Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14117 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Released on: 2000-10-20
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 95

Amazon.co.uk Review
When it comes to vast, kingdom-spanning ambition, you can't do better than Microsoft's Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Microsoft went all out to create this real-time strategy game, and it fairly hums with gorgeous graphics, sophisticated AI and challenging scenarios for the novice and experienced player alike.

The point of the game is to shepherd your fledgling civilisation to world domination, using war, trade and exploration. You start with the bare minimum to get going, and you've got to balance your people's needs with your desire to be a little Napoleon. The Age of Kings gives you a ton of new units and technologies to enrich your strategic options. Each scenario is placed accurately within history, but you're also free to create your own.

The multiplayer format is robust, allowing up to nine players to share a world. When battles commence, you can take control of every aspect of your workers and soldiers, sending them running for shelter in the town centre, ordering them to defend a watchtower, or setting their combat stance to aggressive for free-for-all sword smashing fun. When you're not fighting, find your idle peasants with a mouse click and send them back to work chopping trees, rounding up sheep, fishing or mining gold and stone.

As you acquire more resources, you can improve your soldier's gear and skills, start to trade more efficiently, and make life better for everyone in your empire. You can choose from 13 groups to manage, from the Japanese to the Teutons and Franks. Each group has unique units and special characteristics, making this a game that changes every time you play it.

If all this sounds complicated, it is. New players may be intimidated by the range of choices, but the teaching scenarios are very helpful in conquering the controls. Age of Empires II is a sophisticated, gorgeous successor to the wildly popular original. It's a real feather in Microsoft's cap--a world-building game that will hold you captive. --Therese Littleton

Manufacturer's Description
Age of Empires II is the sequel to the critically acclaimed and bestselling strategy game: Age of Empire. Age of Empires challenges you to build a civilisation into a mighty empire and allows you to achieve victory in different ways. Whether it is through combat, or economic domination, or by building and protecting a wonder of the world. Age of Empires II was developed by the highly regarded developer Ensemble Studios and features the expertise of Bruce Shelley, co-designer of the hit game Civilisation.

Customer Reviews

The best of them all!
This is surely the best strategy game that ever passed my way. With the number of populations, maps and locations, the combination possibilites are next to infinite. Each new game is a new experience altogether. I highly recommend it. Age of Empires 2 is one of those addictive games which simply make you play it more and more. It is just extraordinary.

The best strategy game ever!
If you thought Age of Empires I: The Rise of Rome was good, then wait until you see this! Age of Empires II has extra features including History, Campaign editor and Learn to Play. In single-player mode, you can play a Death Match, Regicide, Random Map or Campaign, using one of 13 civilizations to advance from the Dark Age, to the Feudal Age, then the Castle Age and finally the Imperial Age. There are hundreds of different units and loads of different types of map to play on. What's so cool about Age of Empires II is that you can create your own Campaign (a set of maps with a story behind it) and show it off to other players over the internet! Building an empire and ruling the world has never been so much fun!

Age Of Empires2 The Age Of The Kings
I love playing Microsoft games I think they are all good games what the company make. I have not yet played one I dislike. But the main ones I like are the Age of Empires when My mum and dad got me a pc I got Age of Empires with the computer and from then on I got into it and kept on playing them. Today I got Age Of Empires2 the age of the kings and it is the best age of empire game I have played yet. It is easy to use and easy to play. This is what I gave the game out of 5.

Graphics 5/5

Game play 5/5 Sound 5/5

I think that age of empires is the best microsoft game out. And I hope they continue on making more.