Age of Mythology Review
The ancient Greeks knew how to live didn’t they? Ancient tales full of heroes slaying multi-headed beasts whilst the Gods had huge orgies full of virgin maidens whilst raining down terror from above whenever they got pissed off with someone, or bored. Now whatever your opinion on ancient mythology, you’ve got to admit it does make a rather funky setting for a strategy game.
I loved the first Age of Empires. On its release it was one of the most addictive games on the planet and exams were failed, friends neglected and food given up in order to play it. However, as far as I’m concerned the sequel sucked. Well, it didn’t but it was simply a re-hash of the original game with slightly better graphics and new units. The addictiveness of the original had worn off now and I barely played the second game in the series. A large portion of this was done to the lack of a proper, focused campaign to get stuck into. Thankfully, this has been fixed for AOM and I’m as addicted as I ever was to this new version.
The campaign is huge and is divided up into 36 missions with an absorbing, well-written plot to boot. The campaign sees you playing as the Greeks (obviously), but also the other playable races, the Norse and the Egyptians. The plot is based upon the ancient legends that are found in ancient mythology and some levels will be familiar such as the building of the Trojan horse, whilst other levels are simply Microsoft’s interpretations of events. The subsequent campaign takes you from through the Trojan Wars, to the realms of Hades, and back up into Egypt and finally up to the northern lands of the Norse.
The basic gameplay remains rather unchanged and will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played the first two games in the series. Resources still need to be gathered in the form of food, wood and gold. You build up your village with barracks, stables and temples, in order to gain access to more advanced units and buildings.
However, there has been a conscious effort to distinguish this game from the previous titles in the series. There are only three sides to play as, but for once each side has a much different style of play meaning that the choosing your side makes more of a difference than simply an aesthetic one. Each side has its own unique heroes and units and each side evolves differently meaning that they all have different strengths and weaknesses.
The Greeks are your all-rounders who are probably easiest to play as and are the most balanced of the three sides. A balance of all the available resources is needed to construct buildings and units and playing as the Greeks feels almost like playing as one of the sides from Age of Kings. The Egyptians require a different method of play however as they don’t need wood at all for their early buildings meaning that houses and markets are free to build, although their buildings take longer to construct, their units are created the quickest out of all the races in the game.
The most diverse and unusual side to play as are the Norse whose gatherers only gather and can’t construct buildings at all. Instead it’s down to the military units to build the structures, whilst the Norse also has dwarves who happen to be very fast at collecting gold.
However, as well as these basic differences the strengths and weaknesses of the sides don’t really map out until well into the game as the game presents you with choices to make throughout the game which will affect your race plays.
This is done through the addition of Gods that need to be worshipped for each race in the game. For example, playing as the Greeks allows you to choose between Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, the choice you make affecting the units and abilities that you’re faction will receive in the game. With three Gods for each race it could almost be argued that there are in fact nine different sides to play as within the game. There’s more though, and as you progress through the ages you’ll get the choice of some minor Gods as well, meaning every time you progress to the next age you also have to choose one of the two minor Gods on offer.
This addition to the gameplay is an extremely innovative way of developing your chosen side, and also helps to make multiplayer games much more interesting than in previous versions. You can never be quite sure what units and upgrades your opponents have access to meaning that you can’t simply look at what race your opponent has chosen and build units to combat theirs, you have to wait and see what units your opponent comes at you with now before you really know what you’re up against.
The powers that the various Gods allow you to use are a lot of fun and add another dimension to the gameplay. The powers you have access to are affected by the Gods you’ve chosen throughout the game and range from huge meteor storms to cheaper units, or a unique kind of myth unit.
However, the factor that sets Age of Mythology apart is the unique atmosphere the game creates. The graphics are nice, but nothing special and whilst the units are detailed and well animated, it’s nothing that makes your jaw drop. Where the game does excel is in the surprise of providing you with a long, well-written campaign, that keeps you gripped throughout.
The gameplay is as solid as we’ve come to expect from Ensemble and the move into proper 3D has paid off, yet Age of Mythology is more than just the same game in new graphics. There are enough new features and nice touches to make this an absolute must for anyone interested in RTS games.
91%
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