• Game: Age of Empires Online
• Platform: PC
• Publisher: Microsoft
• Developer: Robot Entertainment, Gas Powered Games
• ESRB: E
• Genre: Social MMO RTS
• Players: Lots



• What's Hot: Social strategy is fun with friends; free to play but worth more; classic Age of Empires gameplay



• What's Not: Poorly planned monetization; goofy art stylep; short-range social network

Review by: Justin Amirkhani

Age of Empires Online has had a shaky road to release, going through multiple iterations, multiple developers, and multiple approaches to the sort of game it was destined to be. What we’re left with is a game that I’m happy playing, but also one seeking multiple definitions.

The nougat at the center of Age of Empires Online is a classic Age of Empires strategy experience that does nothing to tarnish its pedigree, but does nothing to advance it either. It’s your usual Age of Empires game with all the building and the tech trees and the rock-paper-scissors dynamic of infantry, cavalrymen and siege units. There’s resource management and economy progression and all the markings of a good, old school RTS.

Compared to one of the older boxed products, missions do take a shorter and more varied approach but it’s something I find myself neither for nor against. It’s a tradeoff with its own ups and downs, sacrificing the epic sweeping campaigns for ease of play. As you get deeper in the game there are missions that resemble a classic arms race and clash, but for the most part you’ll be resource gathering, path clearing or even base defense challenges.

If there is one thing that makes Age of Empires Online stand out from its predecessors, it’s the inclusion of many co-operative missions within the core of the campaign. While previous games relegated it to bot matches, these co-op points are interwoven into the main quest line. Sometimes I find myself begrudging the game for forcing the co-op elements down my throat, making certain quests impassible without friends, but then again this is supposed to be a social game and there are far more annoying social mechanics it could have adopted.

The thing about relying on co-op play as the crux of your social experience is that it invariably relies on the quality of player that you’re playing with. If you pull some random jerk from the public chat, chances are you’ll have a worse time than if you’d convinced one of your real-world friends to join you. I suppose there in lies a viral mechanic, by making a game more fun to play with friends than strangers you’ll spread it amongst your social circles, and at the price of ‘free’ it’ll be hard for them to say no. But, pulling friends into the online space just feels like a lot of effort for a game that is supposed to be part-MMO.

There’s an element of MMO to Age of Empires Online, but it suffers from the failings of any MMORTS that’s tried before it. Your capital city, where you build your evergreen buildings and finely tune its look to permanent perfection can’t be attacked or used for much other than metagame resources. There you’ll build power-ups, handle your tech trees, manage the types of buildings and units you can build, and recruit hero units. None of the actual fighting, building or gathering seems to take place in your city, and instead wars and missions are fought in instanced environments that play more like traditional matches. It’s hard to imagine taking part in a large, sprawling world when your city stands alone, impervious and oblivious to outside forces. I’m at a loss for a good alternative, but I know that this lacks the MMO feel that Age of Empires Online was aiming for.