by Zac - March 19, 2004

I first picked up Age of Kings when I was in High School. A couple of my friends had been sucked into the original Age of Empires, and I figured I'd give the sequel a shot when I heard of its release. I'd never really been a big PC gamer. In fact, the only PC games I had played previously were Oregon Trail and Solitaire. So, given the circumstances, a game as large and as deep as Age of Kings could have very understandably given me some headaches. Yet, the complete opposite occurred. Age of Kings remains not only one of the most enjoyable, but one of the most accessible RTS games I've played to date.

Taking Control of Your Civilization

If you didn't already know, Age of Kings is the sequel to the popular Age of Empires (and its expansion, Rise of Rome), a real-time strategy game set in ancient times. In the Age of Kings, you lead your civilization through history over the span of around a thousand years, between the fall of Rome and the discovery of the Americas. At first glance, the game may not look too special. Medieval-themed strategy games aren't exactly rare, and by now the graphics are pretty outdated. Fortunately, as the millions who bought the game already know, there's much more to the game than meets the eye.

Thanks to a simple, efficient, and intuitive interface, the management of armies and villagers is extremely easy. Unit AI is solid, and unlike in Age of Empires, there are virtually no unit path-finding problems. Units in Age of Kings know where they're going and move in a number of formations. In addition, the game moves at an appropriate pace at default settings, although you can speed things up or slow them down if you want. Nothing seems poorly done or 'off'. There are no real unit quirks that frustrate you, no interface problems, and no real technical issues.

Half a Decade Old

As previously stated, graphically Age of Kings could be better, but for an old game, it still looks good. Units and animations look fairly crisp, although unfortunately everything is in 2 dimensions. Of course the age of the game also has some benefits. The system requirements are extremely low, meaning practically anyone can play this game with a smooth frame rate, even with settings maxed out.

Sounds Good

The sound in Age of Kings is good although unremarkable. The music is well done and effectively puts you in the mood, and the voice acting (there is narrative in the campaigns, and villagers speak in their civilizations language) is solid. The sound effects of swords clashing and arrows firing are adequate, and the only real problem is the warning bell that sounds when you're attacked. It serves its purpose in getting your attention, but if you're attacked in several areas, the series of warning sounds can become irritating.

Your Options

Single-player focuses around a series of campaigns. Campaigns put you in the shoes of a variety of famous historical figures in a number of famous battles. One of the campaigns acts as a helpful tutorial for those new to the Age of Empires series or strategy games in general. Overall, the campaigns are done fairly well, and depending on the difficulty setting, can last you 20 hours or so.

You can also play a standard, non-contextual game against or with up to 7 computers. Game types vary. Random Map games are slower, and are meant for longer, more strategic games. Deathmatch games start you with plenty of resources, generally leading to fast-paced tactical games. Regicide forces you to kill the enemy's king. You can pick what point in history you start in, the map, set teams, and a number of other options.

Age of Kings also comes with a scenario editor, which allows you to make your own maps, set up special battles, or even create your own campaigns. Single-player can get plenty of extra playtime from the wealth of special campaigns and scenarios available on the web.

While single-player is well done, the bulk of Age of King's fun comes from multi-player. You can play with up to seven friends over a LAN or by a TCP/IP connection if you're so inclined. Alternately, you can visit the Zone (www.zone.com), which has hundreds and sometimes thousands of casual and competitive gamers, adding months and possibly years to the life span of the game.

It's All About Depth

The depth of Age of Kings will slowly but surely creep up on you as you get better and better. As can be seen from the fairly thorough manual, the game boasts a reasonably large number of civilizations, units, buildings, and technologies. The numbers are nothing that will drop the jaw of an experienced strategy-gamer, but it's enough for veterans of the genre, and it's certainly plenty for newcomers. However, Age of Kings' strength is not the quantity of options available, but the quality. As any fan of strategy games will tell you, games that have tons of unbalanced units and civilizations might as well only have a few units and a few civilizations. There's no point in having 100 units if only 5 are commonly used, and no point in having 30 civilizations if 1 runs over the rest without a problem. Generally, units and civilizations have a rock-paper-scissor relationship, allowing for a very large number of strategic and tactical options. Is the balance between each civilization and unit perfect? No, and there isn't a strategy game made yet that can claim that. But Age of Kings comes about as close as you're going to get with a game of this size.

The Bottom Line

Age of Kings is one of the deepest real time strategy games to date. It has a timeless quality which will provide hours of enjoyment to any fan of the genre, despite its somewhat dated aesthetics