So, I’ve been browsing some game stuff lately. I’m a long ways from a serious gamer, I tend to get on a roll playing for a couple weeks regularly and then don’t touch them for months. In my browsing I’ve found I’m getting the urge, and considring I’m between jobs the timing is right. The one I saw that looked especially exciting was the new Age of Empires that’s due out.
So, I’m guessing based on the popularity of the first ones (and it’s cousins) that some of you folks are excited about it and have a strong opinion on it. Its due out on the 18th I think and I’m guessing some of you may have already preordered it.
I guess what I’m wondering is if anyone can tell me what to expect. My system is only a bit above the system requirements listed on the website. (recommends a 1.4 GHz CPU, 256 MB, 64 MB Video Card; I’ve got 1.8 GHz, 512 MB and 128 MB) do you think I’ll be disappointed with the performance and video? Has anyone played the demo? I’m probably going to d/l it soon and play around, but I’m curious what more experienced people’s impressions are.
How were the first games?
I’ve found that I prefer puzzle-ish games and turn based RPGs. Dragon Warrior is my all-time fave game, and I’ve wasted many hours on Civ I, II & III and I loved Myst. I liked Warcraft and Starcraft but found them to be somewhat challenging and I lost motivation after a while. I’m liking the descriptions of this game, but I’m not really familiar with how the real-time RPG engine here works. Were the first versions difficult to keep up with? Did they get tedious at all?
Anyways, I guess I’m opening the thread to any and all commentary about the game and any fanboys may feel free to go wild.
The first games were fantastic. My favorite offshoot is the Star Wars one. I like the attention to detail and accuracy (mostly) of the weapons.
I also prefer Civ style and puzzle games. The key for me is that they are turned based. I can take my sweet time. In age of empires like the *craft games you have to build early, pay attention, make sure everybody is busy. After awhile that can get tedious.
Have you tried the Total War series? I am playing Rome Total War right now and I find that it similiar to Civ and Age of Empires put together. I can do all the managing, conquering, diplomacy but I can also fight battles (if I choose to not let the computer autocalculate the result). After all, fighting the battles is what I like, gathering resources and setting up farms is better left to my peasants figure it out themselves.
I have played Age of Empires II on a similiar setup to what you describe. It works great, even at the highest resolution and double or triple speed. No lag or choppy movement. I am finding that I get tired of squinting at my monitor into the wee hours of the morning so I usually lower the resolution to around 1024x768 or 1280x1024.
The Age of Empires series is for all skill levels. At the medium level I find that I can hold my own if I keep busy gathering resources, building towers and walls for protection, and building a few units that can take out the initial rush of fast moving troops from the enemy. I find the AofE favorite tactic is to rush early and leave me cleaning up the mess while it keeps builing.
Good luck! AofE is by far my favorite series of games I have played, even though I consider myself a Civ fanatic.
I would compare AoE a little more to the -craft games in terms of gameplay, though certainly not near ‘exactly the same’ - and obviously closer to Civ thematically. Not my favorite series, but a good play, and I’m looking forward to the new one.
A couple of my housemates have run the demo; it runs very serviceably (though obviously not as well) on the worse of the two computers, which isn’t all that much better than yours. Quartz is right in saying that the model of video card is very important, though, so YMMV.
In case you aren’t aware, Civ 4 is coming out about a week after AoE 3 (since you said you liked the previous Civ games). Also, you may or may not be able to find AoE 2 on the cheap somewhere, and if you can, it would certainly run well on your box (and a game you haven’t played is still a new game ).
Ooo, I hadn’t heard about Civ 4. Thats very tempting, we’ll have to see how much new stuff they’ve added. Also while I was browsing I saw that a new Diplomacy game was just released, something many folks around here will probably be very excited about. I also saw Sid Meiers Pirates for Xbox, I didn’t realize he’d put out Xbox games before. Not sure if that’s my style or not, but it got high marks.
Good suggestion for looking for an earlier game on sale, maybe I’ll broaden my search past AofE 3.
Sid Meier’s Pirates on the PC was an insanely fun game for me. Like Grand Theft Auto, but with ships and pirates. Lots of gameplay and different aspects to the game. Ship battles, swashbuckling, dancing (I didn’t care much for this), treasure hunting, diplomacy, pirate hunting, etc.
Another suprise hit for me was Star Wars Legos. I never really considered it until I saw the high marks and rave reviews it received. If you like Star Wars and Legos this is a must have!
Rome: Total War is a great game, it avoids some of the really silly conventions of the Real Time Strategy genre.
It just makes no sense that before every battle you have to gather resources and research technology in real time as your soldiers are running around fighting. Damn I hate that.
In Rome:TW there’s a turn-based city-building, research, and recruitment mode very similar to Civilization. But when you attack with a stack of units it takes you to a real-time battlefield where your army fights the enemy army, with whatever units and technology you have. Units aren’t single guys but rather formations of spearmen, archers, swordsmen, cavalry, or specialized units. Man I liked this game.
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