Homemademech - Nintendo DS Age of Empires: Age of Kings reviews

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Age of Empires : Age of Kings

Recently fans of the Age of Empires series has been treated to the newest installment of this PC turn based strategy series. Age of Empires 3 came out not too long ago, and while it was a good enough game (set from what I heard of it in the New World) it was quickly overshadowed by the PC release of rival franchise Civilization 4 (which just seemed to have that little bit of an extra oomph over Age of Empires).
But now Age of Empire fans have a chance to relive past glory of the franchise on the Nintendo DS with the DS release of Age of Empires : Age of Kings (based on the original PC version of Age of Empires 2 : Age of Kings).

Now I know what you’re thinking. If you happen to be a real time strategy fan you might be cringing at the thought of ANOTHER Nintendo DS stab at the genres done best usually by the PC. Why? Well if you are a real time strategy fan, and happen to own a DS, you might have rushed out and snatched up the first real time strategy game for the DS when it came out (Shogun Empires : Real Time Conflict) only to realize what a damn dog of a game this is! Weak, boring, mind numbing and a total waste of time, Shogun Empires exists more to insult real time strategy gamers than entertain them with it’s mediocre stripped down gameplay that isn’t going to give PC real time strategy counterpart game franchises anything to worry about anytime soon. Even with a batch of lackluster “mini games” like horse chasing, naval warfare and castle sieging you can be assured that you will quickly put this horrible excuse for real time strategy into your “junk pile” faster than you can say “Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith”.

However this time you might actually be pleased with the results that you are handed… depending on what kind of turn based strategy fan you are.
Light on the options this game does deliver a little bit of strategic gaming though not to the detail and extent of games like Advance Wars : Dual Strike. The meat and potatoes of Age of Kings is it’s Single Player mode which features the story mode Campaign option, as well as the freemode Empire Map option.
In Campaign mode you take command of one of the game’s five leader types (each a flavor of culture represented in the game) in five difficulty settings. Sorry, these are not tweakable by the way, each are firmly set and locked in story arcs with specifics missions you have to undertake. You can’t adjust either the difficulty or anything in these, so as you might expect replay value on these is kind of limited.

Let’s start off with the tutorial, told in six campaigns as you play the only female leader in this game (in the form of Joan D’arc, aka Joan of Arc). Here you’ll learn the quirks of playing the game, as well as how to do everything you need to do in this game. From building your culture through raising cities, castles, wonders (a specific wonder being a religious icon from what I’ve seen of it) and the securing of resources through the development of farms and mines, and the destruction and re-development of enemy farms & mines so they produce for you rather than your enemy. This is nice and all but as you might expect the work to expand all this stuff (including the creation of villagers to do the building, the creation of armies and priests to fight and convert/heal, the hiring of mercenaries to fight, and so forth) is a time consuming process that makes gameplay slow, which is really apparent when you play the Empire Maps and have all the time in the world to make your civilization and fight your enemy(s).
There is also the matter of the Ages to consider. You start at the first Age (Dark Age) and have to work your way all the way to the Fourth Age (the Imperial Age which heralded the end of the Middle Ages where this game is set) which gives you improved buildings, armies, mercenaries, and the ability to build that Wonder structure I told you about above. The raising of Ages can only be done through the process of Research. Every day you have the opportunity to research a new technology, which requires an expenditure of food/gold towards said development. The more you develop new technologies the more you improve your stats (with the ability to generate more food and gold per turn, make your armies stronger, make your structures and villagers stronger, etc) but that is also another time consumer. Advance Wars this isn’t.

Also it is as you play that you begin to confront your first problems with this game.
Buildings, people and so forth set by themselves or in thin groupings are easy to click with the stylus, however you’ll find that the more packed things are together (like in the large groupings of a city or in a major conflict) it’ll become an impossible task to pick out one unit to click and use, meaning you’ll have to use the d-pad and buttons just to ferret out certain units in a crowd to issue commands to.
Also you’ll soon discover that some of the Campaign mode missions have nearly impossible requirements to pass! Take the last of the tutorial missions where you have to restore a Wonder (Cathedral) so your supporter can be crowned king of France.
In order to do this you’ll need to do the following in 16 days.
1-Build up your resources quickly so you can bankroll your advancements and cultural studies to reach the Imperial Age so you can build the Wonder.
2-Build up an army because the minute you build said Wonder you’ll come under heavy attack and need to defend the Wonder/the nearby city it’s built near WHILE escorting the guy you need to crown king.
3-While you do that you need to find a lost religious artifact and bring it back before the guy you are crowning is crowned so he can be crowned.
4-Which means you need to make sure to build a Church because only a Monk can carry the object in question, while also remembering that you need a Blacksmith building in your town as well as a Market so you can quickly employ mercenaries to fight for you while sending villagers out to build farms and mines to build up your resources…
5-Oh, and you need to fight off both the reminents of enemy armies before you finish the Wonder and a full on attack AFTER you finish the wonder, all the while keeping them away from your guy because he seems to have a glass deployment that shatters with one volley of arrows.
Yeah, and you should be doing that in 16 days! Not impossible, but not easy either!

The rest of the campaigns will only test your patience even more than this one as you must fight as Yoshitsume of Japan (Easy), Genghis Khan (Medium), Saladin (Hard) and Richard the Lionheart (Very Hard), which is in turn a bit less than 30 missions in total which provides some gameplay but once you finish these you may have little incentive to come back and play these again.

The other thing about single player is Empire Map, however don’t expect this to be the saving grace of the game because while it does offer you abit of gameplay and a wide array of maps (which you can add to the list by purchasing new maps from the game’s “Bonus Items” shop) there is no options for new leaders/cultures to play with. Yes, you can buy various upgrades to the type of armies you can buy (which I think is mostly mercenary upgrades) and you can get new maps, but besides that there is no option to open new cultural flavors to add to the combat of the game. Also the maps seem to focus on the five areas represented in the game. That means while you can rage through France, Japan, Asia, the Middle East and the UK you can’t go anywhere else. No South America maps, no traversing Africa or America. You are just given the hand you are dealth and not much more.

Additionally the game modes are really skimpy. The only things you’ll be doing if you are solo playing is the aforementioned Campaign & Empire Maps, otherwise the only other mode of gameplay is Multiplayer and (yes) you’ll need other players to play again. Pity that unlike Advance Wars you cannot download this into other people’s DS so you actually have to find another person who bought Age of Empires before you can play against them (a major downer).
The rest of the modes are the User Profile so you can see how well (or poorly) your doing playing this game, the Bonus Items shop, and a Library of resource material concerning the historical content of this game. Yeah, I don’t see you using that unless you’re writing a book report or trying to prove the educational value of this game to your parents.

There is some gaming here, and it’s solid enough if you are a fan of the genre (or like to have something new to test your brain power on in concerns to your DS), but if you are neither a fan of the turn based strategy format or like the fast paced action of Advance Wars over slow thought out games like Age of Empires then this is probably not going to be the game you add to your collection.
I think the breakdown will say the rest that needs to be said about this.

Age of Cultural Breakdowns
What’s Hot?
There really isn’t that much to be said about portable versions of turn based strategy games. I mean with the failing of Shogun Empires (the first real time strategy game for the DS) you’d think that there would be no chance to see a halfway good turn based strategy game hit the DS, and yet here you go.
While I am certain that this is probably a watered down version of it’s original PC counterpart, I still think that Age of Empires : Age of Kings might have something in it for you turn based strategy fanatics looking for a time passer while away from your PC, which this most certainly fits in every respect.
It’s probably not the best turn based strategy game of the year (I’m sure Civilization 4 still rules in that regard) it does give you, at last, the first turn based strategy game that portable gaming fans can rise up and support enmasse. And it’s way better than Shogun Empires, so it’s worth the check out.

What’s Not?
However this is not going to be a cureall for turn based strategy phobia. If you are not the most ardent supporter of the turn based strategy format you will not become an instant convert by playing Age of Empires : Age of Kings, in fact you might become even more steeled against the genre.
People who are fans of, say, Advance Wars will not like the slow pace that Age of Empires takes to it’s gaming, so if you like the quick paced turn based strategy of your Orange Star slapping down Black Hole Army Advance Wars gaming then you will do well to stay away from Age of Empires.
If you can be open minded enough to embrace the more slower paced gaming you might find an intriguing bit of gameplay here, if not then try out Batallion Wars for the GameCube. It’s not a true Advance Wars game but it is an offshoot of the franchise even if it couldn’t be an officially licensed Advance Wars game due to Intelligent Designs not participating in it’s creation. I.e. it’s fun even if it’s not Advance Wars fun.

Moments to Remember?
Basically the gameplay since it’s straight out turn based strategy. Serious, bland, cut and dried combat. No attempts at humor, comedic flair, or even an attempt at dramatic Dynasty Warriors style story intrigue. The game is simply a strategy game that gives you the game and not much else.

What to Ignore?
Well you can see for yourself what you can ignore in this game.
Don’t expect a dramatic story ala Dynasty Warriors for starters.
Don’t expect a lot of choices in world domination choices, in fact don’t even expect the chance to play across the world as you are only allowed to pick battlefields here and there without a world domination option which seems to be available in Civilization 4.
Don’t expect different flavors of cultures and leaders past the five given because this game doesn’t seem to have any other choices. I know this is set in a specific timeline but some other options for more variety and more gameplay options would have been nice. It also would have been nice if the game offered up a World Domination option which would have kept players playing past their victory in the Campaign mode.

Overall?
It is what it seems to be, a trimmed down slimmed down version of a PC game that has it’s merits but is not da bomb. While it does have it’s good points, yes, and for those looking for a turn based fix on the portables (which there is none to speak of past Advance Wars) this should be for you it doesn‘t mean it‘s for everyone. If you don’t like slow paced gaming, or if you want more out of your turn based gaming, then you might as well pass on this since it will probably not fulfill your needs to the fullest extent it could. That and you really do need to have friends to play this game against (which means loners who are not major turn based strategy fanatics might as well avoid this like the H5N1 virus) since the makers of the game failed to allow you to download the game to other DS owner’s systems, or even include the all important option of WiFi Connection online play, which would have made this a must have game for any owner.
Why is online play so important? Well because even if the game is light on options if you had the option to play online then all of that would be forgiven since you could have found a wide variety of opponents worldwide to keep you going back online to pit your Empire building prowress against. This doesn’t provide that option, so you have one majorly good reason to sit this dance out (ownership wise).

Me? I think it’s a mildly amusing time passer, but I always find myself going back to Advance Wars : Dual Strike so it’s not perfect… I.e. if it was the perfect DS game I shouldn’t constantly be drawn back to Advance Wars, yet I am, so it’s a good time passer but it could have been better.
Let’s hope the next turn based strategy game they roll out on the DS takes what is good with Age of Empires : Age of Kings and improves on it for the next time we look at turn based DS gaming.
Anyway this might be a moot point because Majesco is presently working with Microsoft to roll out a version of MechAssault on the DS, which means if you are a MechAssault fan you might want to wait it out and see whether or not MechAssault on the DS might not march your armies right in comparison to Age of Empires : Age of Kings.
When I can I’ll see if I can grab a copy of it for review in the near future, so stay tuned.

Nintendo DS - Age of Empires: Age of Kings

Nintendo DS Age of Empires: Age of Kings Reviews

Age of Empires : Age of Kings

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