If you're a PC gamer, and you're old like me, then you probably have experienced the glory of something like Age of Empires, Red Alert, or another classical RTS. One of my favourites was Command and Conquer: Generals.
I never played Age of Mythology when it was the new hotness. I don't really know what I was doing when it came out in 2002. I was probably playing shooters, or concentrating on school work or something. Maybe I was still playing Age of Empires 2. Who knows.
Anyway. I'm old and rambling, as I am going to tend to do a lot of in the future, as I age; it will probably become more and more prevalent.
My friend Krystal suggested that we play of Age of Mythology (the Extended edition) - which I happened to own on Steam for some reason. We played a few games vs AI, and I thought nothing of it. Then the Retold edition came out, and she was obsessed. Therefore, I purchased it, with the intention of making our Tuesday night game nights Age of Mythology: Retold, for a while, at least.
It has only been over the last few weeks (while I had time away from work), that I decided to sit down and play the campaign with the intention of finishing it. Oh my goodness, and my many gods to worship, am I glad I did.
There's so much depth in Age of Mythology that it boggles my mind how it was even designed, let alone how to play in the most efficient manner; let alone how to counter x with y; yet at the same time, everything feels nicely balanced.
Some early missions in The Fall of the Trident campaign took me a couple of goes while I got my actions per minute back up to acceptable levels, but once I had, the feeling of unstoppableness once you've got your economy sorted is wonderful.
I can even see where the unique item abilities, and god powers and faith mechanics (that vary depending on the pantheon you are playing) - influenced later generations and genres of games.
It is so much fun finding outposts, taking them over, building an army, and then moving onto teh next one. The animations are smooth, the graphics are charming, and the voice acting is pretty good. I can understand some spoken greek, and it's nice that the greek villagers and military units say things like "Carefully," and "I'll finish it" when you instruct them to do things.
I'm sure it is the same for the other languages in the game, but don't ask me, I'm not a linguist.
The other remarkable thing about the Retold version of Age of Mythology is the fact that the accessibility and game menus have so many things for you to tinker with. From narration in the menus, to in game, to hot keys for literally every conceivable action in the game (and some that serve multiple purposes) - there's so much for me to still learn, even after spending about 40 hours or so in the game. I'm sure the learning curve will in fact be limitless.
This is a game that will overwhelm you with detail and depth, and it is truly an old school PC game, the type of stuff that I grew up playing. In fact, it has also made me enamoured and nostalgic for every single RTS game I've ever played, and while my A-Z of Steam play throughs are indeed shambolic in their order... this means that I will be playing a fair few RTS games to get the "itch" that Age of Mythology has given to me.
I am sure I will also explore RTS games that I've never played before.
Finally, I may break an oath that I said I would never do. I might install another Blizzard game. I might reinstall Starcraft and Starcraft II to see how they will treat me with my new found, nay, rediscovered love of RTS games.
If you've never played Age of Mythollogy and like any form of strategy game... just buy this. Don't think about it. Do it. Waste your life away like I have, and be immersed in something that can only be solved by someone who has more brainpower and the ability to click and fly around a map more than you do.
Get good at RTS instead of Eldern Ring. Expand your mind. I am going to do the same. I'm off to play more of this game, anf finish the last campaign. l
Siento que el Starcraft me gusta más que este, o no sé, las cosas antiguas me gustan mucho pero es que Starcraft.... El diseño de Starcraft es más mí estilo. Pero este tiene un punto fuerte, la historia, la historia está buena, es bastante culta. Estaría cool coleccionar todos los juegos de este estilo en una sola carpeta Lol
Collecting all the RTS games on a shelf would be very nice. There's so many classics.
My first experience with this type of strategy games was Warcraft and although its first installment I did not get to enjoy it so much on the PlayStation One, the one I ended up enjoying a lot was Warcraft III plus all its expansions, it was an adventure full of challenges and a lot of nostalgia.
Here you mention several games of the genre that are quite hard, unfortunately I could never play Age of Empires, Red Alert and none of the Command and Conquer games. For some reason it always gave me some error in the installation. To this day I'm still looking for ways to play some of these titles, but I can't find how, from where I am it's very difficult to access those games from my Steam account, it's a bit discouraging that.
Even so I know what Age of Mythology means , I always heard disputes between which was better, yes, Age of Mythology or Age of Empires. I always thought they were the same games so I was wrong for a long time.
It only remains for me to wish you luck in this adventure and enjoy it. Now that I see your content, it has made me want to start the Warcraft III campaign again.
There's a modern remaster of the original Red Alert on Steam, but I am not sure about the other titles. Most of these games were all released on CD back in the day, which makes modern play of the older versions problematic.
I get it bro. Anyway I will try to investigate to see if I can get a link with its respective installation tutorial, I hope to get it. I would like to try some of these old school gems.
The original was on my list to play but I never got around to it. I have an old copy here somewhere, I need to see how hard it is to get running on modern hardware (probably not too bad). I was a HUGE fan of Command & Conquer and the Age of Empires line of games (I even bought a Compaq iPaq to play the only mobile version at the time - even plays well over 70% of the customs available).
I need to look into this re-release someday. I added it to my wishlist on Steam so I don't forget it later.
Great review by the way!
I had a Windows CE device that I seem to recall had a cut down version of Age of Empires on it. It was fantastic, playing it with a stylus. :D.
I'm keen to revisit all these older games in my library until I tire of the genre again, or become completely enamoured by it, and it ends up being the only thing I keep playing.
It was awesome as while it was stripped down, it still had that feel of Age of Empires. I think the only maps that would not work were the really huge ones (probably a memory issue).
I play some of these classics as I discover new maps or fan made content for them. Doom being the top of the classic pile as fans will never let that one die (thankfully id Software left it open for fans).
Doom runs on everything. :D
I remember playing it back in the day. It was kind of a let down after the amazing Age of Empires 2, but I still enjoyed it a little. Now that I'm on a Mac I don't know if I can easily play this remake, but if I get a chance, it sounds fun.
I've played it without issue on Linux, not sure about Mac compatibility. I think it presents as windows exclusive, but using proton it seemed to behave when I tested under a fairly modern version of Linux. I'm still waiting for my new SSD in the mail before I do more experimentations with Linux gaming, but my experience through the steam deck has been very good.
I installed Starcraft / Starcraft 2 onto my M2 mac last night... once I'm done with Age of Mythology in totality (the campaigns, that is) I'm definitely gonna give them a go (on that platform)
I haven't played this game before, I got to know about it from your post, so I will definitely try to play it.