Age of Empires: Definitive Edition Still Holds Up – Sort Of.

<p>So I had the change to start playing the <em>Age of Empires&colon; Definitive Edition<&sol;em> closed beta and I must say&comma; I remember why I liked the game so much&period; The closed beta is Multiplayer only and you have to play against at least one real player &&num;8211&semi; no cheesing out on easy CPU controlled teams right now&period; The game scales to your screen&comma; I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t find any options for resolution changes&comma; but once in game it natively switched to my 21&colon;9 setup&period; There was some choppiness here and there&comma; and a bit of lag&comma; but nothing was unplayable&period; For the most part&comma; the game looks beautiful and runs very well&period; As I started the game&comma; sending one peasant to a bush and another to a tree to start my gathering I was taken back to the days when AoE and AoM were new and exciting&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I need to state this first&semi; the game is still fun and if are a fan of <em>Age of Empires<&sol;em> you will still enjoy this&period; I was able to set up a &&num;8220&semi;secret town&&num;8221&semi;&comma; harass my three opponents&comma; build up a sizable army and wall in my city &&num;8211&semi; just as I remembered&period; Then something happened&period; May 20th&comma; 2003 started to creep back into my memories of playing RTS games&period; At the time I was an employee of a retail chain&comma; working with my boss&comma; when a game called <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;rise-nations-returns-new-extended-edition&sol;">Rise of Nations<&sol;a> arrived on a shipment&period; The two of us spent some time looking at the box art and reading the ad copy on the back&comma; trying to decide if this was a game we should pick up&period; If memory serves&comma; only a few copies came in and with both of us being RTS fans&comma; we figured we should decide quick&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;133812" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-133812" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-133812 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;30005516&sol;maxresdefault4-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-133812" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Scale Of Age Of Empires Is Huge<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>This also ages me a bit here&period; We couldn&&num;8217&semi;t just pull up a YouTube video of the game &lpar;YouTube wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t launch for another two years&rpar; and most sites were not giving the game a ton of coverage&period; Besides&comma; what was I going to do&comma; read a website on my Razer phone&quest; Ultimately&comma; we pulled the trigger and started a love affair with what I consider the greatest real-time strategy game ever created&period; If you haven&&num;8217&semi;t played it&comma; you owe it to yourself to give it a shot&period; Imagine the <em>Civilization<&sol;em> series played out in real time&period; That is what RoN went for and it succeeded&period; So much so that I still play it to this day&period; For almost 15 years now I have played the game with the same people and never grown tired of the experience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;133813" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-133813" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-133813 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;30005652&sol;ss&lowbar;e753b88c7045233d1b014379c8d27ce1e70220f2&period;1920x1080-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-133813" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Rise of Nations Takes Things to a Different Level<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>So&comma; why did I go off on that tangent&quest; <em>Age of Empires<&sol;em> was a six-year-old strategy game by the time <em>Rise of Nations<&sol;em> launched&period; There was a big difference in the style of play&period; <em>Age of Empires<&sol;em> immediately felt dated when I tried to play it again back in the early &&num;8217&semi;00s&period; So when I launched the Definitive Edition&comma; I was too excited to see a classic revitalized to remember what drew me away from the Empire series to start with&period; But the more I played&comma; the more I remembered why <em>Age of Empires&comma; Age of Mythology&comma;<&sol;em> all the expansions and additional games&comma; everything tied to that era of strategy gaming&comma; it just started collecting dust&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Is <em>Age of Empires&colon; Definitive Edition<&sol;em> going to be a fantastic game for fans&quest; Without a doubt&period; But the game appeals to a particular type of fan&comma; with unique tastes in their strategy cereals but for me&comma; that cereal went stale ages ago&period; &lpar;I know&&num;8230&semi; sorry&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;