Empire Earth III

Empire Earth III is a 2007 real-time strategy game and the last entry in the Empire Earth series. It was developed by Mad Doc Software (later known as Rockstar New England after Rockstar Games' acquisition) and published by Vivendi Games (known as Sierra Entertainment when it was released). It is also widely considered to be one of the worst real-time strategy games ever made.

Why It Killed The Empire Earth Franchise

 * 1) Dumbed down gameplay, when compared to the earlier games. While the first two games have at least 15 ages, this game only has 5. The first two games also featured more than 10 different civilizations with their own abilities and unique units (even if they are cosmetically similar to each other), while this game only has 3 factions: Middle Eastern, Western, and Far Eastern.
 * 2) Outdated graphics, by 2007 standards, with stiff animation and poor effects to boot.
 * 3) Bizarre and cartoony art style.
 * 4) Poor framerate.
 * 5) Terrible voice acting, shared with the other games in the series.
 * 6) Plagued with bugs and glitches. For instance, while your units are exploring the regions in the map hidden by the fog of war, the terrain remains hidden, yet objects appear on the screen.
 * 7) Tends to crash a lot.
 * 8) The campaign mode from the earlier games get replaced with a "World Domination" mode that rips off Rise of Nations and the Total War series. What’s worse, this mode is extremely easy, thanks to weak and poor AI that can be easily beaten (see below), and your reward for beating it is a cheesy animation sequence.
 * 9) Unbelievably easy due to poor AI. They don’t progress from age-to-age and put up a rather lame resistance whenever you attack their base.
 * 10) Inept unit pathfinding. For instance, ground units have an extremely hard time getting aboard naval transports, rotating around their current position, even if said transports are empty and docked next to said units.

Reception
The game was received poorly by critics. GameSpot gave it 3.5 of 10 saying "The developer's questionable sense of taste and humor is also on display in the visuals and sound... Empire Earth III has been dumbed down to the point of irrelevance." IGN gave it a 5.4 of 10 saying "the animations aren't very good and the performance leaves a lot to be desired". GameSpy had similar complaints: "bugs, muddled combat, or weak AI aren't things that strategy fans have to live with." Game Revolution gave the game a D-, stating "Honestly, if the game didn't try to make you hate it, it would be perfectly tolerable, maybe even enjoyable." Mad Doc Software has since removed all references to the development of Empire Earth III from their homepage before being taken over by Rockstar Games. As of 2017, Rebellion Developments owns the IP.