07 November,2021 09:54 AM IST | Mumbai | Jaison Lewis
Age of Empires 4
Age of Empire is one of those games that has legendary status amongst Real-Time Strategy (RTS) players. It has a strong community and the recently re-mastered versions did well for an ancient game. The new game holds on to that strategy, keeping the historic theme and telling us stories of significant wars in the Middle Ages through the engaging medium of video games.
On starting the game, you are treated to some great video content and are thrown into a tutorial scenario where you are taught about town-building, army building and of course, waging war. It is a nice way to learn about the basics of the game. The campaigns are also a great introduction to the franchise, even if you haven't played the series before. The videos throughout the game are top-notch, giving the player some nice historical context to what's happening in the game.
AOE4 is mostly straightforward in its approach where the campaign is concerned, build an army and destroy your enemies. Most of the strategies from the previous games still work which will make fans of the franchise quite happy.
There are four campaigns in total and each has a lot of levels, enough to keep you engaged for a long time. The difficulty also scales up nicely offering more challenges. I enjoyed the campaigns even though I found some of the more restrictive levels very frustrating, especially ones where restrictions were imposed on how you used your army.
Though fun, the campaigns don't teach you about the tech trees in the game, sticking only to basics. So, while this approach may work for veterans, newer players may find it a bit annoying to have to research about each faction's tech progression on their own.
Age of Empires' mechanisms and feel are very similar to the previous entries to the game. It was one of the sourest points for me in an otherwise great game. RTS games have progressed way beyond the rock paper scissor strategy that governs the armies of AOE. There is a lot more depth and complexity to the games now. It feels like a missed opportunity, the only exception to this was the Mongols whose campaign was a breath of fresh air in the game. With Mongols, you can't build a settlement like you can with the other factions, so no walls and other security structures. On the flip side, you can keep moving your buildings to advantageous positions without spending a bomb rebuilding everything.
The rest are more simplistic in their approach. Each faction has its plus and minus points which can be researched and leveraged in the game. That said, this Age of Empires will hopefully take on a life of its own considering the popularity of the game in the modding community. If that happens, AOE4 will be well worth the investment, just because of the infinite replayability it will offer through its community.
The game is only available on PC which I thought was sad, considering how well the Xbox Series S and X are doing it would have been great to have a version that worked on them as well. The Xbox anyway accepts keyboard and mouse for surfing, what's the problem in letting an in-house game from taking advantage of its significant processing power?
AOE's system requirements are very low. I managed to play the game very smoothly on a five-year-old laptop with discreet graphics. This was very impressive considering most modern games would never load, let alone be playable. However, it looked and handled a lot better when it was played on a proper gaming PC, so that was a plus point.
Age of Empires 4 is a great strategy game, but it is so similar to the re-mastered older games that it barely has an identity of its own. Fans of the franchise will find AOE4 comforting to play, but its gameplay and style are very outdated when compared to all the recent RTS games. RTS fans who have never played AOE before might get a little frustrated with the game.
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