Five new screenshots from Empire Earth III.
"I love real time strategy (RTS) games. I love the thrill of building up an impregnable fortress; watching your villagers expand your economy, attacking an enemy with a well rounded army. Those are the things I crave in an RTS. When I was young, I constantly played games like Age of Empires II, Starcraft and Rise of Nations (I still play them today), as well as Empire Earth, Command and Conquer, Homeworld, and Age of Mythology. Those games define the "classic" era of RTS games. Nowadays, the classic RTS games are impossibly hard to find. It seems that the industry has hit a slump. Sure, there are some bright spots (like Sins of a Solar Empire), but overall there are very few RTS games on the market. How did the RTS market come to this? How did a flourishing genre suddenly grind to a halt? The answers are very unsettling." -from Reid!
A good RTS is hard to come by now. I miss the good ol days when i used to play Command & Conquer, Age of Empires 3, Rise of Nations, all those classic games that i would spend hours on every day...its a shame there are no developers that are willing to step up to the plate and create a true killer, next-gen RTS.
Locke Webster has compiled a list of the top 50 strategy games of all time for UGO.com. Titles include a few deep cuts including StarCraft, M.U.L.E., Sins of a Solar Empire and Phantom Dust.
"Putting together a list of the Top 50 Strategy games is like grabbing a handful of pins and seeing which one hurts the most. Like every pin that pricks, every game involves some form of strategy. Sure, we're a discerning bunch--not to mention absolute suckers for punishment--so we decided to stick our hands in anyway to see what we'd come out with.
Obviously, with literal decades of titles to choose from, we knew we'd need some ground rules to make this all work. We started out with nearly 100 games before we finally whittled down the outliers and redundancies to the point that we were safe to say that the Command & Conquer series didn't hog nearly a fifth of our list (though *SPOILERS* it still gets two nods). We decided to look at factors like a game's quality, it's historical importance, it's ability to stand the test of time, and (most importantly) how memorable it was--and still is--today.
Among you, there will be doubters, nay-sayers and the like. But we have faith that this is the creme de la creme of the strategy games currently available. To make it through this list, we recommend that you keep your mouse hand ready, limber up those hotkey fingers, and prepare for total war. Because frankly, that's what most of these titles are about.
And after all, if you disagree with us you can always let us know in the comments section. So let's not waste time gathering resources. It's time to jump into action.
These are the Top 50 Strategy Games of All Time.
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David Pulgar writes:
"I've never played Empire Earth I or II, but it doesn't take prior knowledge to know Empire Earth III is an unfinished game. The concept is great, a historical-based RTS with three unique civilizations, but the implementation stinks. Glitches and overall poor design make playing Empire Earth III a chore. Like a B movie, it entertains, but the end result is a feeling that you've wasted precious hours of your life."
Pros:
- Good visual effects (even if units look horrid)
- World Domination mode is entertaining
- Each race is unique and plays differently
Cons:
- Poor unit AI and pathfinding ability
- Limited diplomacy options
- Enemy AI is easy, even on hard mode
- Very, very, very small multiplayer community
- Random glitches
