Age of Empires Review

For my first game review and holding a position of the highest acclaim is the PC game from 1999 Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and The Conquerers Expansion. Don't worry I'm not going to review games often that are covered in dust and long since passed their peak but this is a game that has kept me entertained since I started playing it as a little kid.

We've always had a computer in my house and I remember watching my dad play this one when I was 6 or 7 and then starting to play it when I turned 9. The entire Age of Empires series (they're at III now) are real time strategy games. The campaign, where you are taught to play and eventually playing in harder and harder scenarios features famous warriors and generals of the Middle Ages. You play as Joan of Arc, William Wallace, Genghis Khan, and Attila the Hun (to name a few) each trying to complete different objectives. In most of the campaign levels and in custom battles you attempt to build and protect a city and conquer your enemies at the same time. You use villagers to collect food, gold, wood, and stone resources to build both human units, buildings, upgrades, and advance from one age to the next. As you build your own civilization your enemies (and allies) are doing the same, skirmishes break out once the enemy scouts have found your town and eventually total war is unleashed in waves of soldiers.

Further into the campaigns (and most certainly in custom games) you begin to gain more control over your people and what they can do, in the first few scenarios you're sometimes unable to advance or upgrade certain things based on the nature of the scenario. In a custom game there are about two dozen nations to choose from, each with different strengths and special units, there are a wide selection of maps and game modes to make match different. You can also change the difficulty and number of allies and enemies in each game.

Despite having the old version I never find my game lagging or causing me any gameplay hindrances although the water is purple rather than blue. A buddy of mine bought the remastered version for his Mac and it looks great. It is a really fantastic game to play and one I find myself still playing from time to time twelve years after my first play through.

Most stores don't carry it but Amazon still has copies that are quite cheap. If you like strategy games it wont disappoint. Its a 10/10 for me without a doubt. Build castles and enjoy. (Britons are my favourite civilization for a custom game)

- GRead [as always]

I have posted a link below, it is from youtube, it is not my video. I don't own the rights or anything, but it is a good view of the type of gameplay that will occur. He/she plays in a more zoomed out screen than I do but you do get to see some game play. (Note how many villagers he has allocated to farming, be greedy and collect as many resources as you can, you'll need them)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPNaWwKbElA