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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Not revolutionary, but really damn fun.
Pros
Fun play, very refined interface, nice balance
Cons
okay graphics, not very revolutionary, lack of campaigns for all civs.
Recommended it?
Yes
Theres is really nothing new and revolutionary about age of empires II, but it is one damn good game. There is no 3d to it, there is no new revolutionary game play, there is nothing special in this game that hasn't been done in other game. But what this game does bring is a finely refined interface, some nice (but not breathtaking) graphics, a very good balance between civilizations, and just a damn fun game to play. This is a perfect example of taking parts of a genre that weren't broken, and fixing the parts that were.
The interface to this game is by far the best I have ever used in a RTS. It has all the nice features expected now out of a RTS, waypoints, gather points, and build queues for buildings and units. It also some new interface functions like the idle villager button, which when clicked will spot any villagers who are sitting around picking their arses. This functionality is very useful and something that should have been in RTS's a long time ago. There is also some nice buttons that bring up the tech. tree of your civilization, there is also a nice easy interface to deal with paying tributes and giving allies some needed resources. The interface of this game is so nice and simple that it makes it very easy to play an RTS. I am not an avid RTS player and I am definitely not one who can play an RTS that requires a lot of micromanagement and mouse-clicking. This interface takes a lot (but not all) micromanagement out of this game to let you concentrate of the over-all tactical strategy to win.
There are some things that this game is lacking though. I wish there were campaigns for all the various civilizations. I am not a big multi-player kinda guy and it would have been nice if there was something more than skirmish missions against computers to play some of the civilizations. There are five campaigns in the game, and the 2 campaigns that I went through seem well thought out and diverse, although one of the campaigns I played was the tutorial campaign. The only problem is that one plays the same civ. throughout the whole campaign, so there is only a campaign for 5 civs. There was no campaign for the jap. or the chinese civ., which was kinda disappointing to me. I did end up playing skirmish missions against the computer in the new regicide mode. This is a pretty fun mode, where all you have to do is kill the king of all enemy civilizations.
This game is a fine example of how to take all that is good about a genre and improve on aspects that are bad about the genre. Not a revolutionary title, but a nice example of evolutionary work. This is also a nice example of a game that doesn't have all the nice graphics and eye-candy, but the gameplay more than makes up for it. I recommend this game for everyone, but I think that multiplayer users will appreciate this game more than I did.
The interface to this game is by far the best I have ever used in a RTS. It has all the nice features expected now out of a RTS, waypoints, gather points, and build queues for buildings and units. It also some new interface functions like the idle villager button, which when clicked will spot any villagers who are sitting around picking their arses. This functionality is very useful and something that should have been in RTS's a long time ago. There is also some nice buttons that bring up the tech. tree of your civilization, there is also a nice easy interface to deal with paying tributes and giving allies some needed resources. The interface of this game is so nice and simple that it makes it very easy to play an RTS. I am not an avid RTS player and I am definitely not one who can play an RTS that requires a lot of micromanagement and mouse-clicking. This interface takes a lot (but not all) micromanagement out of this game to let you concentrate of the over-all tactical strategy to win.
There are some things that this game is lacking though. I wish there were campaigns for all the various civilizations. I am not a big multi-player kinda guy and it would have been nice if there was something more than skirmish missions against computers to play some of the civilizations. There are five campaigns in the game, and the 2 campaigns that I went through seem well thought out and diverse, although one of the campaigns I played was the tutorial campaign. The only problem is that one plays the same civ. throughout the whole campaign, so there is only a campaign for 5 civs. There was no campaign for the jap. or the chinese civ., which was kinda disappointing to me. I did end up playing skirmish missions against the computer in the new regicide mode. This is a pretty fun mode, where all you have to do is kill the king of all enemy civilizations.
This game is a fine example of how to take all that is good about a genre and improve on aspects that are bad about the genre. Not a revolutionary title, but a nice example of evolutionary work. This is also a nice example of a game that doesn't have all the nice graphics and eye-candy, but the gameplay more than makes up for it. I recommend this game for everyone, but I think that multiplayer users will appreciate this game more than I did.
