Empires: Dawn of the Modern World Hands-On Impressions
We take an exclusive hands-on look at Stainless Steel Studios' upcoming real-time strategy game.
For years now, real-time strategy games have had us scrambling to collect resources, building bases, and quickly creating armies to smash our opponents before they can do likewise. Some of the most recent games of this genre have truly been exceptional, as they've presented both innovative features and extremely deep gameplay. Stainless Steel Studios is attempting to make an even more impressive game with Empires: Dawn of the Modern World--a history-themed game that will encompass 1,000 years of human history. The game will feature two entirely separate gameplay styles: epic empire-building and fast-paced head-to-head action. We recently had the opportunity to sit down and play the latest version of the game ourselves.
The game will feature five different time periods, or epochs, including such popular venues as the Middle Ages of Europe and World War II. We played a few "action" games, from each of these epochs, while in the head-to-head multiplayer mode. You start these epochs, as well as others, with a few citizens--who are essentially worker units that build structures and/or gather resources for your civilization--and a town hall structure that produces new citizens. The town hall also lets you research new global technologies that can be used to improve your civilization's economy. Technology enhancements can improve resource-gathering, encourage faster building, and so on. Many of the game's civilizations share a few basic buildings in common. These include: barracks--which produce infantry units; armories--which are used to research military upgrades; stables--which produce cavalry units; granaries--which aid in food production and gathering; universities--from which you may research the game's classified projects (powerful global effects that may be used only twice in a match); and, in later epochs, airports--which are used to recruit fighter planes, bombers, and flying personnel transports. However, these commonly shared structures all produce unique units that play different roles during the course of the game.
We saw these unit differences in action during our first multiplayer game. Our campaign took place during the Middle Ages, and we played as the Korean civilization. In Empires, the Koreans are an aggressive race who have a few unique economic advantages. Specifically, they can gather resources more quickly than other civilizations and can start new games with an exceptionally large number of citizens. However, the town hall produces citizens in an extremely slow manner. A better way to increase your economy is to defeat enemy soldiers, who immediately become bondservant citizens under your control.
And the Korean military enjoys several, powerful global bonuses that give them an edge on the battlefield during the Middle Ages. This is particularly true of its infantry units. These bonuses include the martial arts ability, which causes units to deliver more damage and lets them move more quickly, and, once you've built a temple, the zen ability, which briefly makes certain units invulnerable to damage. All special abilities are displayed onscreen as a set of icons. So, if you have a group of units selected, you can access all special abilities for any selected unit here. Then, by clicking that icon, all applicable units automatically use the ability. If you prefer, you can, of course, use hotkey shortcuts instead.
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- GameSpot Score 8.5 great
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Empires: Dawn of the Modern World Gameplay Movie: Weapons & Items
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- Oct 29, 2003
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- Activision
- Stainless Steel
- Historic Real-Time...
- Release: Oct 21, 2003
- ESRB: Teen
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