The Entente Gold and Empire Earth Collection

[belbincolne]

I bought these two games because the Entente seemed to be a strategy wargame that looked interesting and was the original plus an add-on on one disc and Empire Earth because it basically seemed to be an upgraded Age of Empires and had another upgrade included.

I assumed that I wouldn't get a paper manual as they were mid-price compilations (about £15) but found that neither had a manual on the disc either! There were also flaws - EE had no read me and so no way of seeing if they were curable the mfrs (Vivendi) did try to help and sent me a patch which gave me a read me - in Spanish!

Entente's read me mentioned possible flaws on XP and how to cure but they didn't (crash at first auto-save). As I bought by post I've now returned both of them cos I only had seven days to do it but I wondered if anyone else had tried them and what they'd found (and if they were good games). I suspect that its only the "Gold " and "Collection" versions which are like this and, again, wonder if anyones had any other games without a Manual - is it a new trend cos "No-one ever reads manuals" to guote one Mfr.

[s_stabeler]

no manual even on a disc isn't a good sign. as far as i know, no manufacturer would do that. as to the games- i have no idea.

[The King of Spain]

I don't think that Entente is a particularly good game anyway. It bought it because I've always fancied a WW1 stratergy game, but was bitterly disapointed by the anoying gameplay and difficulty in controling troops. I would also have appreciated some trenches, as it is a WW1 game

As for Empire Earth, it is quite fun for a while, but it's almost identical to all the other Age of Empires spin-offs out there (and there do seem to be an awful lot of them). Once you've played one, you've played them all.

[belbincolne]

Yeah Entente was ridiculous because it always crashed and I wanted Empire Earth because my original Age of Empires wont played on XP pro and I cant be bothered to keep going back to my old computer - another real annoying thing about AofE is that you cant start playing at episode 8 (say) and when you've changed computers (which I do roughly every two years) to go back to the start yet again is so dadgumed annoying.

[The King of Spain]

Can't you use a cheat to get back to where you were before?