Age Of Mythology (PC) > Reviews > There is no myth to how good this game is.

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	Excellent - very playable game
Graphics	Excellent
Sound	Excellent - makes full use of my speakers
Difficulty & Complexity	A difficult game - needs a lot of patience

Advantages:	Very playable, graphics, sound and the high level of game play .
Disadvantages:	You need quite a high spec PC to run the game .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Age of Mythology is one of the best games I have played in years, having become addicted to Age of Empires and then moved onto Age of Empires 2, I visited the official web sites to download patches and audio Taunts. On this web site there were links to other unofficial web sites one of which included a like to the Age of Mythology. I had not heard of this game before or even seen it in any shop, so I followed the link and viewed in interest the graphics and look of the game. I am now very keen to find this game and somewhere tucked away in a corner was that the release date was November 2002 and I am view this web site in January 2002, so there is a little bit of a wait.

Finally November came round and I purchased the game on 17th December, I only held off this long to help aid the cash flow. But while waiting to buy the game I viewed in on web sites and in shops and one day I read the technical specification and found to my dismay that the game required a 16Mb video card to run and my PC was only furnished with an 8Mb video card. So with out further a do I ordered a 64Mb card and made sure that this was installed and tested well before I brought the game.

Well that is the sorry of how I came to find out about the game and indeed purchase it. Next was the install, with Christmas approaching fast I had not time to try it and the first opportunity I had to play the game was on Boxing Day, we returned after a good walk and stretch of the legs, just what you need after spending Christmas day eating and not doing a lot. So upon our return I decided that it was time to give the game it’s first try. The install took almost one hour and the game is over two disks. To run the game requires a quick PC, mine is a Pentium 3 750 MHz processor with 256MB of RAM and it runs at a reasonable speed. It also requires a high spec video car and a minimum of 1.5 GB of hard disk space, so as you can see you require a juicy PC to even consider running the game.

The look and feel of the game is very similar to that of the previous age of games and many of the functions remain the same. The concept of the game is still the same, build up you civilisation and destroy or conquer you opponents. There are on 3 civilisations to choose from, Greek, Egyptian and Norse. Each civilisation has a total of 3 main gods to chose as your leader, depending on the god and civilisation that you choose defines other options that become available later in the game.

Collecting resources has taken a little bit of a step back to the original age of empires game with just two buildings to deposit collected resources at, a granary and store house, you are missing the mining and lumber camps which I found so useful in age of empires 2. There is also a new resource for you to collect, favour, this is collected at a temple and is done so by your villagers worshipping your god there. Favour is needed to create some mythical creatures and to invoke some of the gods powers.

At the moment I have only played as the Greeks, and therefore can not comment on the other civilisations. Some of the mythical characters available to you when playing as the Greeks are the Minato, Hercules, Medusa and the Hydra. There are many others, but the Hydra is my favourite as it comes in a land and sea going varieties and much fun can be had making it eat people and watching the new heads grow. I think the most I have managed is 5 heads, it grows a new head for each person it devours.

There are four different ages for you to progress through and they are relatively easy to achieve, but I do think that they are harder than the previous two games, as the resources are slower to be gathered and while you are waiting to achieve the correct level of resources you end up spending them on a new house or another Minato.

The graphics of this game are some of the best that I have seen on a PC game, the figures animate very smoothly and the attention to detail is second to none. For example you can acutely see the villagers fell each individual tree and when a villager is being attached by a Minato he doesn’t just fall down and die he is thrown across the immediate playing area as that killer blow is stuck. Landscapes are more detailed than they ever were in the previous games and they now look more like the real land.

The sounds is something else and a great feature to the game, music matches the civilisation and the sound affects are very real and life like. The sound is also very appropriate to the game and the music while play as the Greeks is vaguely Greek and very good. It is worth buying the game for the music and sound alone.

The game is very playable and I think I will be playing this game for a long time to come, I do think that it will take longer to learn the game as there are many differences to Age of Empires. I have been playing the game for almost a month and there is still very much for me to learn and I think in a months time there will still be loads for me to learn.

There is an option to play across a LAN or modem, if you are lucky enough to find anyone with a copy of the game and a powerful enough PC to run the game. I have played Age of Empires against human opponents and it is great fun and I am sure that Age of Mythology will be the same.

The cost of this game is one draw back as you can expect to pay around £30 for the game. I brought my copy in Rugby for £30, but I could have paid £35 in Northampton for the game or even £28 delivered at www.play.com so it pays to shop around.

A great game which I am sure will last for years, I love it.