Age of Empires Gold Edition

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Review: Age of Empires Gold Edition

While real-time strategy games have typically looked to Maxis' Sim City for inspiration, Ensemble Studios seem to have kept one eye on Sid Meier's MicroProse classic. The birthmark it bore as a result was striking: Ensemble's Age of Empires was as much about life as about death, and I suspect it was this pleasant distinction that helped make it a hit  and, ultimately, helped put Microsoft on the game-publishing map.

AoE Gold revisits that the fully patched version of that 1997 title and its 1998 add-on, The Rise of Rome, to surprisingly agreeable effect. While about two years have passed since Age appeared-Microsoft plans to release the full sequel, Age of Kings, this fall-the game still feels fresh and unique.

Now, naturally, AoE is a game about war. Empires wouldn't become empires without it (except perhaps in Alpha Centauri). You do build military units, and they do go out and start fires and kill the little men the enemy has birthed.

But it's not all about war. You're not building a military base, but a city. You're not dealing just with troops, but with people. Fundamentally, it's a game about making something, and that's why I keep coming back to it.

The Rise of Rome made it even easier to come back to it. As you'd expect, it added civilizations, technologies, units, map types and so forth. But also a range of thoughtful tweaks--like the ability to zap to recent trouble spots, create production queues and easily select all the units of a type, regardless of how intermingled they'd become with other types.

Now, don't look for Great Lost AoE Scenarios or anything of that sort on here. This is simply AoE and RoR, with no extras beyond the conveniences of repackaging: a single, combined CD and head-to-toe manuals. (In these days of CD manuals, we should be glad for any kind of printed documentation.)

But, do you know, that's enough. In fact, it's more than enough.-- Peter Olafson / GamePro