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This
sensational title is a new look at a well visited area that was made
famous by Civilization and Age of Empires. There are pros and cons
without doubt that will present themselves to some gamers along
the way, but for the most part, I found this whole experience to
be a lot of fun and certainly worth an inspection by the buying
public who are into this genre.
And what
genre is this? Well it's actually a number but the most clearly
definable are real time strategy and turn based strategy. What
does that mean to the gamer? Not a great deal other than the fact
that the pace of the real time strategy is sometimes offset by the
ability to stop the game, make some adjustments and then get on
with it. I personally found this to be a refreshing take on what
is sometimes the difference between a battle lost and won due to
keystroke errors!
In Rise of
Nations and it's expansion Thrones and Patriots, the idea is to
take the reins of a civilisation and build it up to the point that
inevitably it can take on the world with advances in education and
technology being key to your nation's success, along with of
course your ability as that nation's commander in chief.
Once you
get both games installed onto your computer (or just Rise of
Nations if you want to take it slow), all you need then is to
choose a nation from the many that are available and get cracking.
Most of you
would have already played Rise of Nations so the focus of this
review truly is on the sensational addon pack. One of the first
things that you are going to notice is that there is a stronger
developed world incorporating politics of a sort and the addition
of the South American nations was a nice offset from the previous
major focus of the title.
One of the
conflicts for me that really got me going was during the hysteria
of the Cold War. You could pit the two superpowers against each
other and take them to the brink of nuclear war. Being interested
in the history of conflicts, it was really weird for me being in
control of this scenario and seeing the way that the game
responded to my actions. It was almost akin to being a part of
history, although very much from a standoffish point of view.
Graphically
the title certainly holds up to the standards of the first title
and does it proud as you can see from the screenshots that we've
included. Everything runs smoothly and the interface is just as
intuitive as the first game in the series. Navigation is simple
and a pleasure to use.
One thing
that did bug me a little about this title was the fact that in a
battle you cannot look after injured troops. I didn't understand
why this was as medicine and the medic have played integral roles
since practically the dawn of man. This aside the game gave you
the chance to create your own world history and even try to turn
the course of events that have truly shaped our world.
Broken up into 4 different arcs, you can choose the
following:
The Cold War,
Conquest of the New World (America), Rise and Fall of Alexander
the Great, and Napoleon’s quest to dominate Europe. Regardless of
what scenario you choose, the main objective is to rule the world
or nation and this is done by good fashioned exploration and the
protection of your capital cities and capitol building.
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