Age of Empires is a very successful real time strategy game for the PC and has been for some time. I never really got into PC gaming at all. For starters, I’ve never had a PC powerful enough to use to game on. Secondly, I always preferred console games; a complete story from start to finish instead of an ongoing game that can stretch until the end of my days. So, I was not familiar at all with Age of Empires- only that I knew what it was and it was a major PC release. So, imagine my surprise when I saw this version was released on the Nintendo DS. So, I tried it out and here are my thoughts:

Age of Empires II has a really neat schtick to it: instead of playing inside a fictional world full of barbarians and warlords, you get to control real life military specialists in the game and play through a (I’m guessing mostly exaggerated) path through their careers. You begin the game as Joan of Arc as it’s a tutorial type story where you get background info on her and characters around her while the game teaches you how to deploy units (such as longswordsmen or archers), set up town and buildings (like your town center , barracks and windmills) and fight the enemy. The amount of options is fairly deep and it took me a while to fully grasp all that I needed to be doing and be aware of but once you do, the gameplay goes even deeper.

The graphics are just fine for this system; clear, precise lines and cartoon like drawing style highlight familiar terrains over and over. The gameplay is not technically real time (although it may be on the multi-player mode which I didn’t play); it’s turn based like old favorite Shining Force, where each force completes their entire moves and strategy before letting the other side do the same. The regal horns and battle music are fun, but do repeat themselves after a while. There is a lot to do in this game, as there are 5 major leaders you can play as, including Richard the Lionheart (who did a paper on in high school.)

I really enjoyed the time I spent with this game as it bridges the pass well between first person story games and strategy games that can go on endlessly; there is still much story for me to play on this but I think I’ve seen enough. I would not be opposed to trying out the multi player online mode but it feels like if I did, I may as well just play it on the PC. This game franchise has a long and rich following and I can now understand why. Highly recommended for play on the DS.