Age of Empires II: Gold Edition (Mac)

Age of Empires II: Gold Edition

Have you ever fancied playing God? Don’t lie, I know you have, well Age of Empires 2 is the next best thing. Most of you will be familiar with the style of the game, you get a birds-eye view of a large stretch of land, build a town and send your troops off to pillage and burn other villages. Age of Empires 2, is that basic concept, only on steroids.

You can control a bevy of different civilisations through over 1000 years from the dark ages all the way to the imperial age. You have the opportunity to turn a few measly villagers into an impenetrable fortress boasting an unstoppable army that can dominate the world. The Celts, The Britains, the Persians and the Mongols are just a few of the civilisations you can seize power with.

Now unlike other games of the same genre you can play through a wide variety of game modes. First and forth most there are the missions in which you take the role of such historical characters as Joan of Arc and Barbarossa, plus there is the chance to work on your battle skills with the William Wallace learning campaign. The missions will take you stage by stage through the rise and fall of certain historical figures and it will be up to you to re-write history using both strategy and skill.

There is a death match mode where you have to destroy all of the enemy units to be victorious, and also a regicide mode where you have the job of killing the king of the opposing civilisation to claim victory. A random map mode is also available where you simply start out with a few villagers and town centre and have to build up your empire and claim victory however you please. All of the mentioned modes of play are fully supported by online access at msn game zone, it is free to sign up and promises a great deal of online fun.

Now there are no pre-set generics within the game, you choose the surroundings, the team colours and the civilisations. You can choose from a wide range of levels ranging from the black forests to the middle of the desert, you can even sculpt your very own level in the map editor! All of your civilisations are upgradeable, even the buildings are! You can make your troops stronger by researching better armour at the blacksmiths and make your town more secure by researching fortified walls at the university. You can even convert enemies using a priest!

Now as if that all wasn’t enough, with Age of Empires 2:Gold Edition you get the Conquerors add-on pack that brings even more variety to your game. There are a handful of new civilisations for you to master and defeat plus a huge range of new levels including an artic wilderness amongst others. Of course it includes a whole new set of missions for you to try and a few new ways to conquer the world.

The game never gets tiring; once you have finished all of the missions you can challenge friends and strangers alike online and see who is the true Emperor of Age of Empires.