EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! (Age of Empires (PC))

Member Name: kylecoare

Product:	Age of Empires (PC)
Date:	12/08/03 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Challenging, cross between civilization and C&C, Months of gameplay

Disadvantages: Can get a bit boring

AGE OF EMPIRES
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This game was made by Ensemble Studios, and released by Microsoft in 1997, Its a Real Time Strategy game with a lot of depth.

Personally im not normally a fan of RTS games, but this one had a little something more, which has made it one of my favourite games.

With lots of options and customizations, this game can be endless, there is just so much that you can do.

GAMEPLAY
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The game is played in the same style as your normal RTS games, such as Command and Conquer, but this game also has a lot of elements of the Civilization Series of games.

When you first load this up you are given a set of options including, Single player, multiplayer and load game, you also get the opetunity to create your own scenarios to play.

When you select the single player game, you are given a vast choice of different ways to play the game, such as playing a single scenario, playing a campaign and deathmatch.

So we will jump straight into the campaign mode, in this you get to choose a Civilisation to play as, such as Eygptions or Greeks, These civilizations all have different goals and enemies.

The best way to start is by playing as the Egyptions, as this is a kind of tutorial, although it gets very hard!

The campaign mode is the basic storyline for the game, this is like a mini history lesson in ways, when you first start it, you will have a little screen which tells you about the next scenario, these scenarios vary quite a lot during the game, some of the missions will involve getting your civilization to a certain number of people, some will be to invade another land and take an artifact back, or defeat an entire army, there are so many variations and they all seem very fresh and different from the last.

The actual gameplay in the missions is all controled my the mouse, you select the characture you want to move and you click the arrow where you
want him to go, simple, the control is so easy to use and after a few minutes you will be fully used to it.

The charactures in the game range from ordinary villigers to priests and soldiers, you will need to use every type of unit to progress furthur into the game.

The villigers are the main unit to begin with, these are the guys that will collect the resources needed to build your little city, as a villiger you can hunt animals and go fishing for food, mine for stone and gold, cut down trees for wood, these things will all be needed over the course of a campaign!
These villigers are also the people that actually build your buildings, these buildings range from simple houses to government buildings.

The other charactures are all used in different situations, Priests can convert a foreign unit to your side, soldiers can just kilkl the other unit!
You will also be able to create boats and catapults and lots of other weapons and transport.

Not only must you fend off foreign armies, you will also have the wildlife to contend with, animals such as lions, big elephants and alligators roam the area that you live in, these will try to kill your units but if you defeat them they can be used as food!

The game also has a very big technology tree, this means that if you research one item it could impact a lot of others, for example you could research the wheel, this would mean that not only could create a catapult, but you could also reseach another thing, meaning that your technology can increase quite far.

You begin the Egyptian campaign with very limited resources, you have three villigers, these must begin your civilization, by getting food and creating houses, as you progree you see how your civilization is advancing through the ages, if you reach a certain point in the game you can advance your tribe, for example you can move them from the stone age to the tool age, this gives more technology to research and b
etter equipt units.

Once you complete your mission you are given a brief account of what happened at this point in history and what happened next, this is like a little history lesson, but its not boring and adds a lot to the games atmosphere.

Other than the campaign mode you can play a single scenario or a deathmatch, these are basically just short missions, that have their own little goals.


GRAPHICS
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The graphics are viewed from a fake 3d angle from above the map, you can see everything thats going on in your general point of view, but you cant see in the areas that you havent explored.

Most of these types of games have quite poor graphics, but this one seems to have a touch of gloss about it, like the animation when you are hunting animals etc.

A lot of the maps are a bit dull to look at, but still nice enough to give you the impression of being there!!


DIFFICULTY
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This is a very difficult game, even for the most hardened RTS gamer this will give quite a lot of challenge, the missions add a lot of variety and you must really use your brain in some situations, you will gain your own personal way of playing the game, but on some levels this might not be the best way to complete it


OVERALL
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This game will give you endless hours of fun, it is so big, it will take a long time to complete and there are lots of add ons available on the net, these range from simple scenarios to complete campaigns.

Ive not played the sequal so i cant comment on which is better but as this was only 5 pounds, with the rise of rome expansion pack, when i got it, this is probably better value!

Thanx for reading.
Kyle

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