EXCLUSIVES

Age of Empires II Gold can be a bit overwhelming to those unfamiliar with the strategy genre. I've never been a raging fan of civilization games, but not only am I bleary-eyed from playing AoE II Gold until 3 am this morning, I'm not sure where to start describing it.

Age of Empires is a grand standard of strategy gaming (aka RTS or real-time strategy). Players of AoE guide various ancient civilizations, from the Romans to the Egyptians, to greater wealth and success by directing the various aspects of technology that help a society grow. The path of your civilization depends on the path you choose to pursue for success. You could build a successful trade economy of food, wood and stone graduating into more sophisticated wares as time goes on, or you could build up the military and try to take over the neighbors. Over time, the option to move into different ages is presented; it's dependent on the amount of resources and age-appropriate buildings in your civilization. Moving through the ages gives access to greater technology and military advances, as well as nicer buildings and better stuff to trade.

The interface itself is incredibly simple. The main part of the screen shows your civilization; the other menus onscreen show the map, and the different paths you can take depending on where you click. For instance, if you click on a person, the lower left hand corner will present you with the options of what you can do with that person, his/her stats and all that. You can tell your villagers to forage for berries and leave them alone for a while, then take some others to get wood, build houses, make more villagers, and so on. Soon you've got yourself a bustling little town.

AoE II takes place from the time when Rome fell through the Middle Ages. The Age of Kings allows you to create your civilization from thirteen different cultures, each with specific attributes. The Franks have the throwing axemen, and their castles cost 25% less than other cultures; the Saracens boast the raging Mameluke as their unique unit, and the Saracen galleys attack 20% faster than other cultures do. The Britons, Byzantimes, Celts, Chinese, Goths, Japanese, Mongols, Persians, Teutons, Turks, and Vikings each have their own characteristics which make different maps and campaigns interact differently each time. The different options here are frightening. You could never see daylight again.

As if that wasn't enough, AoE II is the gold edition, which means it also includes the Conquerors expansion pack. Oy! Here you have five new civilizations, and four new historically based campaigns, including a swanky Joan of Arc one. Both the Age of Kings and the Conquerors allows the player to choose what kind of map to play, if it's a guided campaign with objectives or a standard one-player game where the object is to go through the ages, and so on. Other options include the Regicide game, where your king has to be the last to survive, a deathmatch (both single-player and multiplayer), and randomly chosen maps and campaigns.

You can also specify the level of difficulty. The Conquerors expansion, which is seamlessly integrated with the Age of Kings, allows you to get the feeling of controlling a civilization by guiding you through the William Wallace Campaign. This is a great introduction for the newbie. The large manual and glossy fold-out information poster are also excellent for the obsessive strategy fiend, as well as the ever-patient new player.

I played Age of Empires II on my 233 MHz beige G3. Once I got all the extras in place, like the CarbonLib and so on, I was ready to go. Let's start with the intro movie. It's ugly. However, once I got past that, the rest of the game rocked. I mean, as much as a game where you are gathering wood and building houses and learning about horse collars can rock. It rocks in its own special way. And the graphics look good; they're not revolutionary or slick or gee-whiz dazzling, but they look nice and they get the job done. That job is to engross you in building your own civilization. As someone who used to make her Sims live double-time, I wasn't used to the pace of AoE. Nevertheless, time did pass, both for my folks and for me, as I helped them into the feudal age and led them towards their violent deaths at the hands of the, uh, bad guys in green. Yes.

One noticeable (though minor) booboo made it obvious the game was a port to the Mac. At one point I was told to right-click something; call me a heretic, but after hours of holding down control and the mouse button, I was praying for a two-button mouse. That's a pretty obvious oversight, and an inconvenient one at that.

Fortunately, it was pretty much the only one I encountered. The game ran well on my machine, with only the occasional slow-down and no freezes or force-quits. Nice. The control was fine; the people went where I told them to and performed their tasks and all that. I found that I could mostly walk away from bad enemies and have them lose interest before they killed me. The only baddies who killed my folks were wild animals and those who we provoked, mostly out of curiosity. I couldn't figure out where to get a battering ram or how to create monks, but I'm sure I will in time. Even the sound was fine and not even that annoying, as opposed to most inane sound bites found in RTS games which you get the pleasure of hearing each time you want to move a character.

I never thought I'd live to see the day, but I have to say I'm looking forward to playing this game even after I turn in this review. Now that's a hearty recommendation, if I do say so myself.

$49.99 rated T for teen > boldgames.com/Age2Gold/Age2Home.html > least 64MB of RAM and a 233Mhz processor. Works with Mac OS 8.6 or higher, including Mac OS X