Age of Empires II

Its hard to summarize any Strategy game in a review purely because you have many schools of PC gamers. You've got the 3D Megagamer, who is obsessed with having that AA in his Half Life 2, and you've got your Traditional gamer, who doesnt give a flying crap about graphics and wants to play "Fun games".

This game is more for the latter than the former. This game is basically a real-time Civilization, where you move your armies, villagers, and everything else in a real time setting, as opposed to the turn-based games that generally flood this genre. This allows for a much more intense gameplay experience, as that you don't have unlimited time to sit there and think out your plans. Think Command and Conquer, except in the Middle ages.



Overall, this game is a very well rounded game. There's no "Ultimate Weapon" or "Ultimate Strategy", so you're never having to worry about things such as the infamous Zerg Rush. Of course, this is also an annoyance- there is no straight out way to eliminate the competition. Instead, you're limited to throwing group after group of armies against the enemy- and even if the enemy is weaker than crap, I guarantee you it'll take 3 waves, at least.

And I'm not talking of Waves as in like 10-20 soldiers. A "Wave" for me is approximately 50 of the most expensive soldiers, and I STILL have issues taking down the little man. This makes for long, complex games- but it also makes for tedious "Regrouping" of soldiers. Even if you have a monolithic army, you're still going to get frustrated. I'm also pretty sure that if you built a wall 3 deep, that it would be semi-impossible to penetrate your city. Its just a defense-based game.



Also, another annoyance- small dinky managing. This doesnt suffer from the Civilization problem of making you confused, but the Real Time effect does frustrate you, as you might spend a good 10 minutes refining your farm, whereas you have to worry about protecting yourself, etc.

Overall, this game is only really good for people who really want to play a decent strategy game. If you're into Strategy games, you'll love this game to death and beyond. If you're like me, and if you like games with less needless complexity and strain, go pick up Command and Conquer- its a lot less nerve-racking.

Though, the screens of AOE3 tell me that this series might be picking up. Maybe I might change my tune when the 3D nicely-done version comes out.

2 star(s) out of 5

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