EMPYRE: Lords of the Sea Gates

If you can read this, you know how to read. If you enjoy reading, you'll like this game. One of it's strong points is the dialog which is brimming with witty banter. Over time, the character's varied personalities really shine through and you feel like you know them. The dank, dark, gritty, dirty buildings of the city really fit the idea of a city soaked in ocean waves. It's how I imagined it would be living in such an environment. Also spare a moment to read a tooltip or two and you'll discover many hidden gems. Did you, for instance, know that Mohicans played a part in building New Yorks skyscrapers because they were fearless at dizzying heights and, sadly, willing to accept lower pay than other workers. Or that firemen once operated like gangs controlling parts of the city. When a building burned, the firemen gangs would fight over who got to do the looting. And then there's the voting. Don't get me started on how they used to conduct voting... There is a deep, rich game here to be discovered. To get the most out of it, you need to look a little closer at the details which are scattered everywhere. I wouldn't recommend this game to people who don't enjoy reading and explo…

Really neat concept and potential for a story. Really clunky to play. I waited for this to go on sale for a long time and it essentially never does. Wildly overpriced at $30.

Although I'm still only halfway through I like it. The story and the settings seems interesting, the soundtrack has a funky feel to it. I needed a couple fights to learn to use the combat system, but after a while I got used to pause and plan my moves. Overall it's a nice game.

Great setting, nice art and many good ideas, all buried under horrendously bad user interface that makes it borderline unplayable for me. Seriously, it was already done right by all isometric rpgs over 20 years ago, why can't you just copy their solutions instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

The game has a really nice concept, the story is quite original. There are a lot of interesting places to explere even quite early on. The dialogs are great too.

I played a lot with this game because the victorian style steam punk world created in this game is very interesting. The quality of the graphics is not on the same level as the top games but it is well made with a good atmosphere. The gameplay is the same old rpg feeling, with party, movement, action (fights and dialogs), collecting loot, get stronger. The story is interesting, the setting is exciting.