An engrossing and highly playable RTS game, Age of Empires II will even convert the people who didn't like the original.

Sometimes you play a game and question if the developers even play computer games. The interface is atrocious, the manual is about as useful as the crud hawked on late night infomercials, and you're constantly questioning the design decisions. Don't worry, with Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings you'll never once question if Ensemble are gamers or simply disgruntled spreadsheet programmers. From the well-written and helpful manual to the stunning number of thoughtful touches in the actual game, Age of Empires II exudes an aura of playability, and more importantly, fun. It's quite obvious that this is a game made by people who love games and who want you to love their game. Trust me, that's not hard to do.

On the surface Age of Empires II seems a lot like the first Age of Empires, a game that was a roaring success for Microsoft and Ensemble, selling in excess of two million copies. Personally I never understood the hunger people had for the game. There was potential, but it still felt too much like Warcraft II with a facelift. The marketing attempts to make it sound like a real time Civilization also didn't help much. This time around the potential has almost been reached to the fullest, and what a difference it makes!

Like the first game you take control over real world armies like the Franks, Vikings, or the Celts (there are actually a total of thirteen playable empires) as you make your way through four "ages" in time. With the exception of the monk unit, you won't find anything fantastical in the game. No magic swords, no fire-breathing dragons, and no wizard towers. Even the monk's abilities of being able to convert enemy units, taken in the context of the game, isn't that far fetched. In reality it may not be quite so instantaneous but then again the Dark Ages also didn't last five minutes so you can cut Ensemble some slack.

Basic gameplay once again revolves around building your humble village from a few slack-jawed yokels to a mighty earth shattering army of conquest. You can also opt to build a Wonder that stands the test of time, or collect all the holy relics on the map and fend off your enemies. Villagers are now composed of both sexes, a nice aesthetic touch that doesn't affect gameplay but helps create a sense of playing in a real world. Birds still fly overhead, fish leap in the waters (waters that have shed the cartoon look of the first Age of Empires), and there are roving animals that yield food or pose a danger to your citizens. There are plenty of ambient sound effects and the musical score that accompanies the game is a first class effort that adds to the overall atmosphere. Unit animation is excellent and watching your citizens go about their tasks is a treat in itself, making this one real time strategy (RTS) game that's as much fun to watch as it is to play.

The coolest graphic feature is the game's scale, at least in terms of buildings. The buildings are actually to scale with your units, something which no other RTS game but Myth can claim. This is just one more example of how the world of Age of Empires II is able to transcend your expectations of a RTS game's power of immersiveness.

For all the talk in some games of having a god's eye view of the world, this is probably one of the few games that have really made good on the claim. As you can imagine with such huge structures your view of the units must suffer, yet Ensemble figured out an interesting workaround. When a unit is blocked by a landscape graphic, be it a forest or a castle, an outline of the unit appears through the landscape. The system is quite efficient, and looks better than if the landscape became transparent.

As mentioned there are three basic forms of objectives (although in the campaign scenarios the objectives are somewhat more varied) and all will commit you to combat at some point in the game. Each empire has one unique combat unit (Vikings have two) that emphasizes that empire's particular strength; the Japanese have samurai, the Britons longbowmen, the Celts have those funky blue painted raiders, and so on. The rest of the units are pretty much the same across the board. Further differences between the empires are worked into the game at a larger scale. Every empire has various strengths and weaknesses that translate into a semi-historical interpretation of the actual empire's abilities. For example, the Japanese being an island nation know how to build fishing ships well and so therefore their fishing vessels have double the hit points of other empires.

Unlike the first game in which battles were one huge furball of combat is much more refined in Age of Empires II. There are four formations you can put your troops in, and amazingly enough, they will form up in an intelligent manner. Your weaker units will always be in a protected spot and you'll never have to worry about micromanaging their set up. Even better, in a nod towards traditional wargames and the handling of stacks, the formation travels at the speed of the slowest unit. Have you ever been frustrated in Command and Conquer when you send a gaggle of infantry and rocket troops to attack a location and the rocket troops are still playing catch up when the infantry are busy wreaking havoc? That will never happen in Age of Empires II. How cool is that?

Other small advances in combat includes a much improved pathfinding routine, the ability to set aggression modes, and units that seek out a logical foe to attack (there are still times when your units will obsess over destroying a structure even as the enemy is attacking members of their group). Then there's the ability to garrison your units inside certain structures, meaning that you can hide units inside some of your buildings for a nice little surprise if your opponent assaults your town thinking it's empty. There's also an innovative feature that allows you to ring an alarm bell and garrison your villagers inside the town center until the battle is over. Cutting off your enemy's supply line, like in most RTS games, has just become a much tougher nut to crack.

Age of Empires II is the most open ended RTS game in terms of strategic possibilities that I've ever played. Almost every other RTS game forces you down a narrow path of upgrades and thus a narrow path of tactics. In Starcraft there was never a question of if you should upgrade your tanks to siege tanks, you had to. In Age of Empires II each empire has their own technological tree and upgrade path. Never once is it easy deciding where to take your empire next, but that makes the game even more fun. You can experiment with a wide range of upgrades and technology and never tire of figuring out new tactics. Speaking of tactics you'll also find that there are no super units here, everything is held in check by another unit or defensive structure. Excellent play balance in a RTS game is a rarity, but Ensemble has pulled it off in Age of Empires II.

Okay, it can't be a review unless there are some complaints, no matter how minor, so here they are. To begin with there's the whole farm issue. Once a farm is exhausted you must click on it again to rebuild. Why in the world do your farmers not automatically rebuild? This just seems like unnecessary management and doesn't fit in with the general friendliness of the game system.

The only other complaint that I have is with the scenario system. There are five campaigns (covering William Wallace, Joan of Arc, Saladin, Frederick Barbarossa, and Genghis Khan) that are rather short, but enjoyable with a nice mix of mission types. After the campaigns you can play random games with varied objectives (including an interesting game that involves protecting your fat King's greasy neck while doing your best to separate your opponent's royal head from his body) or make your own scenarios. Of course there's also a slew of multiplayer options. The problem is that there are no single historical scenarios. True, most RTS games for some odd reason don't include single scenarios, but wouldn't it be nice if they did? And with all the other features Ensemble was stuffing into Age of Empires II some single scenarios wouldn't have been too much trouble, would they?

Yes, besides griping about the farm and the lack of single scenarios that's it for complaints. I could go back to describing more of the great features that make Age of Empires II such a compelling experience, from the ability to record games to the improved economic system but alas, I'm about out of space. In a year that has seen few RTS games released Age of Empires II stands high above the competition. In fact, it could stand high in any year. Simply put, this is a great game.

Reviewed by Scott R Krol.