Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings for Windows
- ESRB Descriptor: Violence Blood
- ESRB Rating: T - (Teen)
- Publisher: Microsoft
- Genre: Strategy
- Platform: Windows
- Game Series: Age of Empires
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AOE2 is king
Pros
Good speech,awesome online play,much better graphics,map editor
Cons
Online games take forever,slowdown
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Awesome game. Get the this and the expansion!
I was a huge fan of the orignal Age of Empires, so how couldn't I like this? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if some fans of the original game didn't like this one. Quite a big difference! The view for one is more zoomed in and the buildings are huge when comparing them to those in AOE. The online games also take about two times as long to complete for some reason... AOE games took a few hours sometimes, but AOE2 drags on,on,on, and on! They can literally take 5 hours to finish a game against a good player, not something I have time for.
Graphics: 7.8
The graphics are a huge improvement over AOE's,unfortunately, they aren't quite up to par with todays games. The fog is still in blocks, which isn't bad graphics it's just the way they did it for some screwed up reason. Slowdown is definitely noticable this time around, when one of those gigantic battles come along with every person on the map it looks like it is moving at maybe 10 frames per second. Very unimpressive! Besides that the graphics are fine, more colorful,better looking buildings/trees/units.
Gameplay: 9.5
This is where it really scores high! The gameplay would be a perfect 10 if it weren't for the slowdown and extra long games. If you enjoyed AOE chances are you'll like this even better. The same type of gameplay,lots of civs,maybe a little more units,tons more upgrades,more buildings, and more features in online games. In addition to all the normal buildings there are now Castles. With castles you can build your civilizations unique unit or purchase your civilizations unique upgrade, it also has alot of hit points and damage. Great for defense, but it takes alot of stone which is much more valuable than it was in AOE. I'm sure at this point you're saying "What the hell is all this unique this and that?" A unique unit is a certain type of soldier that belongs to just ONE civilization and it is impossible for any of the others to acquire one without converting one with a monk. As for the upgrade it is the same type of thing, except an upgrade that is sometimes for your unique unit or just helpful with other stuff. One thing about AOE2 that really peeves me off is the siege weapons, they aren't near as good as they were in the original, and are rarely used in bulk now. That's really the only major difference in the gameplay from the original. For those of you who don't know what type of game Age of Kings is, it's a Real Time Strategy and the goal is to basically build your empire,gather resources (trees,stone,gold) and kill of all of your enemies with knights,paladins,spearmen,swordsmen,archers,catapults, and all those other cool medievil (sp?) things! ;)
Single player is okay to play through the campaign once, but after that it's just blah. If you can't play online for some reason, I don't think you should buy AOE2. It's more of a 4-8 player online game and would become very boring after playing it for a couple days in single player.
Sound: 8.6
The music isn't quite as good as it was in AOE, but that's not saying it's bad. Yeah some of it sounds more like freakin' funeral music, luckily, there are some good tracks on the CD. The building sounds and unit speech is WAY better than before and much more clearer. Sometimes when exchanging blows with swords it'll miss a "CHINGGGG!" sound - hey who cares? That doesn't effect the great gameplay any.
Map Editor: 9.0
Could've been a litte bit more to it, but ALMOST nothing is perfect in anything!! You can add anything from soldiers,trees,buildings to water,trees and animals. The map editor is a gigantic improvement over the first one. You can now setup much better events where it'll play a sound or speech and certain stuff will happen. You can also choose to make bigger maps than before which is obviously very good if you are building your own campaign or scenario. Speaking of campaigns, the campaign editor remains pretty much the same, add in your own cutscenens,mission briefing,scenarios,speech,text, whatever you want. If you thought the first one was good, you ain't seen nothing yet ;) lol
Overall: 9.2
In most cases it is better than the first and definitely one of the best RTS ever on the market (Blizzard makes better). Don't buy it if you want a good single player game, buy it if you want a good 2-8 player online game with lots of challenge and replay value.
Graphics: 7.8
The graphics are a huge improvement over AOE's,unfortunately, they aren't quite up to par with todays games. The fog is still in blocks, which isn't bad graphics it's just the way they did it for some screwed up reason. Slowdown is definitely noticable this time around, when one of those gigantic battles come along with every person on the map it looks like it is moving at maybe 10 frames per second. Very unimpressive! Besides that the graphics are fine, more colorful,better looking buildings/trees/units.
Gameplay: 9.5
This is where it really scores high! The gameplay would be a perfect 10 if it weren't for the slowdown and extra long games. If you enjoyed AOE chances are you'll like this even better. The same type of gameplay,lots of civs,maybe a little more units,tons more upgrades,more buildings, and more features in online games. In addition to all the normal buildings there are now Castles. With castles you can build your civilizations unique unit or purchase your civilizations unique upgrade, it also has alot of hit points and damage. Great for defense, but it takes alot of stone which is much more valuable than it was in AOE. I'm sure at this point you're saying "What the hell is all this unique this and that?" A unique unit is a certain type of soldier that belongs to just ONE civilization and it is impossible for any of the others to acquire one without converting one with a monk. As for the upgrade it is the same type of thing, except an upgrade that is sometimes for your unique unit or just helpful with other stuff. One thing about AOE2 that really peeves me off is the siege weapons, they aren't near as good as they were in the original, and are rarely used in bulk now. That's really the only major difference in the gameplay from the original. For those of you who don't know what type of game Age of Kings is, it's a Real Time Strategy and the goal is to basically build your empire,gather resources (trees,stone,gold) and kill of all of your enemies with knights,paladins,spearmen,swordsmen,archers,catapults, and all those other cool medievil (sp?) things! ;)
Single player is okay to play through the campaign once, but after that it's just blah. If you can't play online for some reason, I don't think you should buy AOE2. It's more of a 4-8 player online game and would become very boring after playing it for a couple days in single player.
Sound: 8.6
The music isn't quite as good as it was in AOE, but that's not saying it's bad. Yeah some of it sounds more like freakin' funeral music, luckily, there are some good tracks on the CD. The building sounds and unit speech is WAY better than before and much more clearer. Sometimes when exchanging blows with swords it'll miss a "CHINGGGG!" sound - hey who cares? That doesn't effect the great gameplay any.
Map Editor: 9.0
Could've been a litte bit more to it, but ALMOST nothing is perfect in anything!! You can add anything from soldiers,trees,buildings to water,trees and animals. The map editor is a gigantic improvement over the first one. You can now setup much better events where it'll play a sound or speech and certain stuff will happen. You can also choose to make bigger maps than before which is obviously very good if you are building your own campaign or scenario. Speaking of campaigns, the campaign editor remains pretty much the same, add in your own cutscenens,mission briefing,scenarios,speech,text, whatever you want. If you thought the first one was good, you ain't seen nothing yet ;) lol
Overall: 9.2
In most cases it is better than the first and definitely one of the best RTS ever on the market (Blizzard makes better). Don't buy it if you want a good single player game, buy it if you want a good 2-8 player online game with lots of challenge and replay value.
