Re-View: Age of Empires II: HD Edition

In my never ending quest to define the elements of a timeless game, it’s always difficult to look back at personal favourites. Age of Empires 2 was the first game I ever played on the PC, and for many months was the only game I played period. A historic strategy game in which you took on the role of a medieval civilisation, it excelled in playability and atmosphere. I remember the game being extremely difficult as a kid; so much so that I soon became familiar with all of the cheat codes. So, when I saw AofE2, along with its expansions, available on Steam, I decided the time had come to test my own nostalgia once again.

When you get down to it, even the tent dwelling nomadic Mongolians can build siege weapons in this game. The only real distinguishing factor between civilisations in terms of capabilities is the unique units they can produce at their castles; All other differences are trivial or visual at best.

It has all the elements of your standard strategy game: you develop your civilisation by creating buildings and units, gathering resources and ultimately working towards several possible ends ranging from building a ‘Wonder of the World’ or simply defeating all other players. You have your ‘villagers’; weak units who gather resources, do all the construction, and for some reason look like the jean-wearing zombies from House of the Dead 2, as well as various offensive units to become familiar with. Considering how wide ranging this formula is for strategy games, AofE 2 does it distinguishably well. Everything is simple yet fluent, and easy to grasp. I would always find myself comparing similar games like Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth to this in terms of playability, and AofE 2 always came out on top.

I began with the game’s historic ‘Standard Campaigns’. You take a guiding hand in military campaigns ranging from Joan d’Arc’s time in France to the rise of Ghengis Khan. I was as surprised as ever with the poor quality voice acting in these campaigns, especially when picking out the absurdly bad Asian accents. I also found that for all their historic interest, the campaigns seemed to blend together in terms of strategy. When you get down to it, even the tent dwelling nomadic Mongolians can build siege weapons in this game. The only real distinguishing factor between civilisations in terms of capabilities is the unique units they can produce at their castles; all other differences are trivial or visual at best.

That being said, there is a charm to the story campaigns. At times you can tell the developers really worked to recreate well known historic locations or structures, such as the Great Wall of China or cities like Constantinople. The fact that you can create or recreate as many battles and locations as you like in Map Customisation holds as much appeal as it ever did, and fans of the game should be pleasantly surprised with the new maps already available on Steam. There remains a comparatively high level of creative freedom in this game that can be hard to find elsewhere.

Another counterpoint is that although the capabilities of many civilisations are the same, starting points in campaigns can differ greatly. I found the most fun ones to play were those that forbade you from constructing buildings or training fresh troops, thus forcing you to use strategy with what little you had. I also found that computer-civilisations in campaigns would stick stringently to historical accuracy in terms of what troops they threw at you, which would encourage strategically choosing your own path of development. This was when it felt like an actual strategy game as opposed to an exercise in flinging your army at the enemy. That being said, such campaigns were few and far between; generally, having enough patience to advance your civilisation and build a huge army regardless of who you play as.

Despite its flaws, I would like to think that Age of Empires 2 remains a timeless game because of what it does within its parameters. It has a huge range of features that are employed fairly effectively in making the survival of your civilisation enjoyable, and expansions such as The Conquerors built on this very effectively. Routing your enemies, competing for resources, and ultimately realising that you’re using actual strategy in a game is richly rewarding. Granted, there can be little to distinguish between the civilisations at times, but strategy remains at the forefront of gameplay regardless.

In conclusion, I would say that Age of Empires 2 is fairly timeless, in terms of strong gameplay elements, map customisation and playability. The fact that there is a growing Steam Community of custom maps for the game seems testament to that, and I would encourage fans of the Strategic genre to try this game online. For its recognisable flaws, Age of Empires 2 was never hailed as being a perfect game, and that’s still the case now, as much as it pains me to say it. Still, it was much better than 3 was; here’s hoping we get a future instalment which knows how to build on what was, and still is, a thoroughly enjoyable game.