Age of Empires Online Jams Some MMO Into Your RTS

While all the cool kids were acting Starcraft: Brood War, I… well, I joined them, as that game was beautiful great. But I also had a soft spot in my fondness for Age Of Empires Deuce: Historic period of Kings. A brilliant successor to a brilliant real-metre strategy spirited, IT traded siege tanks and spaceships for trebuchets and the French, and made a durable impression — before all but disappearing after a couple of spin-offs and a sequel.

Years of Empires Online — which was released today — is shaping up to be a fine return to form. I never got around to active in the beta so this is all very new. But IT's likewise so familiar: information technology feels like Age of Empires, and that's a very practiced affair.

The game is complimentary to caper, with quite a bit of downloadable content ready and waiting in the wings. And you'll need to set up Games For Windows Live to play it. Live was already on my political machine thanks to brief dalliances with Bulletstorm and Dawn of State of war Two. But the application can be a sore item for galore, being (to be blunt) an onerous piece of software system. But hey, achievement points!

After downloading the client, then downloading entirely sorts of files and assets and the likes of, you're in. It's the Age of Empire you (might) know and love, complete with technology trees, the name Ages, and villagers spouting gibberish. This time around the game is painted with a careless-friendly brush, sporting a cartoonish artistic production-style that's all rather pin-up. And IT's graphically impressive, excessively. Not exactly sledding to blow the pants off of some of the more technologically demanding titles out in that location, but everything is glistering and lively, and watching my minions scuttle about doing their chores or chattering amongst themselves is quite a treat.

Age of Empires Online is first and foremost an RTS, but in nastiness of my brief time with it, the MMO bits are coming on strong. Gold exclamation marks denote quests, which (at the start) fall on the lines of putting to death some clubmen or collection enough food to bugger off a reinforcement — standard MMO stuff. The biz is divided between your Capital Metropolis, and your Outposts. The capital city serves as a sort of hub — you'll spend points to perform research here, as recovered Eastern Samoa spending coin on supplies, or spending real-world coin on "takeoff booster packs" and downloadable mental object. Part with a bespeak, and you'll be shunted off to an outpost, which plays like a traditional map: Gather resources, build units, combat — standard transportation.

Completing a quest grants you experience points, gold coins, and empire points. Experience points allow you to gain levels, which allows you to advance through and through the series' picture Ages, unlocking more stairs on the technology tree. Coins lets you buy consumable supplies comparable Mrs. Henry Wood OR caryopsis from vendors in your city (or other players), for employ on maps. Empire points are spent happening unlocking fresh crafting recipes for your use in your capital city.

The control scheme is undiversified: it's a proper RTS, complete with waypoints, mappable hotkeys and kiting around baddies. There's a lot to like here, and you lavatory't contend with the Mary Leontyne Pric.

Really, there's likely quite an a bit to argue about the price. The game offers up two civilizations to head start — the Greeks, and the Egyptians. The Celtic and Persian civilizations are slated to be available later this year, but on that point's none word on how much (if anything) it'll price to get your hands along a fleck of added variety.

And so in that respect are the booster packs. Defense of Crete adds a sort of natural selection mode, where you (and a friend, if you'd wish) square off against wave after wafture of enemy forces, for gloriole and prizes. The Encounter Hall pack (also slated for "this holiday") adds the option to create custom skirmishes — kinda like a regular strategy game. Dropping $20 to upgrade your civilization to a "Premium Civilization" unlocks neat perks like… player-versus-player matches. Alright and then.

As someone who equally all the RTS-prowess of a besprent sponge, being circumscribed to peaceful trading and campaign missions is just fine with me. But a quick glance at the Games For Windows Live Mart shows that simply purchasing all of the useable content, and ending up with most of a square-toed RTS, costs about as often as only grabbing a written matter of Starcraft 2. That's "real game" territory present, to say naught of subsequent booster packs. Dare I risk not having access to my civilization's latest gear because I don't want to keep back opening up my pocketbook?

As information technology stands, there's much to alike here. And RTS fans mightiness not mind spending their hard-attained ducats for another shot at the Age of Empires series. I lonesome hope that (saving) free self-complacent keeps on coming, American Samoa that's the surest way to get cheapskates corresponding me to rifle direct the proverbial couch cushions.

Age of Empires Online is free to play — and isn't saddled with a subscription tip. If you aren't excessively wary of Games for Windows Living, give it a shot — twice so, if you've never tried the series.