Old Video Game Reviews: Age of Mythology

Age of Mythology was released in 2002.  It is a different take on the popular Age of Empires games.  (Hence being made by the same people)  It allows the player, like in all other RTS games, to play through the campaign, online, or against the computer.

Play consists of you first choosing a race, Egyptian, Norse, or Greek.  Then you choose your major god.  Each race has three major gods to choose from and your choice will affect how you play in several distinct ways.  It will determine which minor gods you can choose to worship as you advance from age to age.  It determines certain bonuses you will have in game as well as upgrades that could be available.

Once the game starts, each player will have to frantically build up their economy, getting a steady supply of food, gold, and wood.  Having these three different resources and the slow collection speed, it can be a bit annoying how many workers you have to manage.  Once you have enough food and have built a temple, then you can advance to the next age.  This will open up more buildings, units, and technologies.  Advancing to the final age as quickly as you can is a good idea.

Battle can be described as two triangles.  One triangle has to do with unit type.  Archers beat infantry which beat cavalry, while cavalry beat archers.  The other triangle has to do with what the unit is.  Regular troops beat Heroes which beat myth units, while myth units beat regular troops.  This means that heroes are the best choice against enemy trolls, giants, snakes, etc. (any mythological creature)  Heroes are expensive though, and they will fall easily to hordes of regular troops (who will cost less).  And lastly, myth units are very good at destroying regular troops.

While combat is simple and managing workers can be frustrating, this game can still be a lot of fun.  It’s interesting to see how each race plays, along with how each major and minor god affects play.  You will find that each god can lead to a completely different style of play.  This gives you nine different options, not to mention different choices between the minor gods.

I would recommend this game to age of empires fans and RTS fans as long as you can play quickly and don’t play defensively.  This game is not for defensive play, as you will get steamrolled every time, despite the ability to build walls and towers.  However, this game is cheap now and it also has an expansion called The Titans expansion, which allows each race to build a destructive super unit as well as introducing the Atlanteans as a playable race, complete with three major gods and corresponding minor gods.  I would definitely recommend checking it out if nothing more.

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