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Introduction

Real-time strategy gaming has gone through several cycles in its short life. During the heyday of RTS games in 1997, we saw the release of Earth 2140, a forgettable game at best. Now the sequel to that game, Earth 2150, is enjoying great popularity in Europe and a good reception in the United States. Earth 2150 is packed full of features, taking just about every feature found in the Great Encyclopedia of RTS gaming and cramming it into one game. Additionally, it seems that in just about every RTS game, scientific advancements lead to one thing: global conflict. The same is true for Earth 2150, set 150 years in the future with three separate, and very unique government factions fighting for their lives before the world is destroyed. Sporting some top-notch 3D graphics and a feature set envied by just about every old-school hardcore RTS gamer, Earth 2150 is set to become perhaps one of the most complete RTS games of this year.

In Earth 2150 you can choose to play as any one of three factions. Each faction is completely different from the others, and each offers a distinguishing form of tactics and strategy. The Eurasian Dynasty (ED) is the most primitive faction, composed of what’s left of Europe and Asia after a world conflict left everything in ruins. The technology they use is based on old Soviet weaponry from the 20th century, giving them a mostly traditional arsenal of equipment and weapons. With the Eurasian Dynasty, you’ll be deploying the usual tanks and rocket vehicles, and fighting the old-fashioned way. The United Civilized States (UCS) is another faction that consists of what remains of the U.S. government after they accidently started WWIII. The UCS has developed computerized machines to do everything from running the government to fighting wars. Hence, they focus on mechanical battle units to do all their dirty work. The third faction, Lunar Corporation, is controlled by a group of wealthy idealists who built a colony on the moon in order to escape the destructive wars and conflicts on Earth. Lunar Corporation is the most scientifically advanced of the three factions, and relies on alien hovercraft and propulsion technology for building a superior fighting force.

Whether you choose to play as the Eurasian Dynasty, United Civilized States, or Lunar Corporation, your most prevalent, long-range goal will be to gather enough resources to complete production of an evacuation fleet. Apparently, Earth has been knocked off its axis by a major nuclear blast unleashed by the ED as they retaliated against the UCS during the last war. Of course the Lunar Corporation might have had nothing to worry about, except that the moon is now being dragged along with the Earth on a suicidal collision course with the sun. Given, resource gathering has become somewhat of a pet peeve with gamers. Yet, the story behind Earth 2150 makes this feature slightly more plausible than in other RTS games. The missions in Earth 2150 consist of sub-plots as you try to locate and harvest enough resources for the evacuation fleet. Unfortunately, the missions are marred by repetitive gameplay, almost always consisting of orders to locate another mineral source in order to send a specified amount of resources back to the main base.