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The best compliment I can give Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings is that even after all these years I still play and enjoy the hell out of this game. There are so many strategy games these days that we are spoiled for choice.
However, while it may not be the best looking by today's standards, I feel that this is a game that holds up in every single regard and is still one of the most rewarding strategy games ever created.
You will be starting off in the dark ages where you have next to nothing and are constantly fighting for survival. You then advance to the Castle Age and here you can build, well castles and more advanced weaponry and fortifications.
The final age in the game is The Imperial Age and this is a far cry to what you were doing in the dark ages! You now can have an elite city with paladins that can kick some major butt. There is a fantastic sense of progression in the campaign and everything makes perfect sense.
It is very impressive how the Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings not only has 18 different civilizations in the game but how different they each are. At a glance, it may look like there are only subtle differences, but the differences are quite deep. The British can expert bowmen and the Franks can do heavy damage with throwing axes for example. The way the battles work is very clever in that each unit can crush another type, but there is also a counter for each unit. It is a delicate balancing act and really requires you to think about how you go about things on the battlefield.
It is this kind of gameplay that makes this such an addictive game for me. A huge part of what makes this such a popular game is that it is up to you how you play it. I am the kind of player that likes to steamroll my enemies before they have a chance to get too powerful. This means I have to rise very quickly and get my units up to speed as quickly as I can.
Other players might like to take a more balanced approach or go for something that is more defensive. It is really up to you how you go about trying to prove your might in this game. As I write this, we are talking about a game that is the better part of 20 years old.
Even with that being said, I feel the visuals hold up fairly well. They may not be as sharp or as detailed as a modern real time strategy game, but you can still easily tell what everything is supposed to be in this game which is all you can really ask for.
I could go on and on forever about what an amazing game Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings is. The fact of the matter is that in a review like this, I can only touch the surface of what makes this such an amazing experience.
The level of choice that you have is just staggering and something even many modern RTS games have not come close to offering. Rather than reading a load of stuff about this game, I demand you to just go and play it right now! William H Gates III may well be the stepson of Satan, but by the horns of his adopted father, the boy's done all right for himself. No matter what gripes you have over Internet Explorer, DirectX or Windows, Microsoft's games have come on leaps and bounds since they released that soccer game a few years back.
Significantly, in fact, since Age Of Empires, Microsoft's steady stream of entertainment applications has generally been of a very high quality. Initially, after just a few hours of dabbling with the game, indulging in a spot of one-player skirmishes or dipping a toe into one of the five single-player campaigns, I wasn't too impressed. I actually blurted out - to my eternal shame - something along the lines that it was a bit shit.
Then, as the hours rolled by, I gradually warmed to its hidden charms. I wouldn't go as far as to say that Age Of Empires II is the most addictive game on the planet, but I can certainly see myself playing it on a regular basis, at least until the next game appears in a couple of years' time -which I'm sure it will.
First impressions, then, are a bit 'been-there, done-that'. You collect resources in this case food, wood, stone and gold , then you assemble buildings, spend resources on military units and then twat your opponent into submission, be they real or not. However, it's not quite that simple. If we take the resource management side of things, it would be fair to say that Age II has no equal on PC.
Getting food isn't just about sending your peasants off to gather nuts. You can herd sheep, hunt deer, pick berries, fish and farm. Then you have to build a mill to hoard your dead meat and fruit before it starts to smell, likewise, you'll need a mining camp to stash gold and stone, a lumber camp for wood and a dock from which you can send ships to dredge the oceans.
The resource management could be a game in itself though not a very good one, admittedly. If you've played and enjoyed the original Age OfEmpires, you'll feel right at home with its sequel. You have the same resources to collect, essentially the same ages to progress through though this time they're called Dark, Feudal, Castle and Imperial , and largely the same types of units: infantry, cavalry, siege weapons and ships.
Like its predecessor, however, Age 2 is a carefully balanced blend of units, all of which have their strengths and weaknesses, and like all strategy games, Age II is the interactive equivalent of two people whipping their hands from behind their backs and one shouting 'Nyah, stone blunts scissors', before promptly being beaten about the jaws.
It all comes down to evolution, really, and Age II is as about as highly developed a game as you are likely to find. Its subtle differences from its illustrious forefather may be small in number, but they have a big impact. Where the first game was brilliant, if a little rough around the edges, the sequel has been buffed up to a glorious shine.
After a brief introductory movie, you are immediately thrown into the usual opening menu. No doubt many people, most of whom will be familiar with the first game, will delve straight in by choosing a map, take charge of one of the 13 civilisations and start building with a few chums, whether they're online or artificial.
To miss the single-player campaigns, however, would be a mistake. Unless you're a complete newcomer to this type of game ie you're still trying to get your PC's foot pedal to work , I would avoid the William Wallace training campaign and plump straight for the Joan Of Arc series of missions.
Whatever campaign you choose, you will notice straight away that far from each separate mission being a cut-down version of the skirmish-type of game, where you just build a base of operations and hunt down the foe, in most cases you start off with a ready-made army prepared for battle. You'll notice, too, that each mission has its own graphics, unique buildings and many scripted elements, as well as a historic background for you to lose yourself in. You will often march into a pitched battle between two massive armies, and although you won't be able to join in, you'll certainly want to watch.
It has to be said that some missions are very craftily written. I was stuck for a couple of hours on one where two British tribes were attacking my city and I had to destroy one of their castles. Waging a war on two fronts, as you know, is pretty tricky.
How, then, to keep one enemy at bay while taking on the other? I figured it out in the end. Age II is not always about brute force -you need at least half a brain as well. Thankfully, one half of mine is still active, if a little slow.
Whether you play a full campaign, where your objectives are obvious and the means to achieve them are limited, or a deattimatch or random game where the scope is much broader, what is essentially so right about Age II is the balance of each of the units. Laying siege to an enemy settlement isn't just about planting a line ot trebuchets or bombardiers and pounding a wall into the ground. Enemy archers, garrisoned in guard towers will make short work of them.
Then there's the knights streaming around the corner to worry about. There are so many subtle strategies that come into play that every assault runs the risk of facing a successful counter. You can't be sure of anything. Just to illustrate this, there are 19 different infantry units, some of which are unique to the various races, but each is a specialist to some degree. Add to that the option to upgrade armour, strength and weaponry, and the fact that each race has its own innate strengths, and you can see that to get good at any one strategy with one particular race could take a great deal of time.
What has always lifted the Empires gams above the norm has been the research elements. Churning out village idiots armed with sharp sticks is of no use if you come face to face with a bunch of finely-tailored infantrymen packing 'hand cannons'. Unless you can counter them with sheer weight of numbers, you'll need to get researching. To get your hand on Hand Cannoneers assuming you've picked a race that can build them , you'll need to research chemistry, which means you'll have to have built a university in the Castle Age.
Not all research is military in nature, of course. One of the first buildings you'll assemble will be a mill to store food, allowing you to build a market once you advance to the Feudal Age, allowing you the benefit of trade. There are many more technologies available than in the first game: various types of armour, specific skills that boost particular units or extend their capabilities, and all the while you are building various units in the full knowledge that everything has a price, be it in gold, food, stone or wood.
In short, every element in the game -collecting, building, fighting, researching - is integrated almost seamlessly into one big gaming ball of loveliness. For sure, it's not perfect, but you have to realise that the game is aimed at all levels. If you've played the first game for any length of time, you can avoid the two lower difficulty settings for a start.
In fact, due to one fat, annoying bug, the computer player will give up minutes into a deathmatch game set on 'easiest'. At its most difficult, the game is insanely forbidding - one for those who can pull off countless keyboard shortcuts at the same time. In multiplayer games, of course, there are no such problems. And as with the singleplayer games, there are countless strategies open to each player. Walls and buildings are now harder to destroy, seige weapons are susceptible to any kind of attack, and infantry units are easily decimated by archers.
Rushing certainly isn't impossible, but it is difficult to pull off - which is how it should be. With the graphics, I was a little disappointed with some of the animations, specifically the larger units ships and siege weapons and their abrupt changes in direction as they traverse the map. Perhaps my only real criticism is that the Age II is essentially an update ot a two-year-old game. Many of the units are just ported over from the first game; the Monks, for example, who have the ability to convert enemy units to your side, are just a medieval version of the old Healers.
And the long-drawn-out castle sieges that characterised the period are too fast-paced for my personal taste. Whether you choose to invest in Age Of Empires 2will depend on a number of factors. If you never liked the first game, prefer more action-orientated strategy, or -like Steve Hill - can't abide games where 'it feels like you're in a history lesson', you certainly won't find much to light your fire. If you wanted to be a real wanker, you could say this is merely Age Of Empires v1.
And I think many people would agree with that. On the other hand, if you absolutely adored the first game and you aren't expecting anything radical from the sequel, you'll instantly find The Age Of Kings to your liking.
As you play the game, you'll be constantly discovering little enhancements, all of which add up to a finely tuned and perfectly balanced game. Overall, though, Age II pretty much covers everything you could want in a real-time strategy game. It's attractive, epic in scope and so endlessly varied that you'll still be dabbling in it two years from now. As the genre starts to embrace 30, Age Of Empires II is sure to be looked back upon as the last in a dying breed.
Without doubt, it is the best and to miss it would be a crime for which you should be hung, drawn and quartered.
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