Whether you’re a youngin who has never heard of “Rise of Nations” or a seasoned retro gamer who has played this years ago but often yearn for an updated version, the “Extended Edition” is worth checking out and picking up (in my humble opinion). Whether it was due to reviewers like me or frugal folks like you, I’m glad to see that Microsoft listened and set the price of “Rise of Nations: Extended Edition” to something a bit more reasonable. The music hasn’t changed and the graphics are still a bit outdated, but it’ll provide hours of entertainment and is well worth the price of admission. In the end, “Rise of Nations: Extended Edition” is just as good as I remember it, and more.
A price tag of thirty bucks, in my opinion, was pushing it. While you can still buy the original “RoN” and its expansion for about ten bucks on Amazon, I’d gladly pay the extra ten for multiplayer and Steamworks support. “Rise of Nations: Extended Edition”, I’m pleased to report, is only selling for twenty bucks as opposed to “AoM’s” thirty (as of 6/6/14). “Counterstrike” is equally as old and goes for half that amount, just to put things in perspective. As a games journalist, it’s my job to also consider the amount of content one is getting for the price and in my opinion, thirty dollars was a bit too much for a remake of a ten year-old game (even though it had the aforementioned features). I got a LOT of hate mail for knocking “AoM’s” price tag of thirty dollars, and by hate mail, I mean death threats. What has changed is the price…imagine that. “Rise of Nations: Extended Edition” has roughly the same new features as “Age of Mythology: Extended Edition”: improved visuals, Steamworks & Twitch integration, and multiplayer. By that same token, those who do stick with it and learn its ins and out will be rewarded with more options than they’ll know what to do with (pregame and in-game). If “StarCraft” and “Warcraft” overwhelm you, then this game may not be the most ideal choice of a game to pick up on payday. Suffice it to say that “Rise of Nations” is a very in-depth RTS that requires a lot of micromanaging and organization. Each nuclear missile you use counts toward the Armageddon cap…reach it, and the game’s over for everybody. My favorite part was researching nuclear missiles…though you have to be careful with those. Build, research, build, research, build, research, and attack when you feel like it. It would take me a while to explain everything that “Rise of Nations” has to offer, but the above paragraph sums it up rather nicely. The upgrades you purchase are empire wide, but some structures act independently from one another (research), forcing you to micromanage quite a bit. What’s more, each city you build is its own entity in that it can support so many farms, a structure of a particular type (one market, one temple, etc.), and so on. Research enough and you can advance onto the next age, unlocking even more structures, resources, and units to build.
While you’re building your town, you’ll be able to research new technologies at the library. From there, you’ll need to harvest resources like food & wood to build some basic structures.
You’ll start off with a small town and some villagers, set in the stone age. It’s one HUGE tech tree, similar to that of “Empire Earth” (another classic RTS you kids probably haven’t heard of). It honestly makes “StarCraft” look like a chew toy in comparison, at least that was my first impression when I first played it. Rise of Nations: Extended Edition (Windows)įor those of you who have never heard of “Rise of Nations”, you’re missing out.