Age of Empires Review - IGN

Age of Empires also has a huge variety of units and buildings, in part because each age offers a variation on a theme. Housing, for example, starts off as straw huts but becomes stone reinforced structures by the iron age. Your military units make similarly dramatic progress. The basic foot soldier starts of as a club wielding grunt but can end up as an armor clad Centurion. The variety of units and buildings keeps the game visually stimulating, as you frequently have a mix of units from the tool, bronze and iron ages fighting side by side. Units are also very well animated. The base unit, the peasant, is particularly well animated. If you set him to hunt, he'll pull out a spear and kill an antelope. Once the antelope is dead, he'll immediately start hacking into it and carry away bug juicy steaks.

The mainstay of Age of Empires is the single player campaign missions, of which there are many. As you would expect, each mission has specific goals you must meet to continue. Some goals are pretty reasonable, but about every fourth mission you run across a goal that is virtually impossible without replaying the level over and over again. Some missions are so difficult you will either find a way to cheat or give up. The saving graces for single player gaming are the mission builder and the scenario editor. The mission builder lets you easily pop into just about any map with any conditions you want. The scenario editor is also easy to use and offers a tremendous amount of flexibility in designing your own maps.

Age of Empires also includes a good multi-player game, offering players the chance to go head to head with up to four total players. Unfortunately, the multi-player game is Mac only, so there will be no Mac vs. PC rousts to be had.

Now for the bad. Your unit AI is pathetic. Peasants get lost on their way from getting lumber to the town center. Path finding around obstacles can take forever. Your military units will even stand around as Rome burns if you don't explicitly direct them to attack. The computer AI, on the other hand, is very smart, going around every obstacle on optimum paths, gathering resources like an out of control consumerist economy, and attacking swiftly and accurately. The game is also woefully unbalanced in favor of naval vessels. The first empire to build a large naval fleet can pretty much rule the map, as the navy can usually bombard inland targets quite effectively.

The empire building aspects of the game are incidental for the most part. As I've already noted, advancing your civilization is an exercise in hoarding resources. Diplomacy is included somewhat as an afterthought, as you can't really trade or effectively ally with any of the computer AI controlled empires. Ultimately, the empire aspect of Age of Empires just provides a distinctive flavor to game.

Age of Empires is a very ambitious game, attempting something that hasn't really been done before. While it succeeds in some respects by providing some unique game play elements, it fails in many of the basics of good game design like unit AI and play balancing. The result is a game that is both fun to play and frustrating at the same time. If you're looking for a fun real time strategy game, Age of Empires fits the bill, but don't expect a well refined sim like Civilization II.