Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

Empire Earth expanded the limits of the real-time strategy genre with its massive time line and variety of fighting units. Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (EDMW) builds on that success with detailed gameplay from unique civilizations across five ages: Medieval, Imperial, Gunpowder, World War I, and World War II. The detailed graphics are impressive, especially during battles, but not nearly as high-quality as the recently released Rise of Nations, and the interface suffers slightly from the inability to zoom out far enough. The gameplay, however, is rock-solid, and the different nature of each civilization contributes to a high replay value.
Some complaints about Empire Earth apply to EDMW. Even though you're constructing B-52 bombers in the World War II Age, your citizens are still living off apple trees and mining rocks. In fact, the game doesn't deal with market economics at all, since each civilization must exist as a standalone economy.
Despite the massive download sizes of both demos, installation is painless and system requirements are reasonable. We did experience one system crash during a deathmatch with the computer in the multiplayer demo as well as a few moderate program hangs, but an auto-save feature allays some of that frustration.

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