The UI also looks cleaner than the amateurish mess seen in the Xbox port of Age of Empires II as well. No more spawning halberd-wielding knights for the glory of your Japanese daimyo Age of Empires IV does the bare minimum to ensure some visual variety, as well as some audio improvements over the previous console port. Even though the visuals are much less exciting than the ones seen in Age of Empires III, each civilization does feel visually distinct from one another. There is one thing that this game does better than any other non- Mythology Age game, however. Build up an army, and throw the poor bastards onto their inevitable demise. Considering how every single civilization has the same kinds of units, they barely play differently from each other, with the possible only exception being the Mongols.ĭon’t expect a lot of complex combat strategy in this port. It basically gives you a specific building with some special attributes whenever you change your tech level, but rarely does this become a new source for units, for instance. The main addition to (supposedly) promote replayability within skirmishes is the selection of landmarks whenever moving from one Age to another. It’s basically a polygonal Age of Empires II with less features, less civilizations, vastly smaller maps to play on. It’s the base game that just doesn’t shine at all.Īge of Empires IV feels painfully simplistic. I have no complaints about the implementation of controller-based commands on a herculean task like this one, to be honest: it is the best possible way to experience a game like this without a keyboard and a mouse. I’m not even talking about some of the removed features, such as a scenario editor, or the decreased amount of formation options on console that’s to be expected in such a port. This is just extremely dumbed down when compared to any other RTS out in the market. I gave Age of Empires IV another fair shot, but I can’t recommend you do the same. If the Xbox One or Series X|S are your only source for a strategy game, then go play Age of Empires II. That being said, is Age of Empires IV still worth giving a look if an Xbox is your only source for strategy games? You will never find a more suitable home for a real-time strategy game than a computer. I can already preface that, just like that other port, if you have access to a capable computer, do not bother wasting your time with a vastly more complicated version of the same game. After the clunky, but very impressive port of Age of Empires II, released earlier this year, Age of Empires IV is now available on Xbox consoles. I appreciate the improved UI, but Age of Empires IV just doesn’t look very exciting when it comes to its visuals and art style.īut I guess I was just too annoyed at launch to properly give it an honest review. It made newcomers play it for a while, scared away long-term fans of the franchise, and then just vanished. It did not kickstart a new wave in RTS popularity. Age of Empires IV was lauded as “accessible” by most outlets, and while I do agree with that, I don’t think it ended up garnering the expected results. It felt like a horrendous step back, with less content, poorer visuals, and much less depth. I didn’t even bother writing a review back then because of how annoyed I was. Less of a sequel to the impressive Age III, and more of a soft reboot of Age II (being set on the same period, for starters), it was one of the most disappointing games I have ever played back when it first came out. The result, a few years ago, was Age of Empires IV. One of the worst things Microsoft has ever done to gaming, in fact, was shutting that studio down altogether, giving Relic Entertainment the keys to their RTS kingdom. Whilst everyone else was having the time of their lives with Blizzard’s real-time strategy offerings, I was standing on the hill that Ensemble Studios’ creations were much, much better in terms of depth, replayability, and overall amount of content. I grew up playing the Age of Empires games, as well as Age of Mythology, to near exhaustion.
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