"A solid
franchise stepped up a notch makes this one the most refreshing in
the series to date!" There's been a few games in this series now and the general
feeling given to me by correspondence by gamers all over Australia
was simply that it was starting to get a bit stale. Well I am
pleased to let you know that Empires is pretty bloody cool. Why? I
feel that this version is the most story and character intense of
the series. That breaks down to personal opinion however I loved
the way that my guy was building his own "empire" to unify China.
Another thing that I like about this game is it's nod to the
others in it's series and also it's compatibility with those games
in terms of bringing your characters from other DW4 games in to
kick butt. For those of you who
cannot bring in characters never fear, there are stacks of
characters in this game that you need to get up and running in no
time. The cool thing is that not unlike the civilization games,
you get the benefit and experience of trusted advisors who tell
you what you might need to accomplish. You can take heed of them
or ignore, you are the master afterall. Making decisions as
we all know has it's consequences and you better make sure that
you are taking heed of any advice given to you. You can only
listen to one adviser (use their advice) per turn and this may
range from combat tactic all the way to how best to tax the
peasantry in order to build your war machine most effectively. When in the
battlefield you are going to have the morale of your troops to
worry about as well with your armies having strategic Strongholds
that they call their own. Your enemies will have them also and the
taking of a Stronghold will see your men fighting with renewed
vigor as their morale scores get a good boost. Another thing that is
similar to others in the series is how you take on huge groups
just by yourself and do the macho thing and decimate them.
Graphics are just as glorious as the others in the series and the
ability to get down and dirty always looks magnificent. The title
uses the same engine as DW4 so you are not getting any real level
of graphical enhancement, but considering the quality in the game
in the past this is not a problem. One thing that we do
need to look at is that a lot of these games in this series lately
really haven't brought too much to the game other than little add
ons. What we really need is some truly innovative stuff
incorporated before what is a good game goes stale. It's good to
fight in different places etc, however without something NEW to
bring into the same game, my interest is lost very quickly. There are draw and
framerate problems in this game that do get the better of the
action at times and in some cases the VS mode is almost impossible
to enjoy as much as it should have been considering how great an
idea it is. An nice interface has been thrown in showing a map of
the region and the areas that you occupy or want to invade. It's a
good heads up display and very easy to follow. From a strategic
viewpoint, it's easy to get lost in the combat aspect of the game
and lose track of what's going on in other parts of your kingdom
whilst you are having fun. Also it's important to note that you
must have a constant line going from your main kingdom out to your
furthest point in order to maintain effective supply lines. | 
