Review of:
EARTH 2140 
by Greg Miller, Alamo PC

Can you beat back the fierce onslaught of the Eurasian Dynasty? Are you the tactician who can defeat the superior technology of the United Civilized States? Which side will ultimately be victorious? Only you can decide when you play EARTH 2140! 

This new game is produced by Interplay Productions. EARTH 2140 is a real time strategy and tactics game set in the not too distant future. If you aren't familiar with the "real time strategy" concept, I'll give you an overview here. Basically, everything happens simultaneously in a real time environment. All of your units can move at once, and so can your enemies. The trick is controlling them all. Unlike a turn based game where you take a turn and then the computer or your opponent takes a turn, in a real time environment once the action starts, there's no stopping it. If you take too long to decide what to do, your opponent will gain the advantage. 

 In some ways, this simulates real battle conditions, as there are no "turns" in battle. In other ways it can be unrealistic. If you give no orders for instance, the only thing your troops will do is defend themselves and/or sit around saying "duh". Well, on second thought, maybe it is pretty realistic after all. 

The game itself is not a new idea. If you have ever played any of the Command and Conquer series of games you will instantly have a feel for this one. It is very similar in most respects. You control your military units with basic orders like move, attack, guard, or escort. They generally will either be used for scouting out or attacking your foe, or protecting your base. 

Unlike real life where the underdog sometimes wins, I have, unfortunately, not found an instance in this game where an inferior unit can beat a superior one (unless you massively out number it). No fortunes of war so to speak. You also build various buildings to help you set up your base. These allow you to produce power, make more military units, mine for raw materials, and set up defenses. 

You have to manage your resources such as power and raw materials (defined ultimately as dollars) carefully. If you build too many buildings but only have one power plant you may not be able to use some of these buildings. If you build a lot of defense towers right away, your base may be protected, but you may not have enough money left to build the mines and refineries necessary to complete your base. As many games try to do, this one wants you to attempt to balance your resources while fighting the war. 

In the end you end up being commander-in-chief of your army as well as CEO of Defense Products Unlimited Inc. 

 In order to play this game you first need to spend $1000 to $2500 for a really neat computer. Otherwise when you open the box all you get to do is read the manual and stare at the pretty CD. If you decide to get the computer, or, by some wild stretch of imagination, you already own one, you must have at least the following minimum requirements to run EARTH 2140. You'll need a 90 MHz Pentium system with 16 Mb RAM, a 2X CD-ROM, at least 36 MEG free on your hard drive, an SVGA/VESA 2.0 compatible graphics card with at least 1 Mb RAM that supports high color mode, and a SoundBlaster or 100% compatible sound card. I ran the game on my 166 MHz MMX system with a Matrox Mystique 4 MEG video card and had no major problems. 

The only thing that may be a minor irritant (if you can compensate for it with your monitor controls) is that the game is very dark in 600X800 mode. It does not have to be run in that mode though. Installation is a breeze in Windows 95. There are very few set up requirements. I was a bit disappointed that this was still designed as a DOS based game that was only Windows 95 compatible. I guess DOS will die a hard, slow, agonizing, painful, …etc. death. 

If you think EARTH 2140 might be for you, don't go looking for it in any of San Antonio's big three retail software providers. Best Buy, Computer City, and CompUSA do not carry it. Never fear though! 

After two hours and 45 minutes of searching I found some at Electronics Boutique. This chain, that I never previously knew existed, has three locations here locally (I know, I should get out more). You can find them at the Rolling Oaks, River Center or Ingram Park Malls. The phone number for the Rolling Oaks store is 651-5765. It will only cost you $29.99 plus tax. 

If you wish to use the Net you can order it direct from Interplay. Just go to their Web site at http://www.interplay.com; order the game, give them $39.95 plus $6.50 shipping and handling with your major credit card, wait a small eternity for it to arrive via snail mail, and viola! you'll have the game. Interplay does not at this time seem to have a downloadable version available. I checked several sites for one. 

If you want to see what's on the web about this game, go to http://www.interplay.com/earth/index.html. There is also a 15 MEG demo available if you want to try it out before you buy. 

Some final thought before I go. If your idea of computer gaming is solitaire or hearts, this game is probably not for you. If you like games like Risk and can handle moving faster, then this game MIGHT be for you. If you use "way cool" in sentences a lot, or you are a serious gamer, you'll probably get right into it. 

It is a step up from the Command and Conquer games, a small, itty bitty one. If you like C & C and want more, then you'll like EARTH 2140. If you want a lot more than C & C offers, you need to try Total Annihilation by Cave Dog. I believe it offers a more true next generation in real time strategy games. Try the demo before you buy! 

EARTH 2140 will shock you initially when you see how thick the instruction manual is with this game. Then when you read it and find only 17 pages of moderately useful information in a 68 page manual, you'll come out of it and realize that they were just kidding, tech data (or for that mater, useful info on game play) doesn't really exist any more. There are no hints or strategies yet at the Interplay web site either. I assume that there will be some soon since there were plenty for their other games. 

As with most games now, you can play EARTH 2140 over the net, on a LAN (your boss'll love that!), or over a modem. The bottom line is, it's a good game, but probably not a great game. I have definitely enjoyed playing it. 

Oh yeah, if you want a kick, check out the design credits in the back of the instruction manual. These guys are definitely NOT from Texas (or any lesser part of these United States for that matter). 

Greg Miller is an electronics technician who fixes simulators (or anything else with ‘trons flowing in it). He is also a gamer who only uses "way cool" in sentences for demonstration purposes, and is a PC enthusiast who can't say enough good things about Alamo PC.