Age of Empires. 10 iconic games from 1997, the year of legens

Age of Empires, Xbox Game Studios, 1997

Not knowing why there were as many as two reviews of Age of Empires in "Secret Service" - in the middle and at the end of the year, with one point difference in rating. The first one was a bit more critical, the second one more chaotic, and the worldwide attempt to combine Civilization with Warcraft or SimCity with Command & Conquer was met with mixed reception - from 9/10 praise to moderate enthusiasm of 7/10. Some people mainly criticized the game for not being as good as it was supposed to be. They criticized complicated micromanagement, lack of unit queuing and lousy AI, as well as too much focus on battles and not enough on building player's empire. But the successful combination of the two most engaging strategies, multiplayer mode or randomly generated map itself, was praised.

Minor complaints did not reduct the excellent sales of this title, which of course did not match the results of action or RPG games but for the strategy game score was impressive. Back then, RTSs were mainly based on science fiction and fantasy settings. Setting the game's action in the ancient times allowed it to reach a whole new audience that had not previously reached for such games. And the creators started working on patches and add-ons. Today, Age of Empires is considered one of the best games ever created. It has seen four main installments and a multitude of add-ons, exceeding the number of 25 million copies sold.

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