s I installed Empires, I was fully prepared to suffer through another cheap knockoff of Warcraft III and/or Age of Mythology. To my surprise, this is actually a good knockoff. The game takes place on a grandiose scale and traverses four epochs, much like AoM, from Medieval to World War II. This gives it a distinctive flavor, and one which I enjoyed quite thoroughly.

Empires does a number of things very well, including formation settings for unit groups, unique traits for each civilization, and an awesome map generator. That’s right, you can set up random maps with extremely deep customization options. In addition, there are currently two variants to gameplay – Action and Empire Builder, each of which tweaks the rules and greatly influences the flow of play. Multiplayer is an incredibly diverse experience, and offers something quite different from the big boys.

Single-player is somewhat unimpressive, but that’s okay. If more than five percent of the RTS crowd plays primarily single-player, I’m the Queen of England. Empires manages to be in the same league as the two RTS giants, and that’s no mean feat. Definitely worth your time if you dig the genre.  

MATTHEW KATO   8 Empires distinguishes itself not only by its inventive distinctions among its factions, but through the Empire Builder and Action modes. The first is more traditional, while the other is more like a sequence of scenarios; forgoing the typical collect, build, and attack cycle. Empires’s is worth looking into, even if not groundbreaking.