Image you are back in 1991 and you are seated at your brand new 486DX2 computer and peering into the screen fully intent on watching a little yellow ant more around the screen. The yellow ant battles with a red ant….the yellow ant wins. The ant moves into enemy territory where it finds the enemies home. Utilizing it’s amazing strength the ant piles a rock onto the opening of the ant hill, trapping those below ground into an eternal tomb. Victorious, the ant makes it’s way back to a place it calls home. So is the life of an ant, and exciting, organized, and very fruitful life. For those of you who are unaware, I have been describing one of the greatest computer games in the last ten years (and one of my personal favorites) SimAnt by Maxis. Receiving Empire of the Ants (EotA) made me think back to what it was like to play SimAnt, and how much fun it really was to try and take over the yard and conquer the world. Unfortunately, I think this is the last thing Strategy First and developer Microids wanted, as EotA is nothing like 1991’s classic simulation game. With an interesting premise, the game falters under the heavy burden of a clunky interface, and uninteresting gameplay.

Empire of the Ants is not a bad game, don’t get me wrong. The premise, as I mentioned before, is very interesting, and a highly intelligent one. Controlling ants in a real time strategy environment seems like one of the most natural game designs to come out of any developer in years, but the nagging problems that this game possess inhibit it from being something more than it actually is.

EotA is based off of a book (which is near death for a game in any event), but I didn’t even know that until I read through the instruction book. Even thought the story is uninspired, the game still looks to have promise. Installation wasn’t as easy as it should be, and every time I booted the game up, I would get a message about some controller configuration error, as long as I hit OK I was thrown into the game and had no further problems.

In any game, it is best to read through the instruction book, and play through the tutorials. Empire gives you two tutorials to get you started with the game. The first is an above ground lesson; the second takes you into the ant hill and lets you learn about the intricacies of the hole. The above ground simulation was rather bland in it’s explanation of what I was suppose to be accomplishing, but in any event I did manage to get through it without too much of problem (except loosing my entire army to a Praying Mantis). I couldn’t even finish the below ground tutorial, as I got to the point where I couldn’t do a damn thing. All the game would let me do is spin around and click on two beetles who happen to be in my anthill.

Playing the actually game isn’t much more fun than the tutorials. Upon starting the very first mission in the game I was required to find resources for my hill. Upon finding resources, I couldn’t get an ant to collect them, or any ants to collect them fast enough, because I kept on getting warnings that food supplies were dangerously low and that if I didn’t return my movies by Midnight I would be fined for an extra day. I’m sure the game excels at waking you up in the morning with all of its lovely warnings, but it sure doesn’t want to make me play it anymore.

Of course even if I wanted to play the game any more I probably would have to still hassle with the very clunky and nerve racking interface you are forced to use. With a real time strategy game such as this one, a good interface is what keeps the game playable and fun for the game. Empire’s interface is one of the most compact I have ever seen, but in return is also one of the worst. The mini-map is just what it says, mini, and the maxi-map option serves no logical purpose. All of the buttons don’t have any logical labels to them. They do have text pop-up when you run your mouse over them, but the pictures that are on them, don’t show what it really does. I just wish more developers would look at the work Blizzard and Westwood have done before they make an RTS and at least try to make an interface that lets their game be enjoyed by the end user.

Another factor that doesn’t sit right with me is the fact you don’t control your worker ants. Like most RTS games (using Blizzard’s StarCraft and WarCraft series as models) the controlling of your workers is makes micro-management fun, and when you don’t have control over the resources that power you to play the rest of the game, a part of the essence that is a real time strategy game is take away.

Empire of the Ants does have some solid points. The graphics are very well done, from the opening FMV to the in game character models and vegetation, the ants look very good. The only thing that bothers me is the jerky animations that inhibit the characters from moving the way a true insect would.

I found Empire of the Ants to be intriguing by reading the back of the box, and imagining what the game would actually be like, but once I sat down and had some quality time with it, I wish I was back in my place where I imagined what it would be to play the game. I guess we will all have to wait for a game that truly, and thoughtfully, brings the classic SimAnt into the 3D world, with the same fun gameplay and strategy elements that made it a classic in the first place. Microids has tried to make a game that would be remembered in the real time strategy genre for years to come, instead we get a game that tries to do everything right, and instead comes up short on almost every aspect that makes a game a classic.