Cyber Empires

It's 1992, the floppy drive is whirring, loading takes forever, and I'm sitting in front of the monitor with that typical orangish glow in a dark room. Cyber Empires from Silicon Knights was exactly the kind of game where you'd spend the whole weekend and then wonder where two Saturdays went.

The plot is classically straightforward: five empires clash over control of the strategically key planet Orion. Conventional armies are a thing of the past, now giant combat robots are taking center stage — cybernetic warriors who decide the fate of civilizations. The sci-fi premise didn't really grab anyone back then, but the theme of robotic armies had the right appeal in 1992.

The game combines a strategy layer with direct robot combat, and this mix was actually a bit unusual for the time. First planning, then action — you build, position your forces, and then watch your steel colossi clash with the enemy. The combat part is straightforward and gets a bit repetitive over time, but in 1992 it was a welcome change of pace from pure turn-based strategy. Multiplayer was apparently a strong point — Computer Gaming World apparently called it one of the best multiplayer games of 1992, which makes sense for the time of modems and LAN parties in your neighbor's apartment.

What's aged the worst is the pace. Today's players used to instant feedback will be surprised on first launch at just how much patience wasn't an optional bonus here, but a requirement. The controls feel clunky by modern standards and the interface demands a certain amount of willpower. On the other hand — the strategy layer has depth that forgives a lot, and the feeling of building your own cybernetic army and deploying it to the field keeps that specific old-school charm.

Today Cyber Empires will appeal mainly to those who want to experience how this hybrid genre of strategy and action looked at the very beginning. It's not flawless, but it's an honest product of its time — before Silicon Knights moved on to other projects and before the genre went through revolutionary changes in the second half of the nineties. Running it today in DOSBox through a browser takes less time than loading from a floppy disk back then. At least that's improved.