Computer Games - What can you tell us at this time about Empire Earth II's multiplayer modes?

Ian Davis - We've got a lot happening in multiplayer. In Empire Earth II we have the standard multiplayer modes (Death Match, King of the Hill, and straight Conquest), as well as co-op and observer modes. We've also added new multiplayer modes for the fresh features in the game (Crowns, Territories, etc.). For example, we'll have "Hot Spots" for Territories, a specific multiplayer mode that highlights specific territories on the map. The first person who controls most of them, wins the game (or match).

Let's look at one of my favorite new game types "Sole Survivor." Basically, it's a standard "conquest" game, until one of the sets of allies wins. At that moment, the winning team is automatically broken up (subsequent new alliances can be made among subsets of the remaining players, but any time there's only one team left, it's broken up). Now here's the interesting thing: it makes you think long and hard about who you ally with. Dead in your tracks, it stops you from simply choosing the strongest player, because the strongest player - just may be the one that you're playing against later. I find that many RTS games fall back to: "join the team with the best player, and then win." Empire Earth II makes every MP match exciting and dynamic with this mode.

It's in Sole Survivor mode that the Diplomacy system gets a real workout. There's so much more suspense, fear, and thrill in MP games now. Anyone who makes an RTS game from here on out without Sole Survivor is just being silly.

It's also important to note that Empire Earth II's multiplayer interface (along with all the interfaces in the game) has been totally redesigned. Since we started from scratch on a brand new codebase to make a brand new engine, we reworked a lot of UI elements. As you might imagine, we've been having daily MP games with the leads on the project for some time now, and it's only gotten better. All of the info and feedback generated from these (and many other) MP games, most definitely helped us to balance and improve the game as a whole, and that in turn helped us balance and improve the SP missions.