izigame.me

My Score: 9/10

Prologue

Kingdoms and Empires, Countries and Nations, all these are ways that humanity has been using since ancient times to organize itself and define groups with their own cultures, customs and peculiarities, making the idea of ​​being able to play a game where the player is allowed to choose one of these Nations and command it to victory very interesting. Maybe you are looking for a faster game, of building cities and collecting resources, but you don't want to be tied to just one era or historical period, at the same time you are not looking for or just don't feel like a turn-based game that can take several hours, well I think I have the answer. ^^
Originally created in 2003 and now remastered to run on newer systems, this classic real-time strategy game returns, to the delight of fans, allowing you to once again start from humble beginnings in the Stone Age, collect resources and expand your empire, going through several eras such as the Classical, Middle Ages and Industrial until reaching the final part of the Cold War in your search for victory, whether in battle mode or in the great campaign trying to place your flag all over the world, I hope you are ready for the challenge. ^^
Pros:
+ An RTS game that returns fully functional on newer systems as smoothly as it did when it was released.
+ Simple commands that allow you to quickly and easily perform a large number of tasks efficiently.
+ Selection of twenty-four different cultures to choose from, each with their own unique advantages and units.
+ Five campaigns to test your skills as you try to conquer the world.
+ Very light game, working very well, even on simpler computers.
+ Beautiful graphics to this day, both on maps that simulate real parts of the world, and on the various models of units and buildings, which even in more recent eras, still have details that differentiate them from other cultures.
Cons:
- One or another crash, it rarely happened to me but I encountered a few, more commonly during campaigns at the end of battles when returning to the campaign map.
- The campaigns are somewhat limited as the only option for victory is military victory, and the campaigns have a limited number of turns.
- If you like to do all the achievements, good luck, because this game unfortunately has the infamous "Make a million X type of unit" achievements and they have them for all types of troops.

Game mechanics

The game is simple, as a good RTS should be, making it a bit difficult for me to talk about it, because like every good game of the genre, it follows the classic recipe, where we start with a small town and a few villagers, and we have to use the initial resources to gather more resources in order to advance, building more buildings, training new villagers and troops, but mainly, carrying out research in the library building, which allows us to advance through the ages, which has always been one of the parts that I liked the most about this game, allowing us to go from the Stone Age to the end of the Cold War. ^^
During this entire process, new mechanics are released, such as new resources such as Metal, Knowledge and Oil, which have their own ways of being obtained, associated with constructions and research that increase the speed of production of new resources. The military part also changes a lot, with the player initially having access only to soldiers with spears and bows and arrows, but gradually releasing new ways of wreaking havoc, such as cavalry, artillery, ships, air force and even nuclear missiles, all of this added to the variety of cultures, maps, plus the classic game system where each copy of the same unit and building costs more than the previous one, making no game the same as the previous one. ^^

Art and sound

Produced by the Big Huge Games studio, the graphics of this game are still something that I find very beautiful, with a wide variety of maps imitating real-world biomes and locations, but mainly the graphics of the models of buildings and units, which range from the Stone Age to the Cold War. I am impressed with their work, because even though the units are the same from the same era, they found a way to differentiate each culture, whether through details such as the helmets on the uniforms or the colors of the vehicles. The soundtrack is very pleasant, with calmer songs and more tense ones for the various moments. ^^

Conclusion

Rise of Nations was a game that unfortunately I never had the chance to play the original when it was released, so seeing it released again this time adapted to work on newer systems made me very happy, because I could finally buy it and play it legitimately, being able to have fun while advancing through the ages and conquering the world one battle at a time with increasingly better equipped armies. Without a doubt, it is a game that I highly recommend to any player who enjoys the RTS genre, and it would be interesting if Microsoft, one day, made a remake on the same level as the other series about the Middle Ages, or the other game from the same studio, Rise of Legends. ^^