AGE OF MYTHOLOGY


Champagne strategy gaming

By WILL BARKER

What made Age of Empires so popular? The game sold squillions of copies and is arguably one of the most prevailing online games played in the last two years.

Most put its fame down to good old-fashioned gameplay, and they'd be right in saying that. It offered solid real-time strategising with hundreds of units and the clincher was the ability to move through the ages - hence the name, I guess.

As such, Age of Mythology has a lot to live up to, but the gaming gurus at Ensemble Studios have outdone themselves in what will again be one of the most popular on and offline games of 2003 and beyond.

Starting at the top, there are a number of gamemodes you can indulge in. The main one is obviously the campaign mode, where you progress through a set number of intriguing scenarios - such as the defense of Atlantis.

This is where most gamers will make their first port of call and it has to be said that Ensemble has created a truly massive single player campaign. Other modes include the 'Learn to Play' tutorial, Single Player (including random map, play campaign, load scenario) and multiplayer.

First we'll look at the campaign mode, because this is area that most gamers will explore after installing AOM. You start off playing as the ancient Greeks, which is a good thing as they are the least intimidating race.

You basically complete a set number of missions in order that roughly follow accepted ancient mythology. The cut scenes used to further the story are all created using the in-game graphics engine, but believe-you-me, this is no bad thing.

As I mentioned in the preview, the first major difference over its precursors is that AOM is now built using polygons, as opposed to sprites. While the Empire titles weren't exactly ugly, this next game is a sight for sore eyes.

Together with a fully scalable and rotatable floating camera, Ensemble has crafted a amazingly detailed and authentic game world.

For starters, if your PC can handle it, you'll be able to pump the resolution up to 1600x1200 in 32-bit colour, and in this res the game is truly awe-inspiring.

Thankfully, even on the lower resolutions, like 800x600 in 16-bit colour, the game looks amazing and the fact that it runs smoothly on entry-level PCs (we tried it on an Athlon 650Mhz CPU) is testament to Ensemble's coding proficiency - kudos to 'em all!

Playing as the Greeks - the first playable race in the campaign - you'll see lots of oceans, complete with waves washing up on the shore, grassy plains, rolling hills, thick forests and long ravines. The texturing is immaculate, which is surprising for an RTS game, and unit animation is well above par. You'll see long ships' oars rowing, cavalry galloping and yes, even soldiers bleeding - it's all there.

But back on the topic of terrain, it's included for more than just cosmetic reasons. All those budding tacticians out there will delight in the logical ways in which you can use various terrain to your advantage.

For instance, there are often naturally occurring choke points in the map that can be taken advantage of.

Furthermore, if you station units on the high ground of cliffs, they even get an attack bonus, while those attacking from below suffer a penalty.

Forming a plan of attack will all be nought if you don't have sufficient defenses. Building walls around your evolving empire is the usually the basis for a good defense and you can station guard towers around the perimeter - which can be upgraded as you progress though the ages with stronger attacks, better line of sight and even things like boiling oil.

AOM also allows players to collect ancient relics. Once collected by a hero unit and placed in a friendly temple, they offer a number of bonuses, from increasing the speed of workers, to adding an attack bonus to all myth units.

When it comes to offensive tactics, the best idea is go with a highly varied group of units, incorporating mythical units and heroes. Heroes are super-tough, many of which can regenerate hit points and cast minor spells, such as temporarily improving the attack stats of surrounding units. Some hero units can be created at the town hall, but the most powerful heroes are often served up at the start of a mission, and carry through the campaign.

Mythical units are built at the temple or place of worship and, unlike normal units, they require another resource in addition to food, gold and wood - favour.

Playing as the Greeks, favour is garnered by getting the plebs to pray at the temple, the results of which can then be used to train mythical units, such as minitaur, the cyclops and even Medusa.

Interestingly, not all races gather this resource in the same manner. To gain favour as the Vikings, you basically have to kick a lot of booty - suffice to say the Norse Gods delight in violence.

For all the good points in Age of Mythologys, things would have been annoyingly frustrating had the interface been lacking. Thankfully, this is far from the case. Most RTS fans will pick this up in a jiffy, regardless of whether they've played the games precursors.

The AI scripting is also pretty impressive, but to see it in action you'll want to play the game on one of the top two difficulty levels.

One the greatest things about the original titles was the ability to progress through history by way of advancing you civilisation. In AOM, it's a case of meeting certain requirements - usually having specific buildings - and then saving up for the high cost of advancement.

Each age you progress through will allow you to pick one of two demi-gods, and these fellows will decide which mythological units you can create at your temples, and also which spells you can cast.

As mentioned in the preview, the meteor and lightning spells have to be seen to be believed.

If there's one complaint to be made about this game, it would be for the repetitive music - but this is really the fault of no one.

The music is actually quite good, it's just that after several days of non-stop play, one's ears feel bruised. On the other side of the coin, the sound effects, including unit acknowledgements, are top notch and never get tiresome.

And then, once you've managed to battle your way through one of the most epic and wholly engrossing single player games ever created, you can jump online and have a more free flowing and unpredictable game against complete strangers.

Truly, multiplayer AOM is amazing. It's colossal, massive, immense. I would hazard a guess that Age of Mythology will go on to sell roughly the same amount of copies of its predecessors (10+ million) based on multiplayer merits alone. This is dangerously enjoyable stuff, people...

From the amazing visuals crafted in full 3D, to the engrossing storyline, immaculate interface, remarkable gameplay, to the never-ending multiplayer possibilities, this would have been a truly massive undertaking on Ensemble's part.

Ensemble big chief, Bruce Shelley, always said that his team's aim was to create a real-time strategy game that incorporated all the empire building elements of more traditional turn-based strategy titles. Brucey boy: congratulations - mission accomplished!

ORIGINALITY 95%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 90%
PLAYABILITY 90%
ADDICTION 100%
ENJOYMENT 95%