Age of Empires
Developed by "Ensemble Studios" and published by Microsoft in 1997
For Windows and Macintosh Computers
This box art is incredible
An epic game deserves an epic cover illustration
And I love how this lets you know right off the bat that this is going to be historically intense
Although, the screenshots on the back are somewhat misleading
Since you can't build cities like this during normal gameplay nor will you ever see armies with this size and organization
But whatever, it got the job done because as soon as I saw this back then I had to have it.
Although the real reason I wanted it in the first place was because of the trial version
It's not often that I remember a demo more fondly than the full game it was demonstrating
But, "Age of Empires" certainely one of these cases
The amount of content this demo came with was absolutely massive
I spent dozen of hours going through the campaigns and replaying it's scenarios over and over
And these missions were all exclusive to the trial version; which is how a demo should be done if you ask me
The full game was an absolute treat though, easily filling up a full CD's worth of content
And including a substantial manual covering every aspect of game play in the first half
and covering the history of each civilization featured in the other
it also came with a fold-out card revealing the full tech tree and all the
games hotkeys
and even a trial version of Microsoft's online service with Internet Explorer
4.0
which is still sealed to this day because who cares
Age of Empires begins with an intro cinematic showing a bunch of dudes
killing each other
with other finesse have of can opener fighting a bowl of plastic silverware
you then get a main menu filled with clear and concise menu options
multi-player is a huge draw to this game but single player is no slouch
either with a variety of enticing gameplay choices
if you want a linear set of missions based on historical events the campaign
mode is where it's at
you unlock more missions the more you play with over forty to choose from
by the end
you also have individual scenarios although the ones that it comes with
are all geared towards multi-player
deathmatch is where spent the most time with this game by far
since it allowed for customized skirmishes against skilled AI with a
variety of possible victory conditions
so how does AOE play overall
well back then I heard it described as Warcraft 2 meets Civilization and
while this makes a little sense
it's not quite how I would put it if you're familiar with games like
Warcraft or Command and Conquer then you probably feel right at home with its
base building tech trees and individual unit control options
you start with a builder unit and maybe a town centre
but otherwise it's up to you to gather resources and expand accordingly
about the only thing similar to Civilization though is the historical
focus and even that's a stretch
Age of Empires starts in the stone age and ends in the post Iron Age which
in this context takes place roughly between 10,000 BC to 1AD
but it's neither turn based or involves taking over the world
so comparisons to Civilization kinda end their
what it does feature is a fantastic setting to play with that was very
different to anything else on the market at that time that I was familiar with
simply put this game blew my twelve-year-old mind when I got it
and it was actually my introduction to the RTS genre at large
I'd played strategic titles like Civ and SimCity before this
but age really honed in on that level of micro-management that I had no idea that
I wanted
going from controlling a city or city-state in other games too
controlling individual workers and soldiers here was mind-blowingly cool
in my mind it was like Lemmings but a hundred times better
these little guys here they were just do whatever you told them to and sometimes
they'd go off and get themselves killed because they were also kind of stupid
this was like a new chapter in my gaming life a chapter filled with a sense of
control and responsibility that I'd never felt before
and it wasn't all about building the biggest Empire or hoarding the most
resources
sometimes all you started out with was a handful of military units
so you have to pick your battles wisely if you wanted to survive
and I'll never forget the first time I played a scenario where all you have
is a priest and since they can't fight the only way to progress is to convert
enemy units man priests are so OP if you've got the gold
to make enough for them you think you need huge armies of soldiers to win a
battle
just train a crapload of priests and convert the entire enemy army and even
their buildings
ever since this game I have been a devoted follower
of the church of Wololo where the notion that the color of your clothing is
superior to everyone else's
is the golden rule
the sense of progression you experienced in each map was
magnificent as well I love starting off as a lonely nomad
in the building up my empire to stretch across the whole map
although I have no idea how I actually managed that since there is a curious
lack of any female villagers but
hey I guess asexual reproduction was prevalent back then
however my villagers got it on the satisfaction of exploiting resources
constructing buildings bashing in the heads of my enemies
and researching new technology is constantly rewarding
give me enough wood stone and gold and I become an unstoppable
unapologetic force aggressive conquest
yes diplomacy is an option but who cares when you've got an army of trigger-happy
helepolis units
and the power trip only gets more intense if you cheat
with the units like the missile launching Camaro and the laser wielding
nuke trooper that will cut through anything ancient Egypt had to offer
unrealistic yes did I care
not one bit screw those guys combine all this with the appealing isometric
perspective
gorgeous aesthetic and pre-rendered 3d objects
and the superb soundtrack both midi and CD audio formats
and Age of Empires was a game that drew me in like nothing else at the time
however there were some frustrations that have only become more apparent in
hindsight
for example there are some unforgivable issues with the unit pathfinding
as I said earlier your guys are often blissfully stupid
getting stuck on trees and failing to find a way around the simplest of
obstacles
it's also really hard to control large groups of them
with no way to create formations or set rally points while building them
villagers especially are also way too easy to lose track of and frequently get
lost behind buildings
and just stopped working whenever they finish a task you'll have to keep
a ridiculously close eye on every one of them which is extra challenging
because the AI cheats like crazy
not only does it instantly know the location of and pursue
all the valuable resources and artifacts from the word go
but it can perform a huge amount of actions simultaneously
whereas you have to do all these things one at a time
so even on the lowest difficulty it's far too easy to
be outmatched unless you work at a frantic pace
or slow the game speed down to the point where it may as well be turn-based
granted some of this was addressed in the excellent Rise of Rome expansion
which added the Romans and several other civilizations that were curiously absent
and beyond this there were third party expansions that added a slew of new
scenarios and campaigns to play
although if you're a deathmatch player like me then these really weren't too
exciting
besides I was far more interested in creating my own scenarios and campaigns
which could be done using the built-in editor and this was fantastic it lets
you create anything you saw in the main campaigns allowed you to test your
scenarios on the fly
all without requiring any external programs still
even with the expansions patches and customizable gameplay
I'd argue that Age of Empires really doesn't hold up as well as I'd hoped
back in 1997 the problems it had I ignored
and considering the number of awards it won critics didn't seem to
mind much
either however its medieval sequel Age of Kings
so thoroughly trounced almost every aspect of the original
that it's difficult to recommend going back to it much like in the game itself
time has moved on and far better things have come along
which is probably why Age of Kings has received an HD remake
and Age of Empires is all but overlooked anymore it's kind of a shame
but it's understandable when talking purely in terms of playability
still I can't help but love the crap out of it even if it's somewhat cracked and
broken like so many pieces of Greek pottery
Age of Empires is still a landmark game
both personally and in terms of RTS titles at large
and as such it has my utmost respect
I think I made it clear by now that I think it's awesome
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other than death taxes and Wololo and as always thank you very much for watching