Price: Free
Rating: 
Rising Empires
Android App Review by AndroidAppsReview.com
Reviewed by Luke Patrick
Here at Android Apps Review, we don’t like to fool you or lie to you. In fact, we try to straight shoot you as often as we possibly can. Which is why we’re going to say this about the incredibly detailed strategy game from Hellhound Interactive, Rising Empires: We wanted to hate it so much, but we just couldn’t.
The game looks like it was made 20 years ago (We can’t believe we can say that now. . .) and it’s made of (essentially) ripped-off fantasy elements.
But when you get down to it, Rising Empires remains the deepest, most compelling Android strategy game we have ever seen. If that’s enough to get your attention, then head on down below the break for more information!
Concept and Gameplay
To gain an appreciation for why we instantly disliked Rising Empires so much, let us describe it to you: It’s a 4x strategy (that means tiled, for the uninitiated) game in which you start a map, pick one of six races, then choose a religion.
All of these provide stats differences and power variations. Then, you expand, conquer, negotiate, and slaughter your way to total world domination. In case you were wondering, yes, you’ve got rocs, elves, humans, Ent like creatures, etc. in the mix.
With this in mind, we thought we’d be in for a rather more traditional romp through the fantasy backwoods. Man . . . We could not have been more wrong.
Rising Empires for Android
You see, when we say “the choices you make affect stats and powers” we typically mean they change the outcome slightly. With Rising Empires at the wheel, the strategy and complexity are neverending.
There’s almost no limit to how much you can think about, plan for, and strategize your way to victory. With multiple game modes, races that actually differ from one another, multiple layers of terrain, resources, units, research tress, and — do you get the picture?
If you’ve played Civilization then you know what this is. Though, we promise you’ll be highly impressed by the breadth of content here. Enough said on the subject!
Graphics and Game Design
The only reason Rising Empires didn’t score a perfect 5 out of 5 is simple—it looks terrible. We get that the focus was elsewhere, and that the app works on almost any device, but it still looks horrific. We’re not going to poke anymore, so moving onto the good things:
Rising Empires features, as mentioned, an almost psychotic attention to detail. For instance, certain races perform better on certain terrains or in certain structures.
The greenskins suffer a punishment when urbanized, but procreate quickly, allowing for constant war. In comparison, the tree-like Ende need almost an eternity to get it on, and require a sub-group of greenskins to keep up with the labor. And so on and so forth until the sun literally explodes.
We love it.
Overall Value
We cannot impress this upon you enough. If you’re missing the classic tile-based strategy titles of old, and want something almost identically rich and complex, then step up to the plate and grab Rising Empires for free.
We feel like we’ve encouraged you enough at this point, so if the free price tag doesn’t sway you, we can’t be of any help.
Obviously, we’re too busy playing Rising Empires.
Rising Empires requires Android 2.3+ and up. A small expedite fee was paid to speed up the publication of this review.
AndroidAppsReview Rating:
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