Reviewed by: Brent Hecht
Review Date: 8.19.99
Developer: Microsoft
Publisher: MacSoft
MSRP: $49.99
In 1997, Microsoft released Age of Empires for Windows. The game was an instant success.
It won multiple awards and was on bestseller lists for several months after its release.
Ever since the game rose to popularity, the Mac community has called out for a developer
to port the game to the Mac platform. MacSoft finally took up the challenge and recently
released Age of Empires for the Mac. The only questions that remains is, "was
it worth the wait?"
Age of Empires is a real-time war strategy game that in many ways is like the Warcraft
series from Blizzard. Players must gather resources and construct civilizations in
order to train enough units to defeat the other civilizations or to attain any other
goal of the scenario. There are four "ages" in which a civilization can
exist. When the player has built enough buildings in a certain age and has enough
resources, he or she can advance to the next age. Each new "age" sports
new buildings and units.
Probably the first thing the player will notice about Age of Empires is its four,
distinct single player modes. In a campaign, players must defeat multiple scenarios
in order to gain glory for their civilization. In a scenario, players must accomplish
the goals of the specific scenario. In a death match, players aim to obliterate the
other civilizations, capture all of the artifacts, or build and maintain a large,
resource-sucking building called a Wonder. Finally, in a random map, players engage
in a random scenario with user-defined goals.
Once the game play has actually begun, players get a glimpse of the real magic of
Age of Empires: its extremely low learning curve compared to similar games. After
my third full game, I had gotten used to the controls, developed my own strategy
and was very familiar with nearly all of the game’s functions. Furthermore, Age of
Empires provides user-editable difficulty level settings that gamers can use to increase
their skill. The difficulty levels range from easiest, which is a fantastic way to
get started, to hardest, which I found to be nearly impossible.
Another excellent quality of Age of Empires is its attention to map detail. Each map is filled with hills, mammals, birds, fish, streams, rivers, oceans, trees, and much more. What is even more impressive is that the game play is very tightly integrated with the map. For instance, the mammals can be hunted for food and the fish can be fished. Additionally, units slow down as they go up hills and speed up as they go down them.
One of the avid gamer’s worst fears is spending $50 on a game that becomes boring
after only a few days. Age of Empires is far from one of these games. Its developers
have taken many measures to make sure that the game stays entertaining for as long
as possible. For example, each one of the twelve civilizations has a few of its own
unique units and unit upgrades.
Age of Empires has many built-in features that give it the potential of being one
of the best multi-player gaming experiences around. First of all, the game supports
the ability to "Pay Tribute" to allies. This allows players to transfer
resources to allies. Second, the game offer customizable settings up the wazoo. In
the game setup screen, the creator of the game can do everything from disallowing
cheat codes to determining what kind of units will be available. Finally, Age of
Empire only requires one CD for the first three players and only three CDs for the
full eight players. However, Age of Empires’ multi-player gaming packs some major
flaws that prevent it from reaching its potential. First of all, the game does not
support cross-platform multi-player games. Second, if a player loses their connection,
they cannot rejoin the game. In addition to the issues with multi-player gaming,
I also have a few with other aspects of the game as well. When commanding huge civilizations,
the gameplay gets just the slightest bit choppy.
Age of Empires would be one of the best Mac games released in recent months if it
had not been for two fatal flaws: its tardiness in arriving for the Mac platform,
and its inability to support cross-platform gaming. After nearly two years, it is
almost considered a vintage classic. So the fact it doesn't support cross-platform
gaming may be a non-factor since PC users are likely not playing it anymore. All
things considered however, Age of Empires is a great game. You’ll have a ton of fun.
SCORE:
8 out of 10
System Requirements: A 120MHz/604, a 150Mhz/603 PowerPC or G3 processor
32MB RAM or more, 70MB free hard drive space or more, and a CDROM drive
Required for Net Play: a 150MHz/604 or faster processor (recommended) and Open Transport
Required for Internet Play: a 28.8 Kbps or faster modem, Open Transport
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