Review: Age of Mythology Extended Edition (PC) ~ And on the 7th day he gamed.

Steam store page

Ah, Age of Mythology. I got introduced to this game when I wasn’t able to understand English. It was at a co-worker of my mom’s house. I was playing the games on the PC I didn’t own. The first time, I played with the Egyptian culture, since I have quite a fondness for the old Egyptian culture. A few years later, I found Age of Mythology in a garage sale. It was a French version, but I didn’t mind. I was finally able to play that one game I played for myself. Back then, my French was better than it is now. It didn’t take long before I found a copy of the Gold Edition with the Titans expansion pack. I played the game quite a lot back then. I even dabbled in online play. Fast forward to 2014 and Age Of Mythology Extended Edition releases. Overjoyed, I start it up and have a nostalgic wave. But, is the game any good and does it still hold up. Let’s find out. 

Tale of the Dragon

To my surprise, in 2016, the game received new content. This new content isn’t too well received if you read the Steam reviews. But, I’m running ahead of myself here. First, let’s take a look at the story of this game. In this game, you play as Arkantos, an admiral from Atlantis. Something strange I have to point out is that the Atlanteans were added with the expansion pack “Rise of the Titans”. 

Anyways, Arkantos gets a mission where he has to help Agamemnon in the Trojan War. Things go south right away and Arkantos’s fierce enemy Kamos tries to boycott him. The story of this game is quite long. It has over 30 missions and it will take you 30 hours to finish the main campaign. If you decide to play the additional campaign the DLC brings, you get a 10 hours additional playtime.

During the story, you come across various allies and go on a big adventure. The writing in the game is good. Personally, I prefer the stories in this game more than the stories that were told in Age of Empires I & II. The way how they used the mythologies and stories to create one huge story is just amazing.

Something that still holds up from the original is the voice acting. During the story, you come across Greek, Egyptian & Norse missions and each character feels and sounds unique. My favorite missions were Egyptian missions. The reason for that might be because I’m really fond of Egyptian mythology.

But, would I say that the voice acting is actually good? Oh, no. The voice acting is cheesy and over-the-top. And to be honest, I love it. It adds to the craziness of the story and atmosphere. I get the impression that the voice actors had an amazing time in the recording booth. The voice acting just clicked with me and actually made me laugh out loud sometimes.

The two base campaigns of the game are a blast to play through. I’m also glad that the downloadable short campaign “The Golden Gift” is also added in the Extended Edition. This was a 4-mission long campaign you were able to download from the official website as a sort of update/free expansion.

So, I also played a bit through Tale of the Dragon for this review. While I can understand the negative reception of this DLC, I would still recommend it. Now, there are some balancing issues and the multiplayer with the new Chinese civilization is sometimes quite unstable. But, it provides some new and fresh challenges in the game. I have to admit that I haven’t experimented with them too much since I love playing with the Egyptians the most, but from what I have played; the Chinese look like a lot of fun to play with. If you want a more in-depth review of the DLC, I would recommend that you read Moshfish’s review on it. It’s an amazing summary of what’s good and what’s bad with the DLC and I agree with a lot of it.

I want to add one thing to the Tale of the Dragons review. I don’t know if it’s just me or if other people experienced it as well, but in some missions, I didn’t have background music. Also, I found it a missed opportunity to add additional Asian tracks to the soundtrack.

Something minor that I experienced as well is that when you use a God power, usually a name is display who uses it. In the main campaigns, that’s Arkantos. In Tale of the Dragon, it’s nobody… No name is displayed.

God powers and such

This game plays like your typical RTS game. If you have played games like Age of Empires II or Rise & Fall – Civilizations At War, you will feel right at home. Your main goal is to build your civilization. You do this by assigning villagers various tasks to collect resources or create buildings. With these resources, you can create more units to improve your economy or create an army to defend from enemies or attack them.

There are, including the DLC, 5 different civilizations to play with. The Norse, Greek, Atlanteans, Egyptian and Chinese. Each civilization has it’s unique units and quirks. For example, the Norse has a special cart, the Oxcart, that is a sort of movable drop off point for resources. The Greeks need to have villagers praying to great favors while the Egyptians need to build statues of their gods to create favors. 

The best way to learn how to play with these civilizations is to play through the campaign. By the end, you will know the basics and some advanced mechanics with each civilization. But, if you are totally new to RTS games, there is a “Learn To Play” map where you get the basics of RTS gameplay. You learn how to play with the Greek civilization. The unique elements for each civilization are explained in a cinematic. Now, there is no Greek one and in the Chinese one, some bits take a bit too long.

If you ever want to know more about a unit or a building, you can just click on the portrait. You get a very detailed screen with a lot of information. This information contains the unit’s or building’s things like strengths, weaknesses, and uses. You can also click on “contents” to read a full in-game Wiki. Too bad it doesn’t have a search feature or a better menu system. If this was expanded upon, this would have been an even better tool.

You can play through the campaign on 4 difficulties. I mostly played through the campaign on the normal (moderate) difficulty. I would recommend that you play the game on the Normal difficulty first and decide if the game is too easy to too hard for you and switch if needed. Overall, the game is quite balanced and I rarely had moments where I found the AI was quite unfair.

There are a few unique mechanics in this game. First, let’s talk about a new unit class. Besides your typical triangle of sword, bow, and horse; there is a 4th unit class. Myth Units. These units can be trained in temples and are effective against human units. Each civilization has unique to the mythology of that civilization. For example, centaurs for the Greeks and sphinxes for the Egyptians.

The second unique mechanic is the Titans. When you reach the last age, you can start building a Titan Gate. When this gate is completed, a titan unique to that civilization is summoned. These are huge and powerful units that can be used as tank units to attack the enemy. Now, you can only place this Titan gate once, so if it’s destroyed, though luck. Also, the Titan is quite weak to Hero Units and siege units. So, be careful if you use the Titan.

Now, if you have played Age of Empires III, this mechanic might be sort of familiar. When you advance to the next age, you can choose between various advisors who give you a certain reward when you advance. This isn’t different in this game. When you advance to the next age, you can choose between two minor gods. The god you choose decides which myth unit you can create at your temple and which god powers you can use.

Yes, the final unique mechanic is the god powers you can use. Each civilization has it’s own unique god powers which range from offensive to defensive powers. You can summon earthquakes, spy on the enemy for a limited time, summon a healing spring, have a moment where nobody can attack… There are a lot of them. Most of them can only be used once during gameplay. Some can be used more than once, but they all have a limit.

If you want to read more in-depth about how this game works, I recommend that you take a look at this website: http://aom.heavengames.com. It’s a huge website containing very detailed information and strategies on how to play this game.

Most of my time has been spending in this game playing random matches versus the AI of this game. In the past, I was quite skilled in this game. I knew most of the keys to quickly and efficiently create my base and build up my army. While I love the economic play in this game, I’m horrible when it comes to balancing my army. Since I played a lot with the Egyptian civilization, I don’t know a lot about the other civilizations.

If it’s not clear by now, I think that the gameplay in this game is excellent. The campaign has quite a lot of challenges but just playing on a random map versus the AI is quite a lot of fun as well. There are some things I would love to change about this game but there is a very active modding community providing a ton of mods in the workshop fixing bugs and fixing most of the issues I have with this game.

Let’s dance

The soundtrack of this game is amazing. The soundtrack is orchestrated and uses an amazing mix of various instruments.

Each civilization has it’s own unique theme and unique tracks. Also, the developers enjoyed themselves way too much with naming these tracks. The main theme of this game is called “A Cat Named Mittens” and one of the most relaxed and most chill tracks is called: “Eat Your Potatoes”.

Together with very good sound effects, the audio of this game is a hit. To this day, when I listen to the soundtrack casually, I remember how the villagers sound and other sound effects. Something I really like is how the sound effects are played in stereo. So, if you move a unit from the left to the right, you will hear your unit in your left speaker.

Now, the rest of the presentation of this game isn’t that great. Don’t get me wrong, the game looks great and the theming is very well done but some character models look out-dated. While I personally don’t mind that much, I feel like this extended edition could have done a lot more than just simple widescreen support. The additional visual polish isn’t much to write home about. Just look at this Imgur library created by NecessaryDerp from 2014 where the graphics from the original are compared to the Extended Edition: https://imgur.com/gallery/L8WEE

Am I saying that the game looks ugly? No, I’m not. Like I said before, the game still looks great. The improved visuals for the liquids like water and lava are quite pleasing to the eye. And to be honest, the only moment I find the graphics dated is when you are extremely zoomed into the map. Also, thanks to the magic of Steam Workshop ingratiation, you can use a lot of mods to improve the visuals to your liking.

In the past, the online community of this game was quite alive. There were a lot of people playing this game. I remember that were at least 100 different lobbies. Nowadays, the online community of this game is dying. The day I publish this review, there were only 5 lobbies. It’s a shame since I played some great game mods online. From King of the Hill to a sort of Dota clone.

There is one thing I really dislike in this game and that’s the save and load menu. Now, it works fine but I wish it displayed more information. For example, if you were playing a random match or if it’s a save in a mission/scenario. I haven’t found a mod that’s able to solve the issues I have with it.

A nitpick I have with this game is with the map. I love how you can rotate the map holding the CTRL-key down, but there is no identification on what position it was originally in. It’s a minor thing.

Something that frustrates me the most is that this game doesn’t receive additional patches. The updates stopped in 2016. Yet, the developers keep updating Age of Empires II HD. This game could use a lot of minor polishing updates but the focus of the developers is on their other products.

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I think it’s time for a conclusion.

Conclusion

The bad:

-The visuals are just okay.

-The Tale of the Dragon DLC misses some polish.

-The in-game wiki could have been so much better.

-The save menu should display more information.

-Dying online multiplayer community.

The good:

+ A lot of unique mechanics like Titans and God Powers.

+ You can use mods.

+ Amazing and addictive RTS gameplay.

+ Amazing soundtrack & sound design.

+ Cheesy and over-the-top fun voice acting.

+ Good story.

+ …

Final thoughts:

I might be blinded by nostalgia and quite biased while reviewing this game. But, I think this game still holds up well. Yet, I fell in love with this game the first time I played it. I have a lot of fond memories with this game and reviewing the game just makes me want to replay the game some more.

This game isn’t perfect and could use some polish to fix those last bugs and improve some models, especially the human units. Yet, the charm of this game is something else. The over-the-top voice acting and endless replay value make this game a must-play for every strategy and RTS fan.

The original reception of this game was poor, but thanks to the patches, this game has improved quite a lot already. If only Skybox Labs kept updating the game, then I would give this game a higher score.

Now, that’s everything for this review. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

Score: 70/100

Advertisement

First Impression: Computer Tycoon (PC – Steam) ~ Computers Everywhere

Official steam page – Official website

It’s no secret that I’m studying to become a computer science guy. My biggest dream job is that I can be the IT guy for a big school or group of schools. There is just something about tech and education that I adore. Not too long ago, I found a game called Computer Tycoon on Twitter. When I saw it, I got interested quite fast in the game. This game can be an educational game about how the computer industry works and things like that. This is just great, so I got in touch with the developer and we talked back and forth. So, the developer provided me with a review code for this game and said that I was free to talk about my own opinions. So, even when I got this game for free; this review is all my opinion.

Note: This game is still in Early Access, but the developer wants your feedback to improve the game! Most of this review is based on v0.9.1.20.

Note: Just recently, this game got MAC support. But, I’m a Windows user, so I reviewed this game on Windows.

Starting out!

In this game, you play as a young fellow that is looking to start building computers and selling them. Your goal is to build a big computer empire. When you are just starting out, I highly recommend that you disable almost every opponent.

You start in the early ’70s. You are greeted by an informative message from the developer. The information displayed in this information box is quite helpful to get you started. I highly recommend that you read it.

Then you pick a country to get started. Think before you pick a country since this will decide how your game is going to play out. Also, choose your starting country depending on the stats of the country.

By default, you get a random world. That means that all stats of the countries are randomized. So, in one game, Sweden can be a rich country looking for features on their computers and in another round, they can be a poor country looking for more ease-of-use in their computers.

So, after you picked your starting location, it’s time to create your office and a place to build your computers. Build an office and a factory. After that, you start creating your own computer. Add as much as you can but try to avoid making the computer too expensive.

After that, sell your first computer and try to expand your company and improve your technology. Keep in mind that you can set up your new computer when you have the time paused.

I hope with these helpful tips you can get started and enjoy the game. While it’s quite helpful if you know about how computer work and what part does what, it isn’t really needed. The developer provided a lot of explanation and tooltips in the game that explains things when you don’t understand what you are doing.

If you think that games today are easy, you are in luck. This game provides you with a lot of challenge. Depending on how many opponents you picked and the difficulty setting, you will have to think on your feet.

Whenever something requires your attention, like you need to upgrade your factory, you will have a voice sample playing. I think this can be expanded a little bit. There are deaf people on this planet and I think it would be lovely if these things show in a text box like other things. Yet, I must say that the voice acting is very nicely done.

Clicking around

The most important thing to play this game is your monitor and your mouse. You barely use your keyboard in this game. I would love some shortcut keys in a feature version, like “W” to open the world map or “R” to open your research tab.

Visually, this game looks great. When building an office; it raises out of the ground. I really like the visual presentation of this game. I wish there were a few more character portraits for me to choose from while starting a new game.

The UI of the game is good. Do remember, that this game is still in early access. So, some parts of the UI might look unpolished. Just report them to the developer on the Steam forums. He is a great guy and really listens to what the people who play are saying about his game.

In addition to that, he asks frequently for the player’s input. For example, where he asks where players get stuck to improve the tutorial. I already gave him a few suggestions right before I have published this article and I think they will get into the game.

Personally, I recommend playing this game in full-screen. It makes the UI better in the current versions of the game.

This game has an autosave feature. You get notified when this game has automatically saved. You can always save from the pause menu and give your save file a unique name.

The soundtrack of this game is very good. The soundtrack really fits the atmosphere of the game and I’m thinking about adding some of the tracks to my playlist.

I highly enjoy playing through this game and when I have the free time, I boot up this game and start playing it. Like I said earlier, I recommend that you play this game when you aren’t tired. Since this game requires your concentration.

Flaws and such

The gameplay is fun, the music is great, the UI is good and the game provides a good amount of challenge. The game gets regular updates to improve the things that the community tells him. But, does the game have flaws are things it should improve?

Here are a few things I think can improve to make the game more enjoyable or that frustrate me about the game.

One, in my first playthroughs, I got heavily discouraged seeing how fast the rival company was in “owning land”. The whole map was colored in my rival company’s color in a matter of minutes. I think the AI is a bit too smart in that front.

Two, I think that the “hardware” menu needs the most polishing up before the game goes out of early access. There should be more filters so you can look more easily for parts of a computer you took off the market. Also, I think it would be handy if you could “bulk-archive” (Archive more than one piece of hardware at one time). Finally, I think that the order of the list should be a piece of hardware instead of the seemingly random mess it is now.

Three, make the text more readable. Some parts of the UI aren’t readable. Especially on some screen sizes, the text flows together into one big blur. Or when something is crammed into a box, like “United Kingdom”. Thankfully, this is something the developer knows about and is going to fix.

Four, building a computer can be a real mess. When you click on “RAM” to add RAM, you can build a new piece of hardware. Now, I can pick any part of a computer. Even a hard disk for example. When you try to add the wrong part to the RAM, it goes to the right place in the blueprint. I honestly think that this part of the can be polished up and made easier.

All in all, most of the flaws I find in this game are fixable. For real, once I understood this game and its little quirks, I got addicted. This game is a lot of fun for people who build the computer and are looking for a new tycoon game to play.

The more I play this game, the more I’m amazed by the quality of this game. I always say that a game has a lot of potentials, but this game sure has it.

When the game is more polished up and fixed the things that irritate me, I think that this game might become a game I will play whenever I have that tycoon itch.

I really urge everybody to support the development of this game. Buy a copy, since it’s quite cheap on Steam. You get a lot of value for your game and you get a developer who listens to the community and tries to improve the game so that as many people as possible can enjoy this game. He doesn’t need to do a lot to make me enjoy this game since I’m already doing that!

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

My TOP 10 games of 2016 – Part 1: 5 – 1

Part 1 (10 – 6)

I’m not going to introduce the second part like I introduced the first part last week. We all know that 2016 flew by. In 2016, a lot of things happened. But in my personal life, it’s was one of the better years. In any case, it’s time to give a little reminder. In this top 10, I list off the best games I played this year. If I started playing the game in an earlier year, it doesn’t count. Also, it doesn’t matter if the game is released in 2016 or 1996. If I started playing it this year, it counts! Also, it doesn’t matter if I have beaten the game fully or not. So, yeah. Let’s dive into my top 5 for this year. Also, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and/or the games and/or your top 10 games of 2016. 

#5: Ace Attorney 6 – Spirit Of Justice (3DS)

Link to my first impression

As we enter the top 5, I had the most difficult time choosing the order of the games. I had to make some hard decisions.

The Ace Attorney game we got this year was amazing. It had some amusing throwback moments to earlier games and it has hit me emotionally a couple of times.

It might not be my favorite game in the series, but it’s was a pretty enjoyable ride from beginning to end. One of my biggest let-downs was that the 4th case was way too short in my opinion. But, in exchange, we got 2 “joke” episodes that made me laugh multiple times. Also, I need to remind myself to not play this game on the train to work, since I nearly missed my stop once and one time I started laughing so much, I got strange looks for the whole ride… Yeah.

#4: Pokémon Sun and Moon (3DS)

Link to my review

Like Ace Attorney 6, the new game in the Pokémon series is amazing. While it’s not the best in the series, in my opinion, it has a lot of throwback moments to earlier Pokémon games.

So, I honestly think it’s a no-brainer that this game should be on my top 10 games I played in 2016-list. Since this game brought back some amazing memories I had playing Pokémon throughout my life. I even met some strangers on the train who were playing Pokémon Sun or Moon as well. I never imagined that that would be possible in the crazy times we live in currently. Pokémon connects people. And thanks to Pokémon Go, a game I wasn’t able to play, the craze for Pokémon grew even more.

I have almost beaten the game and I’m looking forward what the new Pokémon generation will bring. I think they are taking it in a great direction. If only they tweaked the games a little bit for long time players, and it would be perfect in my opinion!

#3: Stella Glow (3DS)

Link to my review

So, in late June, I downloaded the demo for this game on my 3DS. I was deciding which games I was going to buy to play in the upcoming summer. I played the demo and placed it on my wishlist.

That same day, I started talking to one of my friends over at ButtonSmashers. He said he still had a review copy of Stella Glow. So, in exchange for a review on the ButtonSmashers, he sent me the code over mail.

And believe me, this game grew on me really quick. Like I said in my review, the story pulls you in and doesn’t let you go. At least, with me. This game is one that I wish hadn’t passed under my radar. Since that game was already released for 3 months upon that point.

I honestly think I’m going to replay this game next year. The replay value is quite high in this game. I’m going to take a completely different route and try to see things I haven’t experienced yet in this game. I’m quite looking forward to it!

#2: Zero Escape Dilemma (3DS)

Link to my first impression

“Life is simply unfair, is it not?” is one of the quotes I remember from this game. The Zero Escape trilogy got its final game this year. Honestly, I would love a new game in the series since I’m highly addicted to the gameplay.

This game came pretty close being my favorite game of 2016. If you ask me the question, what’s your favorite game released in 2016? I have to answer that this game is my favorite game from 2016. But, I have played one other game that got the number one spot.

So, why is this game on my list? Well, I have played the Zero Escape series from beginning to end. I have played every game, finished every puzzle and the wrap-up of the series is just so heartbreaking. The story is over. Every dot is connected now.

The game almost didn’t see the light of day, but thanks to the support of the fans, this game DID see the light of day. And I’m glad that it did. Everything in this game clicks. It’s almost perfect. Thank you, guys and girls, for this amazing series. I hope you guys and girls keep making games since I would love to see more! Thank you, that’s everything I can say. The series is so good, I hope that the Steam versions of the trilogy will draw a lot of attention. The attention that this series deserves! Seriously, thanks for making this game. I can’t repeat it enough. And honestly, I can’t say it in any other way.

Honorable mentions

With pain in my heart, I have to say that these games didn’t make my list. Some games might come as a surprise to people who know me personally and know the game series I love & adore. So, yeah. Here are the honorable mentions:

• Yo-Kai Watch (3DS): Interesting mechanics and gameplay, but I haven’t gotten far enough yet in the game.
• Sphetory (Android): An Android game that took me by surprise. Just read my article about it!
• Mario Strikers Football Charged (Wii): Just Mario football. But it’s a whole lot of fun!
• Evoland 2 (PC): Evoland 1 was amazing, so I had to play the sequel. And I don’t regret it!
• Minecraft Story Mode (Android): I had been putting it off, but when I got it in a sale for my tablet, I gave it a go. And I’m enjoying it a whole lot. Just finished the first episode.
• SteamWorld Dig (3DS): It reminded me of an Android game I reviewed a long time ago, but this one is miles better.
• Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS): I just adore the gameplay. If only I was better at it. Also, the micro-transactions nearly ruin the game for me. Since I want all content in my games to be playable.
• Corpse Party (3DS): It was really close being number 10. The 3DS port is so faithful to the amazing PSP port that introduced me to the series. It creeped me out so much once, I had trouble sleeping one night.
• Dragon Quest VII (3DS): I have played the first hour of this game, and I enjoyed myself a whole lot. But I haven’t gotten far enough yet.
• Bravely Second (3DS): The sequel to Bravely Default. One of the RPG’s I love playing on my 3DS. I have to continue playing this game honestly!
• The Beginners Guide (PC): A game that hit me as a content creator. And it has hit hard. Created by the creator of the Stanley Parable.
• Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS): I can’t believe myself I have played 10 different games that trump this game. The new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game was amazing. But it’s number 11 on my list… Yeah.
• Kirby Planet Robobot (3DS): While I think that Kirby Triple Deluxe was better, I think that this game is stil worthy to get a spot on the honorable mentions list here!

#1: Bioshock Infinite (PC)

Link to my review

Wow, I ended 2015 with playing the first game in the Bioshock series and at the end of 2016, the latest game is my number one game I have been playing in 2016. This series took me by surprise. The story telling, the atmosphere, the setting, the visuals, the gameplay, the soundtrack, the voice acting… it just all clicks for me.

It’s one of the best games I have played this year. Well duh, that’s why it’s number one. At first, I had trouble picking which Bioshock game to put on number one. But the DLC for this game made my decision that much easier. It wraps up the story of this trilogy so nicely, I’m conflicted if they need to continue the Bioshock series. Since it’s finished up so nicely, I think a 4th game would ruin it. But at the other hand, I can’t get enough of the universe. And honestly, the fact that I bought and read the novel and bought merchandise… the fact that I often listen to the soundtrack of this game at work, proves one thing to me. The Bioshock series is sinking it’s (sky)hooks into me. So, if you haven’t played Bioshock; would you kindly give it a go? Give it a chance, you might find one of the best games you have played in a while.

After I had beaten this game, I restarted from Bioshock 1. I have played the three games (and the DLC’s) this year at least two years. That’s a clear reason why this game is my number one game I have played in 2016!

Closing words

So, I’m looking forward to 2017. Since a lot of new challenges await me. But 2016 is coming to an end. I have said multiple times, this year was special to me. But, 2016 was a crazy ride from beginning to end. I have learned so much and experienced so much as well.

I’m disappointed that several events almost ruined the year for me. But, let’s not think about them. Those events aren’t worthy of our attention. I think we can agree that this year has been a crazy ride. Like I said before.

Thank you for all the support I got this year! I seriously helped my blog grow. I love writing for you guys and girls and I hope you will visit my blog again in 2017. So, have an enjoyable rest of 2016 and I hope to see you in 2017! But until then, take care and have a great rest of your year!