One word: Incomplete. And no, not the Backstreet Boys song.
I came back again to playing it about 3 months ago, and quit again both in frustration and disappointment of what a missed opportunity this was. And now, I'll tell you why this is one of the biggest RTS disappointments in history.
Graphics: 9/10
No doubt about it, the graphics in this game are jaw dropping. Some effects could have been worked on (mostly the deaths of some units) but over all there not bad. However where this game exceeds almost all other RTS games ever created is in the animation category. I have yet to see more beautifully animated planes or more convincing seas. Units move naturally and everything fits the bill perfectly. The resolution can go pretty high up so that you can enjoy hi-res gaming but can also be lowered for less powerful CPUs.
Sound: 7/10
Voice-overs are horrible for the most part. Extremely stereotypical actors are used thought the German and Russian campaigns, which only adds to the frustration. The music isn't exactly top notch either, but this is the PC, just reduce the music's volume to zero and have MP3s playing in the background. The SFX are pretty good, nothing special. Exactly what is expected of a RTS game.
Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay is the game’s 2nd weakest point.
For starters, it's absurdly slow. In a good multiplayer game you can end up spending 4-5 hours a match. Advancing through all of the game’s ages (14 in all, 15 with the expansion pack) isn't an easy task. In the game’s Standard mode (more resources need to evolve, etc.) you can reach up to 4000 food, 2000 gold, 2000 iron and 2 buildings per age jump. That means you may have as many as 180 villagers (out of about 250 possible units) working the farms and any other resource available. This is one of Empire Earth’s inherit flaws: With these many villagers working on collecting resources and building stuff if your rushed (even if your opponent may be 1-2 ages behind you) you stand a good change of getting you ass kicked without even firing a shot. This pretty much makes most multiplayer games a matter of either trust (that no one will rush you) or of extremely tedious resource micro management. Not fun.
As for the game’s resources, there are 5 in all: stone, gold, food, iron and lumber. Each resource patch (with the exception of animals, trees, and fruit patches) has an almost infinite amount of resources you can gather, however, you can only assign 6 villagers to a patch so if you assign more, one will have to sit out and watch the others work. Building a town hall or a capitol by the resource in question can increase the amount of resources carried and harvested. But wait, it's not that easy. In order to ''evolve'' the basic settlement to a town center you need 5 villagers, in order to evolve the town center to a capitol you need 15, and in order to ''level up'' the capitol you need 35 more. And don't think that you won't be using this method if you play the games Standard method (there's also a faster Tournament game, but no one wants to play that) you will need about 5-6 of these leveled up capitols. That means micro management, tons of useless villagers that need to be moved from left to right and just a waste of time. Again, not fun.
The game offers the standard units in all ''Age'' games. From spearman to tanks, to nukes to bombers they’re all here. Even 2 futuristic ages that have all kinds of mecha robots and other anime inspired units are available. This is one of the game’s strongest points. The units use the Rock-Paper-Scissors technique (for example: spearman kill knights more efficiently, swordsmen kill spearman more efficiently, and knights kill swordsmen more efficiently, etc.), which is standard for all games that require thinking (Read: All games except SC and WC3).
The units become extremely over powered from one age to the other; Musketeers will decimate Arquebous, which are only one age under them as a tech level. This will surely piss some to hell, but I liked it. It gives the non-rushing player (e.g. me) a chance against the guy who just builds units that are 4 ages behind the rest of the world. However not all is pretty in unit land, atomic bombs, among others, are absolutely exaggerated as both usefulness and power. A player could send 30+ Atomic Bombers all with more hit points than you can imagine and..… ….. You know where this is going. In 5 minutes you will have a leveled base, chances are even if that base has 300+ AA turrets (but since I never actually got to make that many, I don't know that for sure).
Each unit takes up a certain amount of population. Some take more than others, which is another basic standard for most games. The maps in the game are ok at best. There are very few of them. Only about 15 with the patch included. There are enough resources to grant a good enough supply but if you get your ass kicked chances are you won't be returning fast.
Now, for one of the game’s weakest points.
Remember what I said about speed (i.e. you’ll be falling asleep while playing)? That only applies throughout going through the ages 'cause on the battlefield you won't get enough time to maneuver your units before they'll get blow to hell. This just about stamps every strategy except make a billion fighter-bombers and rush with them. Another thing about this game is that it's so damn straightforward. As in the example above, once you reach WW2 Age there's no point in making anything but bombers and fighter/bombers. Buildings… units… TREES! All can be destroyed in a matter of seconds by these units. It makes all your 4 hours of resource gathering end in less than 50 seconds.
EE also isn't to strategic. The guy with the most luck, allies that cooperate and most units wins. I'm not trying to play Command and Conquer here.
“Convention”, is also the name of the game. You build, rush, rebuild, rush, rebuild, call in allies, final do or die attack.
The game modes are also conventional. There are 2 main modes: Standard (more resources need to advance, longer management part), Tournament (less resource required, even less game time), Death match and all the other crap you find in all RTS games (with the exception of Rise of Nations) after AoE2.
Skirmish missions, although great to train with, are practically useless since the AI cheats with the greatest audacity since C&C. It will actually have all it’s villagers build as many buildings as possible and make bases that span the whole world map just to show off it’s infinite resources and ungodly building times.
Multiplay: 2/10
Clearly the weakest point of the game. This is an absolutely missed opportunity. Not only does almost no one play online, but also they all insist on either playing a 7-hour standard game or a 5-minute death match. On top of all of that, almost all the bad examples in the gameplay section apply here: Slow gameplay, over powered units, etc.
Overall: 5/10
Empire Earth was a missed opportunity. It could have dominated the market but it was way to choppy and poorly made. Only buy it if (like me) you love Age type games, history, or Civilization. Otherwise, spare yourself the pain.