Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13335 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Deep Silver
• Released on: 2005-09-02
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description
Earth 2160 is the official sequel of the award winning EARTH series and continues the on going saga started in Earth 2140 and Earth 2150. Only a few thousand humans managed to escape from Earth before its collapse in 2150 A.D. They spent the next few years terra forming the red planet, developing new technologies and rebuilding civilisation. Over time each of the three factions "Eurasian Dynasty", "United Civilised States" and "Lunar Corporation" diversified enough to become completely separate from each other - but in the year 2160 something happens that could threaten the existence of them all. Will they join forces as a coalition, or will the age old animosities continue to cause interfaction war?

Customer Reviews

not for the faint hearted...
I've been playing these games for over a decade now and they usually play like this: build a big army then raid the enemy base. 2160 just isn't like that at all. It has a very steep learning curve; even after the second mission I was finding it a bit on the difficult side and I was on the easy setting - shame on me!

So it's a bit hard but is it any good. YES! It's a great game. It takes a while to get used to the freedom you have such as buidling your own vehicles using researched technology in a lego kind of way. The story line is grand if you like that sort of thing, I never pay attention to them in these games. The controls are good, very similar to Ground Control II and the like with zoom control and panning in their for looking about. In short, all the usual stuff is done well, very well.

There are many news additions to the RTS genre in here but the one that sticks out in my mind is the Picture-in-Picture function where you can tag an area and have it in a window to monitor. Although already seen in Empire Earth II the difference here is the FPS bit - it is possible to see the battles through the eyes of any one of your warriors on the field. Nice.

If you like RTS then you'll be impressed with this. Things have come along way since Dune II back in the Westwood days.

can be challenging but annoying.
The designers of this game claim it plays mainly off the graphics card (whatever that means!). Your system may run high-end FPS games such as half-Life 2 or Quake 4 beautifully, but if you don't have a state-of-the-art video graphics card, in order to obtain a reasonable frame-rate, you'll have to turn down the resolution until the game feels and looks like computer games of ten years ago. There are bugs aplenty and serious flaws in the AI; in the LC campaign, for instance, heroine Ariah will unfailingly rush headlong into the attack against overwhelming odds and get killed, even when repeatedly directed to stop or go to another location. The only way to protect her is to immobilise her on a hilltop in an aerial unit. This is stupid! as is the inability of infantry or armoured units to climb even the simplest obstacles. Gameplay maps are extremely basic - there should be a random terrain generator or at least double the number of maps to make the Skirmish games interesting. Campaign gameplay alternates between dull games that a Chimpanzee could win in minutes and horrifyingly difficult games that take weeks (for me at least) to work out a viable strategy. The scripting is also absurd. Having said that, the skirmish games can be a challenge when combatting three opponents in medium or hard mode, and no doubt it is interesting enough to play online. Online help is non-existant and despite being on the market more than six months, there's still no "walkthrough" available; either it's considered too hard or too boring!

Not to shabby.
This game is well worth the money i paid for it. it's clearly well thought out and the tool for creating your own troops etc is a nice touch. you just have to be careful your pc's up to it though, it will need a good, fairly new graphics card and a good proccessor is vital. But give it a try and if it works you won't be dissapointed!