Age of Empires is seen as one of the pioneers of the real-time strategy genre. As far as we are concerned, it was also one of the first games that we could enjoy on our legendary Windows 98 computer. The game where kingdoms are ruled with an iron fist celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year. That was also the reason that a new version of the game would be released. However, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition was postponed to 2018. The game has since been published and ready to generate the necessary nostalgic feelings.
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition , as is known, is a renewed version of the original Age of Empires . Or a "remaster" if you want to call it that way. It also includes The Rise of Rome expansion. The game's single-player campaign takes you through various historical scenarios. You can play as twelve different civilizations, each civilization trying to survive from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Meanwhile, the goal is to collect tools such as wood, food, stone and gold; expand your village; recruit soldiers and capture enemy territory. In the Definitive Edition, there are also some narrative elements added to each mission. This story is told through scripted dialogues, which are read by an older man.
Although it may have been a while since you played the original, it does not take long before you notice the subtle adjustments. Buildings, landscapes, units and the user interface are better than ever, both in terms of resolution and textures. The Definitive Edition even supports 4K resolution if you desire it. The animations on the other hand are still not impressive. The people in Age of Empires have always looked a bit weird, as they poke around like penguins and hunt their axes in trees with movements reminiscent of puppets. The units in the Definitive Edition have also taken over some of the strange navigational skills from the original. If you instruct them to move to a point on the map that is slightly further away, they manage to do one on their own. However, it sometimes happens that they opt for a "shortcut", which makes them hopelessly stuck.
If a villager has collected all the tools from a certain point of view, it is often completely confused as to what he has to do next. You have to take this manual to a new workshop otherwise it will simply stand still. Some of this strange behavior can also be found in other units in the game. If an enemy unit comes close enough, your soldiers will attack it automatically. But if the enemy goes a little further, then your soldiers do nothing at all and you have to control them manually. This is never really a problem, since the game clearly indicates when you are attacked and then you can send your soldiers into the fight. At the same time, it remains strange that nobody reacts when your buildings are just a few meters away.
The soundtrack has also received a huge service in the Definitive Edition. Instead of the original MIDI there is now an orchestra responsible for the music in the game. Personally, we have always loved the music of Age of Empires and that is why it probably takes some time before we get attached to the new soundtrack. Many of the songs have the same characteristics as the original game, while there are also many songs where we have difficulty recognizing them - even though we have heard the music from the original ridiculously often. Nevertheless, the music sounds fantastic.
In addition, the overall gameplay is very similar to the old one. The game presents the same buildings, units and upgrades from the original Age of Empires. You can buy upgrades that speed up the working speed of your villagers or strengthen the armor and weapons of your soldiers. Every civilization has some exclusive advantages and the design of their buildings is unique. Apart from that, almost all twelve civilizations are the same. Especially since they can actually recruit the same kind of soldiers, defenses and storming weapons. As this is a remaster, a complete renovation might have been too demanding. However, we find it a bit boring that all units look the same, whether they are Romans or Persians.
The original Age of Empiresalso offered an "editor" that made it possible to create your own scenarios and 'campaigns'. In the Definitive Edition some new options have been added to this mode. An intense multiplayer also belongs to Age of Empires, but because the servers were offline while writing this review, we have not yet been able to test our skills online. Some players will be disappointed that the game is (currently) only available in the Windows Store. For this, Windows 10 is a requirement, as is logging in with an Xbox Live account. Steam players can not add the Definitive Edition to the rest of the Age of Empires games in their library. However, Microsoft has confirmed that the game "maybe" at a later time finds a way to other platforms.
Conclusion
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is definitely a remaster of an outdated game in its entirety. The original game is now more than twenty years old and this is especially noticeable in some strange and sometimes annoying gameplay mechanisms. As a result, Age of Empires falls short compared to new games in the same genre, such as Star Craft 2, Red Alert 3 and the Civilization games. That said: the Definitive Edition simply lives in the classic game. The game looks more beautiful than ever before and the new music gives the games its own identity, while retaining its distinctive character. A new, and hopefully more stable, online server will again give players the chance to fight each other over the internet. If you were crazy about the original Age of Empiresthe Definitive Edition is definitely worth a visit. But in the end it remains the same good old Age of Empires, as we have known for years.
The plus and minus points
✔ Visual razor sharp
✔ New soundtrack
✔ Extensive options in the Editor
✔ The same classic gameplay.
✖ Some of the same strange gameplay mechanisms
✖ too little extra content
✖ Feels a bit outdated
✖ Currently only available in the Windows Store
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