Though it may seem so, this game aint just for nerds... reviews for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

Though it may seem so, this game aint just for nerds...

Whoa. Easy there. What did I just say? Yes, this is a game that really is... well... fun to play.

You control a civilisation (There are quite a few, from Persians to Goths), build a town, and go to war with your enemies. There is noodles of depth, however.

You can build castles, Markets for trade, Universities, Blacksmiths, Bombard Towers, farms and many more things. Your soldiers can fight on camels, by foot, by sea or on horse.

You can also use Battering rams, Scorpions (Missile Launchers), Trogan horses and even elephants! Of course, this is not all available for you at the start. What you have depends on your civilisation and what age you are in.

You start in the dark ages and progress by collect commodities (wood, food, stone, gold). You obtain food by farming, fishing, or killing animals. Wood is the most common because you can chop down trees.

Gold is used for trade and other reasons. Stone is used to build fortifications.

The game sees you in a random map, from swamps to islands, along with 1-3 computer-controlled teams.

You can win a number of ways:

By building a wonder: This costs 1000 wood, gold and stone, and takes ages.

By being the last civilisation left: Insanely hard, even on easy, for even one enemy farm still denies victory.

By claiming a relic: find one and put it in your monastary for 200 days.

There are loads of different game modes, including the main story mode which puts you in histories battles, such as Waterloo and Joan of Arc. There's multiplayer, too.

That is but the tip of the iceberg. However, it has some flaws. Graphically, it is very limited.

It seems very 2-D due to an extremely poor camera, which doesn't let you zoom, rotate or find out where the battles are going on. It can be very frustrating at times.

This however, remains a good, solid, lomg game, available at 30 euro.

Graphics: 70% Great detail and smooth, but suffers from black borders and c**p camera

Sound: 85% Great voices, interesting musical score

Gameplay: 73% Complex controls can take a while to get used to

Lifespan: 83% Loads of modes, but it lacks immediate action

Overall: 80% A good game, but it falls short from an 'A' rank due to an abysmal camera, the second worst of 2003 (Tenchu- Wrath of Heaven is the WORST)

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