"In Age of Empires II: HD Edition, fans of the original game and new players alike will fall in love with the classic Age of Empires II experience. Explore all the original single player campaigns from both Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, choose from 18 civilizations spanning over a thousand years of history, and head online to challenge other Steam players in your quest for world domination throughout the ages. Originally developed by Ensemble Studios and reimagined in high definition by Hidden Path Entertainment, Microsoft Studios is proud to bring Age of Empires II: HD Edition to Steam!"
"So what will this include? The original AOE II: The Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, all remastered in HD by Hidden Path. This will enable 1080p+ resolutions, and also include enhanced textures, lighting, and water and fire effects. As a Steam exclusive release, it will incorporate Steamworks, and have achievements, leaderboards, matchmaking, and the ability to save to the cloud. Steam Workshop support will also be included, enabling sharing of mods and user-created content for the game."
First AoE3 goes on Steam and now this...!?
I think we all feel the same way, amazed and very happy. Most of us here played the classic and beautiful AoE2 and know it has unmatched gameplay.
Maybe a completely new AoE game would have been better, but since the AoE franchise seemed dead once again with development on AoE Online being stopped, this is better than nothing. This re-release of AoE2 will surely be successful and will show Microsoft how loved this franchise still is if they get it right.
I still have a few problems with AoE2 though, such as civilizations uniqueness. For example, Aztecs and Japanese have an European techtree with just 1 or 2 unique, specific units... This is silly and disrespectful compared to something like AoE3 but what can you do.
Even so, it is a great game and the competitive player base might grow into something huge.
Who knows.
Who knows.
It comes out on April 7 so don't miss it!
I can only say one thing: WONDERFUL! I hope I can get it :D
ReplyDeleteAnd...:
"I still have a big problem with AoE2 though, a problem which the new developers will surely not fix, civilizations uniqueness. For example, Aztecs and Japanese have an European techtree with just 1 or 2 unique, specific units... This is silly and disrespectful and only shows how lazy and unwilling they are to make it proper."
Unfortunately that's how they devloped the game back in 1999, and the civs added by the TC expansion couldn't be different from that "standard". And also, since this AoKHD is just a "update", it can't change the gameplay unfortunately. Anyhow, this is still great =]
Indeed it is. Maybe who knows, they'll keep updating it and perhaps we'll see some serious, welcomed changes.
DeleteI am surprise who are working on it though. Hidden Path Entertainment are working for Valve and they developed Counter Strike Global Offensive so I'm not sure they are qualified to work on AoE2 but we'll see.
I'm the only one who does not like AOE2?
ReplyDeleteWell, I for example like CS Global Offensive but can't stand the "classic" CS 1.6...
DeleteAoE2 was a game I grown with, so I will always respect it.
Oh, by the way, just a correction: AoE2HD will come at April 9th actually, or, for the people who pre-purchased it, April 5th
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ReplyDeleteEh, i played AoE2 to death, even tho the game never was perfect, nothing will make me come back to it again. Nice note about civilizations Mandos, a spot on.
ReplyDeleteI wish it goes on sale during the summer so I can replace my aging scratched up disk that's barely usable now. Again, nice note about the civs Mandos, one civ I always had a problem was with the Chinese, as all they got was "rocketry" and had basically no gunpowder weapons despite inventing them. Oh well, at least it was balanced.
ReplyDeleteBtw, after doing some searching, the buildings and unit price fluctuations came from upgrades such as code napoleon, sorry about that...
Yeah, and why do Chinese have camels in AoE2......???
DeleteBecause apparently they were lacking in the Calvary department, and so Ensemble gave them a mounted Anti-Calvary unit.
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