When I talk about the Age of Empires series, I am not only talking about a good and fun strategy game series, but I am talking about one of the myths and main pillars that established RTS games and was the reason for the popularity of this type of games throughout the ages.
The Age of Empires series is characterized by the excellent graphic level in all versions of the series, in addition to the diversity of civilizations and the intertwining of the gameplay and its complexity, while maintaining a distinctive strategic feature that you will not find except in this series and perhaps the game Rise of Nations a little.
This month, Age of Empires III Definitive Edition, developed by Forgotten Empires, was released in collaboration with the Tantalus Media team.
The original part of the game was released in 2007, developed by Ensemble Studios, and managed to achieve almost the full mark, and until now it is still receiving great interest by players and is very popular.
It is assumed that the new version of the game works to provide the same experience as the original gameplay with the addition of more new elements that improve the overall experience and fortunately Arab Hardware Team has tried the game and now has all the answers to all the questions that revolve in your head that I answer you through these Review.
Available game modes
Most of the RTS strategy games contain similar game modes, as they always contain the mission or story phase, the raid phase and the multiplayer mode, but in the Definitive Edition more game modes have been added alongside the traditional modes and now you have enormous gaming content to enjoy.
Develop the story
The new version contains the three main stories in Age of Empires III that you were getting when purchasing the full version of the game, and they are:
- Blood, Ice and Steel
- Fire and Shadow
- The Asian Dynasties
Each of the three stories takes us to a group of specific civilizations and a certain period of time, which is the same thing as in the original version, but the only difference is that here you get them through one game, unlike the original version of the game, where each story was inside an independent version.
These stories also kept the same tasks and the way the sequence of events within them, but there are some differences within the mission itself in terms of the way of playing or the positions of some buildings and soldiers, which affected very little in the way of playing, but in a non-tangible way.
Skirmish developed
The raid phase still maintains the same basic elements as in the original version, but what is new in the Definitive Edition is the addition of two new civilizations, the Sweden and the Inca civilization.
Develop Historical Battles
This phase did not exist in the original version and is completely new and was created from scratch. In fact, this phase I liked very much and one of the most prominent additions in this version.
This phase offers you a set of historical battles that you can try, and whenever you finish a battle, a new battle appears in the list, and each of the battles provides you with a long game that may take some time, especially if your style of play is defensive.
Although this phase was very interesting, I noticed a lot of wrong historical information, especially since these battles existed a lot of them on the African continent at the time of European colonialism. Pay attention to all the historical information contained in it, especially as the game reminds it as real historical information.
Developed the Art of War
This phase includes a set of separate tasks that you must perform under certain circumstances, for example there are some tasks that require you to complete at a certain time and whenever you finish the task before a certain date, you will get a gold, silver or bronze medal.
Also, there are tasks that require you to finish without losing any of your forces or even losing a certain number of forces, do not go beyond it. First class and I recommend you to try it if you are new to the game.
The rest of the sub-phases
The aforementioned are the main game modes, and of course the game contains many other sub-stages, such as the educational game phase or the modification and creation phase where you design your match as you like.
Of course, the game contains a multiplayer mode, which is simple and fun, as we are always used to from this series, as it includes regular games and more difficult Ranked matches and reflects your real level within the game.
Play style
The new version kept the same gameplay strategically and the game still depends on intermittent and continuous small battles until we reach a bigger battle in which we end the war after controlling the largest part of the map.
Controlling the map is the key to winning matches. The more you control the map, the more you guarantee control over the resources and reduce the opponent’s ability to access them. Thus, you will drain their resources wave after wave of fighting until you end them easily.
Despite the preservation of the distinctive style of play for the series, this version has modified some of the game elements that were present in the original version, such as the number of cards available to you that can be used as it was greatly increased, or some economic elements and the forces' capabilities changed.
Here a problem appears somewhat, if you are a completely new player and have not previously tried this game, you will not notice any difference or updates and it will not represent any problem for you, but if you are already a fan of the game and you play it regularly, the changes in the gameplay will not impress you on what Think.
Graphics and audio
When an improved version of a previously released game is released, we always analyze the quality of the graphics because it is often the main reason for which we buy the game again, and most of the time we find that the improved versions of the games that were released recently do not come with huge fees or we do not notice the big difference .
However, completely contrary to my expectations, the Age of Empires III Definitive Edition version came with very improved graphics that cannot be compared in any way to the 2007 graphics.
The developer not only increased the resolution of the display and improved the colors and saturation, but also worked to increase the density of the environment very greatly, and now the maps are very realistic thanks to the many natural elements intertwined, as well as the work on the shapes of buildings and soldiers and changing some designs completely.
As for the user interface, it has become much better as the original user interface was a hell in my view even compared to the early parts of the game, now the speech is clearly written and the player can read it without much effort.
As for the acoustics, it was worked on a little bit, it became more depth and some sounds were completely modified, but in general, you will not feel a great difference in terms of sound, unlike the graphics for the game.
Technical problems
Unfortunately, the game is full of technical problems, whether problems existed in the original version or completely new problems, for example, the game suffers from very big problems in the movement of soldiers and determining their own path, and it is disastrous in the sense of the word if you ask your soldiers to go to a far area or order them to go to an area There are other soldiers there.
The matter becomes catastrophic in the naval battles where there is peerless stupidity of units and their inability to move smoothly and when giving an order to attack, the naval vessels find themselves rotating around before they attack.
Unfortunately, the technical problems did not stop at this point, as there is a group of dispersed Gilghats that happen randomly, perhaps the most prominent of which is when a soldier or unit is stuck in an area that does not know how he entered and cannot leave it. The other is in a bunch of boxes and cannot exit.
price
The new version comes to us for only $ 20, which is an excellent price in my opinion, as the graphics have been greatly updated and new playing content has also been added. In general, if you want to try the game now, I do not advise you to try the original version and go directly to the new version, unlike the Warcraft III Reforged game where it was The spreads are very limited and have no apparent effect.
Conclusion
The new version provided many clear and pivotal improvements, but the developer had to pay attention to artificial intelligence and performance problems, so anyone who loves the game and knows it well feels that the experience is not complete.
As for if this is the first experience, then the experience will undoubtedly be fun and provide you with an enjoyable RTS experience, while preserving the important classic elements that characterize this type of game.
Due to the technical problems in the game, you find that opinions are divided about this game, but in general I advise you to try it in two cases, the first if you want to try the RTS game and you have not played the original part of it and the second case if you are playing the original version so far where the new version will be an important graphic update And necessary.