The legendary real-time strategy game that began it all 20 years ago returns, remastered, in the all new Age of Empires: Definitive Edition! Sign up for the beta today!
Buggy
I was waiting for this game for a long time, but well, let´s say...
The game is not bad, it has many good things, like the gameplay, is more faster, the fights are not bad and the music is beautiful, however, are not exactly new, are in fact "bug fix".
Is interesting see the game combine ideas, the units looks like 3d models, but are sprites, not looks bad, however, the animations are not in all correct and it has bugs when you change quickly the screen, strange for games of today.
Other thing is the sounds effects, the original game has cool sounds when the units attack mostly or when you select the catapult, sounds epic, however in that one is... lame, even the sound of the docks is almost the same used on docks on Empire Earth, sounds very similar. Fun fact is the team conserved the original wololo, so that is a good point for the game, I´m glad it was not replaced. xD
The music as I said is beutiful... and that´s all, I feel I listened some many time before in soundcloud. Well, compared with the old is nice see the evolution, however, some themes sound more epic on the original game than the new version.
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The game looks like was released incompleted or so quickly, there are many elements looks wrong like the animations of the units (example the chariots when attack or when the villagers find bushes... when are trees not bushes, but they find the food on the earth).
Is nice see an old game revived, but the visual art remember me those free videogames of youtube and those things, and I can see is very inspired on 0 a.D. (example the hud on the game).
I should not approved the game excepting you can play with the old version, and is something cool.
Good points:
- A classic is back.
- The music.
- Wololo.
- Some improvements on the gameplay, is more faster, tech tree, rally points, etc.
- The destruction of the buildings.
- Ambient and clouds effects.
- Water (well, kinda).
- It has incluyed the original AoE1 with the original midis of the game and the expansion.
- The IA is very good, very challenged compared with the original.
- New balance with the civilizations, many were changed compared with the original game.
- Incluyed the original game.
Bad points:
- Some sounds effects are lame.
- Wrong animations of many units (look how walk the horses, personally I found strange how they move), and some do not have animations like ships (except the birremes).
- The blood when units die... looks like a bird and always appear on the butt of the units... oh deer! xD
- There are bugs with the sprites of the units and the shadows.
- The cheat units are not upgraded and use the old sprites, looks blurry and pixeled, lame! I don´t remember the original game was very blurry.
- There are some visual bugs if you play on the original AoE1, example all coast textures looks terrible and the water haven´t animation, really? How dare you Forgotten Empires?
- The Zoom options, yeah is cool see the units close, but the camera is disgusting, and more far you can´t see the units. Is not the best option.
- Exclusive for Windows 10.
- Xbox live.
- No formations for units.
- Minoans, that faction is OP, only composite bow archers and you can win very easy, on the original you need catapults for help to win on assaults, here is not necessary, the archers does a lot of damage against buildings incluying walls and towers. Is sick!
- Check the babylon houses on bronze age... when it is destroyed... is not the same model. Fail. :V
Conclusion:
I growed up with this game, and I expected more, maybe is my guilt, but that should be the oportunity for add more units, technologies, factions, maybe unique units and more, but this game is just an update, there is nothing new as Forgotten Empires promised, example add formations. The second point freaks me is, why a game of sprites need 20gb of space and tons of resources of a powerful pc... well maybe justify because are 32 faces per unit, making it more smooth the movement, ok... but windows 10...
I would liked something like the original games like AoE2 add the historical dates and maybe art concept, something for collectors. And... you need Xbox live conexion for play multiplayer... I´m sorry Steam boys, is not for you.
I´m afraid the Forgotten Empires stoled material of the unofficial HD patch edition for the original game (you can download it here) because many things are from this mod/patch, example low costs for greek hoplites, that one I reconized... but this mod does much more for the original game more than this game, I am kind of dissapointed, and I´m afraid soon Forgotten Empires will invade us with DLC and those things, but for now, this game is good, but not enough.
For now, I´m glad the original game is back, I like many aspects but others well not really, but well, for support it and don´t leave it to die.
cant wait.