Age of Empires II

THE BAD:
Some resources like rock are most of the time in small amounts.

SUMMARY:
I havent played that many games similar to Age of Empires II but comparing this game to them it rocks. The most important thing that is great about this game is that you can choose from different civilizations and there are a lot of cool things that you can create if you have the right amount of resources. Resources are pretty easy to get especially food and wood. The only resource that can get pretty tought to find is stone because they dont have a lot of it in the game and that is one of the main resources besiedes wood that you need to succed it the game. The graphics have some what improved since the last one. The other cool thing is that if one of your buildings or walls or whatever gets damaged you can always send some of your people to fix it up which is awesome and it comes pretty handy at times so you dont have to start from scratch. The game is very fun and sometimes I have gone on playing it for hours non stop espeacially when you are playing against friends because the game is just so much fun and addicting. Over the game is great if you have friends to play against because sometimes it gets kind of boring just playing against the computer. If you dont really care about playing against the computer than you should defiantly get the game because its one of the best in its genre.

THE BAD:
Length of multiplayer games

SUMMARY:
This game is the sequel to Age of Empires. It has the same principles but has added many more things in. There are more units, some the same and some new ones, more technologies and in general the whole game just seems bigger. There are still the single player story missions where you can rein act famous scenarios like Attila the Hun’s campaigns, but most of the fun will come from the multiplayer matches to the death.

The foundations of your base are still the villagers who are required to build and repair all your buildings. You need to collect resources (food, wood, gold and stone) with them. Like before they aren’t particularly strong although you can give them 15 more hit points and 1 armour point fairly on which can mean the difference between life and death when you come under attack. As you advance through the ages you get access to more powerful units and abilities and in multiplayer games the objective is usually to destroy everyone else. But there are more ways to gain resources this time. On some maps are things called Relics. If you get a Monk to pick this up and put it back in your Temple you will automatically receive gold. If you pick up more then the gold will rise faster. You can also trade with other players at the Market using Trade Carts. This will also get you gold. At the Market you can buy and sell other resources for gold, so if you find you’ve got an excess off Food you can sell it and use the gold to buy other resources.

One of the new buildings is the Castle. I love this building and it serves many purposes. For one it increases your population limit by 20 which is very handy. Second it acts as a defensive building and fires 4 arrows at any nearby enemies. It also has a lot of hit points and armour points and so it should be the centre of your defences. Crucially it allows you to create your unique unit. Every civilisation has one unit that only they can build. These range from infantry to cavalry and a couple of others. This unit might have strengths that no other unit on the field has, and since only you can use it, learning how to use your unique unit to the fullest could give you a big edge. Also created at the castle is a siege weapon called a Trebuchet. This is a weapon which needs to be unpacked to fire, but it has a massive range and is used mainly for destroying buildings (usually defensive ones) from outside their range. But it is vulnerable to mobile units so you need to take other units along to defend it. Another change from the last game is that now when you upgrade your armour, it upgrades for both melee attacks and ranged attacks whereas before it was just melee attacks. You can also research armour for a lot more units this time round.

Again there are ships for water battles and some civilisations do better in this than others due to being able to research more powerful units. Transports for moving land units across water need to be defended because if they are sunk you lose all the units. Usually sending out a bunch of ships in front to draw fire does the job.

I can’t remember if this was in the previous game, but if it was it is more pronounced here. Some units have massive advantages against each other. For example, the Teutons Teutonic Knight is a massively powerful melee fighter and can kill any soldier or horseman one on one. But it is very slow moving, and has a weakness against monks. A monk can convert a Teutonic Knight in a very short amount of time. By contrast, it takes much longer to convert a Scout and the Scout has an attack bonus against Monks. Pikemen also do tremendous damage to any mounted unit, much more then their attack figure shows. There are lots of examples of this and learning which units are better against others proves invaluable. I frequently use horses, so when I see Pikemen in amongst much more powerful cavalry I always go for the Pikemen because left unchecked they could decimate my cavalry faster than other cavalry unit. So sending out an army full of just one unit type is not a good idea because the enemy can counter with an army of units that excel against them. Sending out a mixed army makes it much harder because while one unit will be weak against another, others might be stronger and it’s harder to defend against an army when there are many different types.

There are different types of multiplayer match. You can choose to do a normal match, but there are also Death Matches where everyone starts in the Imperial Age with everything researched and massive stockpiles of all resources. This is good if you can’t be bothered to gather resources slowly at the start. There are many different victory conditions: Score, Time, Relic, Wonder and Conquest. In score you pick a score and the first person to get to that score wins, in Time you play for a set time period and the person with the highest score at the end of the time limit wins. In Relic if anyone manages to collect all 5 relics on a map and then hold them for a certain amount of time they will win. Everyone is notified who has the relics if they are all collected by the same person. For Wonder the first person to build a Wonder (a massive structure costing 1000 wood, gold and stone each and represents the pinnacle of that civilisation) and keep it in tact for a certain length of time will win. Again, everyone is notified when a Wonder is built. For conquest you just have to kill everyone else.

I personally find this game highly enjoyable because there are 5 difficulty levels and because of the type of game it is, no 2 games will ever be the same. If you find that the game is too easy you can team players up and have 2 on 1, 4 on 2 or whatever you desire. This should be enough to give almost anyone a challenge. Again, games can go on for a long time, but I can’t think of a criticism of the actual game. The graphics are pretty decent and things flow very smoothly. Of course if you don’t like strategy games then this won’t change your mind, but for anyone who’s a fan of the genre really should look into this game and the expansion pack for it.

THE BAD:
the graphics arent the greatest....

SUMMARY:
I really only picked up this game because I heard it had simallar action to the battles in Warcraft...So I decided to try it out, and the game is great...only when you play as the Japanese Army...MUH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! >.> <.< Well you can tell thats my main force...I really liked how there was a wider battlefield than to WarCraft....plus the armies were in greater numbers than WC...:/ but not as much bloodshed as there should be...and the technology growth is kinda lame..I wish it stayed in the Fedual Era troughout the game....but oh well...i like to have Asian battles sometime..the Mongols v.s. Chinese v.s. Japanese...much fun yes...plus you can have greater teams...The story/campaign is kinda lame...but oh well I only play it for the samurai killing action..^.^

THE BAD:
well i have only tried one campaign so far the Joan of arc one i found it really boring so i just couldn't be bothered doing any others so now i'm only playing the random maps or just making a map in map editor.

SUMMARY:
i like it how you start off at the dark age and work up to the imperial age and look at how all the buildings looked at the time.its also good that you have to collect the food,wood,gold and stone its really realistic.But all in all i think this game is great.

THE BAD:
but still not quite up to the mark.

SUMMARY:
Due to some unfortunate circumstances I found that my computer hardisk had crashed and all the games loaded had been uninstalled. The only CD I had available was the AOK one.
Perhaps it is a bit of an insult to Aok that I only bothered playing this game when I had no other alternative. Well anyway on to the review.
So we go bang into the gameplay..with an interesting, fastpaced introduction you are left with quite a few choices on the screen. You can learn to play, do a skirmish or play a campaign. I played the learning campaign first in which you have to command William Wallace's forces from 'humble beginnings' to an 'empire which can stand the test of time.'
The bad thing about the campaign is that the population limit is automatically set to 75 which is a right pain in the backside. For this reason I spent most of my time in the Regicide mode in which you can choose the pop. limit, map type etc.
Basically your units are divided into a few categories.
First, the villagers who get you resources. Then there's the basic infantry : Militia who can be upgraded. The arrow thrower: Archer who can be upgraded. And the horse: Knight who can also be upgraded. Then in the Archery Range you an create skirmisher, and cavalry archer as well. A variety of seige units are also available.

THE BAD:
The only thing wrong is there simply WASN'T ENOUGH!!! I can never get enough of these games, and they never allow you enough places and people to fight. Along with a lack of specific building types, and such, there simply could've been more.

SUMMARY:
Like many good strategy games, this one allows for tons of options. Whatever way you want to play, that's how you can play, the limitations are at a minimum, now if only there were more choices!

THE BAD:
Graphics, though updated, are behind the times.
Performance on low Spec machines (fixed in patch).
A.I. shouldn't apply for Mensa.
MICROSOFT!!!!

SUMMARY:
RTS. Three little letters that spell long hours of boredom, and repetitive gameplay for me. I do not like RTS games. Nor, in fact, do I like Microsoft, they've bullied their way to the top of OS providors, and release buggy products that crash more than a child's first kite. So, RTS games, and Microsoft, two of my least favourite things.

So imagine my surprise when, because I was bored one day, I loaded up the demo for the origional Age Of Empires, and when I next looked at the clock, found that several hours had passed. The Age of Empires series is, quite simply, excellent. The first game started you in the Stone Age I think, and advancing through several ages. The sequel takes it even further, you are in the middle ages.

The single-player game has a choice of all the multiplayer options, but played against the computer only. But also has a campaign screen with five historical characters to follow;

*There's William Wallace, and his battle to gain Scottish Indipendence from the English (Also acts as a learning campaign for new players);
*There's the exploits of Joan of Arc in her battles against the english;
*You can follow Temuchin (Better know as Ghenghis Kahn) as he tries to unite the Mongols tribes and invade Japan.
*Emperor Saladin needs your help to drive the English, the French, and the Germans from the holy land during the crusades;
*And finally there's Frederik Barbosa, who is trying to quell uprisings in Germany and perform a crusade of his own.

All of the information in the game, from details about the units, to the events (although not the details) that happen in the above campaigns. Of course, if your history book says otherwise, believe the book.

The graphics have been updated a lot from the first game. Gates, for instance, are no longer just gaps in walls that anyone can walk through. They are proper, operational gates that allow allies to pass through unhindered (unless you lock them) and block enemies until destroyed. They do have drawbacks however. If one of your units is too close to an unlocked gate, then enemies can walk in unhindered.

Buildings in this game now actually look right. In the first game, all the buildings were small, and the people (units) where too big to fit into the buildings (you couldn't send them in anyway, but it's the way it looks) In this game, the buildings actually look big enough to accommodate the units.

The A.I. is, quite often, a problem, or rather, not a problem, and that is the problem. The A.I., even on easiest, is suffieciently challenging for the level set, you'll never find yourself waltzing through a level without any effort. But the A.I. can be fooled really easilly: Try sending a scout out, and let one enemy guard to see it. Now slowly walk away and they'll follow. Parade your scout back and forth infront of a row of towers behind a wall, the guard will chase the scout, and just get shot by the towers. This can also be used to lure enemy troops into conversion range, as long as two priests stand by to heal the one converting. There is also apperently a problem with the A.I. player resigning after a couple of minutes play. I have never experienced this, but enough people must have because Microsoft have released a patch to fix this (the A.I. patch is also included in the full patch.)
There is also A.I. problems on your side as well. Put your people behind a gate to shoot at approaching enemies, and they'll walk through the gate if it's left unlocked to fire at them, allowing the enemies access to your base. Your peasants, though they will automatically work on a farm they build, will not re-build the farm when it runs out (this has been fixed in the add-on) so you'll have to keep returning to base to keep the food supply active, which gets annoying.

Overall: A veteran Age of Empires player will love this. Newcommers will find it slightly different to almost every other RTS out there, but is definetely worth a look.

This game is, without a doubt, the best, most reliable program from Microsoft, since Win 3.1!