest way to control the action will be from the overhead viewpoint. However, Stainless Steel has provided the option of zooming into the action, so much so that you virtually feel as though you're there. You'll be able to watch the land, air and sea battles from a variety of viewpoints, and Goodman demonstrated this to us by moving the camera into the cockpit of a WWII fighter plane, from where we watched an entire dogfight unfold.

We were also shown how the 3D game engine works, with walls and raised ground obscuring or reducing a unit's line of sight.Rick was keen to point out that fun gameplay has always been more important to him than absolute realism. While many of the 200 combat units are modelled on real-life statistics, it was never an option to sacrifice the 'fun element' (as he called it) in order to make everything as lifelike as possible.

Throughout the eras, there'll be five different resources for you to collect, depending on the needs of the time. There's also going to be huge scope to play EE the way that suits your playing style. If your leadership qualities are more Ghandi than Stalin, you can concentrate on building your empire up as an economic power rather than a brutal military one. Depending on how successful you are, you'll be given varying amounts of Civilisation Points, which you can then use to upgrade the different sections of your empire in areas such as farming, economy and the military.

All-Out Mayhem

We were treated to some truly epic battles, in which ground, air and sea forces all clashed at once. Goodman explained that every unit has its own particular strength and weakness, and every single one has a counter-unit. In addition to this, your planes will need rearming and refuelling, and you'll be able to customise each vehicle by playing around with their statistics in the game editor. A scenario editor will enable you to create your own maps.

Of course, no modern-day game would be complete without extensive online options. EE is set to allow eight players to clash online, and if development time permits, Goodman hopes to raise this to 16. The online experience looks like it's going to be a huge amount of fun, as you'll be able to advance your empire through the ages, meaning shrewder players could well be developing tanks and irrigation systems, while their opponent's units are still dragging their wives around by the hair.

When I spoke to Goodman, I asked what the most exciting moment of this project was for him. 'One of the most exciting days for me was after the first 12 months, when the graphics guy got a teapot on the screen. That was an exciting day,' he said.

Perhaps we'd have needed to have been there to truly appreciate the excitement caused by a hot beverage dispenser floating on a blank background, as his zeal was lost on me and the blank-faced journalists around me. Each to their own though. Personally, 1 saw more than enough of EE to get excited about.. and there wasn't a teapot in sight.Finally, I asked Goodman how much Age Of Empires had influenced Empire Earth, as the two titles bear more than a passing resemblance to each other. 'The project stemmed from AOE in terms of all the tilings I didn't have time for in that first project. I'm getting the chance to do those things now in Empire Earth.'

That much is clear, as EE is a huge leap forward from those early days of the RTS, and its scope and ambition, if realised in the end product, could well put even the brilliance of Civilization in the shade.Only time will tell if it's just another RTS with a few novelties or a huge step forward for the genre, but if AOE is anything to go by, Goodman and co could well have a product that joins the much-welcomed recent crop of games which further their genre.

Fourteen years after Age of Empires 3, fans of the iconic RTS series are finally getting a sequel, and we received an exciting first look at Relic Entertainment’s new project at X019.Developer Relic Entertainment, who is best known for the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War series, commented on its involvement with the project on its official:“We couldn’t be more proud to be a part of the legacy. We can’t wait to tap into our strengths as a studio to fuse historical context with deep strategic gameplay, and to bring this franchise back to the forefront of gaming and into the hands of its beloved community.”Trusted Reviews has rounded up all the latest Age of Empires 4 information, including all the latest news, release date, gameplay, trailers and more.Related:What is Age of Empires 4?Age of Empires is a PC strategy game that follows the events of history across the world. It’s an incredibly detailed real-time strategy (RTS) title with several spin-offs detailing different periods of history, all of which players can involve themselves in.The original Age of Empires games have becomes genre classics, Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires both receiving ‘Definitive Edition’ re-boots recently. The graphics and gameplay of the classic titles were brought up to date and fans enjoyed the chance to revel in nostalgic RTS gaming. Age of Empires 4 Release DateThe release date hasn’t been announced yet, but we’re expecting Age of Empires 4 to turn up some time in 2020.However, we do know that the game will be exclusively available on Windows 10 platforms. It’s coming to Xbox One, which is excellent for console fans.