Age of Kings reviews (Age of Empires 2 - Age of Kings (PC))

Member Name: puddum

Product:	Age of Empires 2 - Age of Kings (PC)
Date:	24/02/05 (455 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, Addictive, Multiplayer

Disadvantages: Gets boring after approx 2 months

---INTRO---
Age of Empires 2 is a very hard strategy game, based on civilizations and campaigns in the middle ages. You must build a town, gather resources with your villagers and create an army, which will protect your town and attack the enemy.

---MODES OF PLAY---
In Age of Empires 2 you can play a random map game, a death match, a regicide game, a campaign and even a multiplayer game.

---RANDOM MAP---
In random map you start with 3 villagers, a scout calivary, some sheep, a town centre and some resources. Everytime you play the map is different so you will not repeat a game ever!

---DEATH MATCH---
A death match is similar to a random map game except you start with a lot more resources then fight your enemies to the death.

---REGICIDE GAME---
A regicide game is where you start with extra villagers, a castle and a king. You must defend your own king and attack your enemies king. If your king dies you lose the game. The last king alive rules the world!

---CAMPAIGN---
There are 8 different campaigns in Age of Empires 2 starting with William Wallaces Learning Campaign to get a taste of the game, to real life history heros in the middles ages from Joan of Ark and Genghis Khan, to Saladin and Frederick Barbarossa.

---MULTIPLAYER---
Even though there are difficulty levels for the computer, you still basically face the same strategy every time you play and it gets boring. You can now play multiplayer games to face opponents accross a network or the internet. You can host a game and tell your friends your game IP, or you can use the zone website to find players from accross the world.

---SETTINGS---
There are many settings that you can customize before your game. You can choose out of 13 civilizations, each with a unique unit and a team bonus. There are different map types, where you can choose roughly what your map will be like. You can change how much available resources there are on the map, the starting age, and so on.

---THE AGES---
There are different ages in the game. In order, they are the Dark Age, the Feudel Age, the Castle Age and the Imperial Age. You start at the Dark Age and have to advance through the ages. Each one makes your civilization better by changing the apperance of the buildings, giving you new technology to research, and new units and buildings. To advance, you need to have the required amount of resources for the next age, and 2 buildings from the current age.

---MORE---
There are many more features in Age of Empires 2, but will take too long to explain. If you buy the game where it comes in a cardbord box, you get a 142 page instruction manual, which is extremely useful as it tells you exactly how to do things, some hints for the game, details such as strengths and weaknesses for all buildings and units. There is also an appendix, the technology tree for each tribe, and much more!!!

---WHERE TO BUY---
You can buy this game from most pc game retailers, like computer superstores, and local game shops.

---HOW MUCH---
This game varies from £15 to £30. I got it for £40 because I brought it as part of a offer with another game.

Summary: