[Rogue Retro Gaming] Ages of Empires II: The Age of Kings (PC)

rogueofoz (47)in #gaming • 6 years ago

Have you ever stop and wondered where MOBAs came from? They are the "evolution" of a genre that was popular back in the day and now has just a cult following and far fewer people playing them known as Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. My favourite RTS of my childhood was this game called Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings for the PC that was released in 1999 by Microsoft.

Some footage of my gameplay

Plot
The game has history as its plot, really it does. The story is divided into campaigns which are 5 story arcs, these being the history of Ghengis Khan, Barbarossa, William Wallace, Saladin and Joan of Arc. These are not 100% historically accurate but are close to real life history and take the same story arcs. When I was a teen I found this to be very appealing since I could see parts of history come to life and play it.

Graphics
First and foremost, for this, I played the HD version so the graphics you are going to see in my footage, as well as other pictures except the one directly below this section, are from the HD version. Graphics have the same style as you can see from the comparison but the HD version looks clearer, brighter and with the information more visible on the screen. In general, graphics are good and what you can accept from an RTS of its time, there are better looking RTS games now and back then in games like Starcraft.

Source

Sounds
There is medieval music in the game but it is too little for me, there is no in-game music and too me that is a negative. Sound effects are great though and have great immersive details like the man you select speaking in their native tongues and reacting accordingly when you give the order which I still love up to this date.

Gameplay
It is an RTS game, and as such you control huge armies of soldiers and crash them into your opponents' armies so you can take the victory by submitting their civilization, having all the ancient relics for a long time or constructing a wonder of the world. You start your civilization in the dark ages and have to come all the way to the feudal age by the way of getting resources with your villagers while fighting your opponents. Every civilization you chose has different units but there are core units all civilization share like the villagers and basic infantry, apart from infantry there are also archers, horsemen and naval. You can do alliances and have trade routes, you can also give or receive financial aid from your allies. The game revolves around 4 basic resources to gather which are Food, Wood, Gold and Stone.

I come back to this game a lot since its one of my favourite games to play, I had hours upon hours of fun with the game as a child and pre-teen and now I play it once in a while as an adult. If you haven't played this game or any other RTS I suggest you pick this game up, the HD version is available on steam for about 10 USD.