The first strategy game I ever played was AoE II, then after spending an inordinate amount of my middle school years conquering as the Mongols, I moved on to other critical darlings like Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology, and Rome: Total War. I had never met a strategy game I didn't want to spend weekend after weekend mastering, until I popped this game in a few weeks ago for the first time in a few years, and was all but disgusted. Though this game may have been significant when I was in third grade, it is now obsolete in every sense of the word. The concept remains good in attempting bring a little more action to the historical RTS world, but when the original AoE can't even get its unit designations right, one has to wonder about even the accuracy of this "Historical" RTS. My beef? Infantry units, mostly. Legions were a Roman development, which came centuries after the hoplite revolution in Greece, the phalanx is misused, as it is a formation of hoplites, not an individual. I'll take this as a segway into the lack of formations, which may not have even crossed player's minds in '97, but 10 years later and having come to expect them in every RTS, I found myself wanting to hang myself with my mouse cord (maybe it's time for wireless...) after having my archers constantly march in front of my infantry, only to be mowed down by absurd numbers of enemy elephants and leave my hapless infantry with no support. The balance seemed alright, but the enemy AI is just plain murderous. Fifteen minutes into my Deathmatch I actually found myself wanting to return to my homework on German conjunctions...
I was out of gaming for over 10 years. A person at work had me download the trial for AoE and that is how I became addicted again. RTS games are away to create an environment that allow for people of all ages to enjoy ... Read Full Review
Microsoft has decided to make a game about something that they are experts on, the rise of an empire. At first glance, Age of Empires looks sort of like a cross between Civilization 2 and Warcraft II, and that is a fairl... Read Full Review
