Game review 12 November 2019, 22:50

author: Przemyslaw Zamecki

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition Review – Old But Solid Gold

Attractive, good, mature strategy game is looking for a player! Despite the twenty years that have passed, the new Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition still manages to deliver an amazing experience.

The review is based on the PC version.

The Age of Empires series is a true grandfather of the real-time strategy genre – it's been with us for over twenty years. Some time ago, we got a remaster of the first part, named Definitive Edition and it was... well, it was what it was, let's leave it at that. Let's say I embraced it with all its shortcomings. And quite frankly, I did not expect that the changes will be so extensive in the remaster of the second installment, the opus magnum of the RTS genre created by the Ensemble Studio. Actually, I wasn't even very interested in this project. Meanwhile, what I saw in the first run of the game exceeded my wildest expectations. Age of Empires II Definitive Edition, despite its archaisms, comes out on top and spells great things for the upcoming fourth installment.

Dance Macabre

This actually isn't the first time the second part was revamped and released – we've already had the HD Edition. Apparently, though, Microsoft wants to be like George Lucas, who's forever improving his Star Wars, and while in the case of the flannel Jedi master, the strategy doesn't necessarily win fan approval, we can really be happy about how things turn out with the discussed strategy. AoE2DE is better than anything we've seen in this series so far. It's so good it doesn't really have any serious cons. A little forced, aren't they? Well, this is the privilege of acclaimed dinosaurs sent to a funeral home, the slogan of which is "In our coffins you look more alive." But seriously. Finding fault with a twenty-year old game is basically beating a dead horse. Especially since this game comes with major improvements, and the skeleton will yet dance on many personal computers.

Visual pleasures in 4K

I won't beat around the bush. The above heading is a bit provocative, but the mostly real. Imagine that you have the appropriate hardware (I know some of you don't have to imagine that at all, but I had to), you launch Age of Empires II Definitive Edition in 4K, and your eyes are graced with a world of little characters running around the place, which is sharp as razor and has tremendous textures weighting 16 GB and prepared specifically for this occasion. Truth be told, I've only seen this world at a dozen frames per second, so it probably doesn't count (I ended up playing in 1080p). In any case, the people from Forgotten Empires went to great lengths to make sure players are left in awe if they only have the right rig.

And it's not the "omg-next-gen-so-much!" type of awe, but rather "Dang, that's what a twenty-years-old game can look like?" They fixed about everything that could be fixed. From the appearance of the environment to icons and animations of all units. Their smooth movements are pleasing to the eye, especially since you can now zoom in with the mouse wheel. Watching a scene full of warriors equipped in armor who deal virtual damage to each other has never been so exhilarating.

Collapsing buildings look particularly impressive – they disintegrate to pieces and you can watch every brick falling onto a pile of rubble. I've never got bored of admiring collapsing castles and it seems that I won't consider it as pointless activity for a long time. It's mind-blowing!

Game designers have also managed, among other things, to make sure that players won't have any problems with identifying specific buildings. Already at this stage, each building looks a bit different, which makes it easier to get an idea of what's actually going on in this prevailing chaos – during the battle or during the fast expansion of your city or village.

More fixes and user interface

In addition to visuals and graphical marvels, it was also important to adapt the old-school user interface to a slightly newer model. By that we mean a more solid and modern UI which is better suited to its purpose.

In the menu there is a new option to scale the user interface, which is a very good idea especially for newcomers, who are not yet familiar with the in-game hotkeys. Enlarging the icons allows you to get a better understanding of their functions; for a change, professionals can get rid of the main interface almost completely. By the way, concerning the keyboard shortcuts – now you not only have the possibility to modify key bindings, but also to create separate profiles, which will surely be appreciated by those who develop their own command systems. Also, it is possible to quickly select all units or buildings of a given type on the map and to delete them with one press of a key.

On the upper bar of UI we can check how many people we can recruit before we run out of living houses. An additional and extremely useful icon will show us how many villagers are unemployed. By clicking on it, the game takes us to each of them (one by one) and we are able to assign them a task.

There is also a new feature – queuing of tasks, thanks to which it is possible to plan the next actions of a given unit in advance. All buildings under construction or technologies which are currently being developed are shown at the top of the screen. This allows you to quickly understand the current situation.

Select army feature has been improved. Not only you can see how many units you have marked, but you can also make sure that workers will not be included in a massive group of selected soldiers. It helps a lot! Especially when you have to quickly react to the unexpected circumstances.

One of the coolest improvements is the opportunity to renew a farm after it runs out of stocks. Simply check this option and you no longer have to worry about the supply of food. It seems so strange that no one have come up with such an idea twenty years ago. It was a really annoying issue.

AI

We've received an updated AI in the HD edition of the game, but in the Definitive Edition the artificial intelligence system has undergone some major polishing. I got the impression that the AI-controlled enemy doesn't focus so much on performing one task after another, but rather acts in a more dispersed and aggressive way. Employees are not directed to perform only one activity after another in order to advance into the next era. However, it doesn't mean that the redesigned AI is slower than the old one. It tries to balance the economy and prioritizes tasks in a much better way. During the individual battles, the game allows you to choose which AI scripts should be used by particular civilizations – whether they should use those from the original version, the HD version or the latest version of the game. I encourage you to conduct your own experiments with the new AI system. It can be a quite addictive and fascinating activity.

Another great new feature is the possibility of giving commands to allies when playing 2vs2 scenarios. The number of available commands is overwhelming (around a hundred or more) and they concern issues such as – request for training of a particular type of units, sending a specific type of troops into the field, requesting support in an attack, asking an ally to focus on a certain type of production or even construction of a wall at designated location. You will have to spend a lot of time if you want figure it all out. Most importantly, the system seems to be working quite decently.

Other important novelty is the introduction of a new level of difficulty. Despite its name, Extreme difficulty doesn't make the game that hard. It is rather a cosmetic trick, designed to balance the difficulty levels available in the game, so that they are not as mixed as before. So, the Extreme difficulty level is very similar to the Hard one, known from the previous edition of the game. Either way, a challenge shall remain a challenge.

Revamped multiplayer

Speaking of challenges. In DE, you will take part in challenges which consist in achieving certain objectives as quickly as possible – for example, advance to the next era. New adepts of the series should devote their time to study the basics of game mechanics, if they intend to fight against a real opponent in a multiplayer duel. The standard tutorial, which is also a Scottish campaign against the English, turns out to be a complete joke. By no means it will prepare you for a multiplayer battle.

Before we move on to more details about multiplayer mode, I should point out that the whole element of the game was completely redesigned. No more peer-to-peer connections. Instead, game designers have prepared multiplayer servers which should provide a much smoother and lag-less experience. At least nothing like that has happened to me during my gameplay experience.

The appearance and functionality of multiplayer’s lobby has been modified. Now we can create private and password-protected game sessions. Among the new features there is a possibility to watch multiplayer sessions of other people as a spectator (there can be virtually any number of people watching). The new map selector makes it easier to filter them or create your own sets. Finally, the updated matchmaking system should allow for a better choice of rivals due to the more specific search criteria. It would require much more time, than I had after the game's release, to get to know all these novelties and innovative solutions which I have described above. Despite that, I have to admit that everything I've tested worked very well.

A multicultural game

The title of Definitive Edition obliges to introduce something more than just updated graphics, interface, AI and redesigned multiplayer. The developers have managed to collect all expansion sets – including all civilizations that appeared in each add-on. Moreover, they have added some extra content. Thanks to that, twenty-four campaigns are awaiting you in the single player mode! In other words, it's hundreds of hours of fun! Four new civilizations have been added to those already existing in the standard version and numerous add-ons. Also, three of them have received unique campaigns. Despite the fact that game designers have decided to take an easy way and based the military power of all new nations on cavalry, we should be grateful that they've expanded the already diversified pool of civilizations.

For the first time we can take on the role of Lithuanians (unfortunately, this nation was deprived of unique campaign). Also, we can play as Tatars, Bulgarians and Cumans. The latter are well-known from Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I've played all new campaigns and from what I've seen so far, all new nations are a bit overpowered in comparison to their opponents. Or I'm a born leader and a talented strategist? I'm kidding, but I wouldn't be surprised if the new nations were properly balanced in a patch that may be released in the nearest future (especially in the context of multiplayer matches).

A smiling walking dead

I'm aware of the fact that I haven't managed to catch and indicate all the differences in comparison to the original. I only hope that I've noticed most of them, and have suitably described them in this review. Age of Empires II Definitive Edition is a fantastic product for the fans of strategy genre. It was successfully redesigned and refreshed by Forgotten Empires and most certainly it won't go unnoticed – at least by fans who enjoy this type of entertainment and are not afraid of older game mechanics. It resembles a living (walking dead?) corpse that's still quite attractive and was mummified in perfect conditions. So, it's going to last for at least few years more. I write about it with a lot of sympathy because I like how nicely it was preserved. Also, I hope that it's a promising sign before the release of the four installment of the series that’s awaited by many home-grown tactical leaders.