Empire Earth 3 vs Shogun: Total War
Empire Earth 3
Empire Earth 3 is unfortunately the final stopper to what had been a pretty solid real-time strategy game. What happened? Well, the game seemed to have went on a completely wrong route and ended up stripping itself of all the best parts in an attempt to borrow from other game franchises. Not to mention, their implementation, be it borrowed ideas or pretty good ideas of their own, is simply horrendous. However, all of these might not be apparent to players who have not played any of the Empire Earth games before so if you've seen good reviews of the game... well, this is probably the reason behind it.Empire Earth 3 has hammered in the final nail in the franchise's coffin and it's truly a pity. The series itself has plenty of potential and could have been as great as some of the classic real-time strategy games that are still very well-known today, but due to whatever reason, things happened, a poor game was rolled out, and everything just fell apart. Empire Earth 3 may not be worth buying for fans of the previous two Empire Earth games, but if you're a collector or if you're new to the series, you might still want to give it a try.
Shogun: Total War
Shogun: Total War is the first original title in a legendary, 15-year (and counting), award-winning, real-time strategy game series that currently spanned across multiple themes and settings. However, this game is set in ancient Japan - 1542 to be exact - when the last shogunate collapsed and the entire nation is thrown into conflict as multiple daimyo (faction leaders) vie for the most powerful seat. To make things worst, Europeans have also ventured to island at this point, bringing guns, religion and disease - factors that you'll eventually have to deal with if you are to attain the people's support and conquer the whole of Japan.The gameplay in Shogun: Total War is akin to Rise of Nations in the sense that each battle is carried out in real-time, but moving your troops on the world map is pretty much turn-based (Risk-style). However, unlike the latter, the battle itself is purely consisted of the actual fighting rather than having you build a base and amassing resources and an army. Instead, Shogun lets you view the entire battlefield from any view you like and send commands to your troops as the battle unfolds. This is basically something that's unheard of until this game came along.
Shogun: Total War may be an old game by modern standards, and due to this, many players might simply opt for its sequel in order to have a taste of that this game has to offer. However, if you truly want to experience the very first of the Total War series, this is the game to play.