Rating: 
Summary: The best historical RTS game yet!
Review: The developers of Rise of Nations have really done it- they finally added something to a tired field of gaming, the venerable RTS games. By integrating some of the best features from Civilization and Alpha Centauri, and keeping the best aspects of the RTS genre, Big Huge Games has a bonified franchise on their hands. I will likely never play Age of Empires, Empire Earth or any other RTS of this ilk again.Bryan Reynolds has the Sid Meier pedigree stemming from his involvement in Civilization II and Alpha Centauri. He understands the simple rule of computer gaming: its a game, not a history lesson! He set a new height for RTS, far surpassing the phenomenal Age of.. series and completely crushing Empire Earth at its own game. Despite 18 nations being included, there is room for more (where's America?) as well as some minor refinement in game play (more options for soldiers like guard and stand ground; better targetting by your own troops). The AI is the best I've played (I'm getting beat at moderate difficulty). Buy it, and prepare to lose alot of sleep because of it!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent combination of everything!
Review: This game suprised me quite a bit. I was thinking it was going to be just another Age of Empires clone, but in 3D. Boy was I wrong. There is so much stuff invovled in this quality strategy game that I was just awestruck. The Conquer the World mode is just absolutely awesome, which involves you taking over the rest of the world in a Risk-like fashion. Overall, this game is a high quality piece of material, and I would reccomend it to everyone, including those who only have a very slight interest in strategy games.
Rating: 
Summary: Age Of the Mythology Copy
Review: When I purchased Rise of Nations, I was expecting a new game not an exact copy of Age of Mythology. There was nothing new about this game, it was setup exactly like Age of Mythology. You have to gather wood and goal, and your given cheesy missions to complete. Then you have to advance through the ages, again just like Age of Mythology. If you own Age of Mythology than don't even bother buying this game. I wasn't impressed with the graphics and the game was just weak.
Rating: 
Summary: Would have gotten 4 stars but...........
Review: Again, microsoft goes on to milk everyone for money. This game is awesome except for the fact many people are unable to make the campain mode work. Microsoft so far has not acknowledged the fact that it is their software, but they continue to claim it is peoples computers. As for the game itself? It is very nicely put together. If you like Civiliazation series and Age of Empires then you will love this game. You put the two together and BOOM you have Rise of Nations. I would recommend buying this AFTER microsoft comes out with a patch to fix the bugs.
Rating:
Summary: The Best RTS Yet
Review: I'm falling in love with this game. To me, it beats other similar RTS games such as EE and Warcraft 3, in terms of how fun it is to play (we play games to have fun right?). Honestly, the first time I played I didn't really like it, but that was because I wasn't paying attention to what the heck I was doing. That game ended in an armaggedon (meaning I used so many nukes that I destroyed all existing life on the face of the earth, hehe). My second game was much more fun though. One thing I should point out is that the AI is the best to date. For example, in one game, the Mongols suddenly attacked me with a massive force on my left flank, trying to take over my city on the western border. I got pretty scared that they'd succesfully take over the city, which happened to be my 'resource capital', so I instinctively sent everything I had to defend the attack, including my right flank. A few minutes later when I sent my troops to defend the left flank, to my disbelief, the enemy sends in another MASSIVE wave to attack my RIGHT city. I found out that they left an army just outside of my tower's line of sight, waiting for me to leave it undefended. In other words, I got whooped. Nevertheless, that was one fun game. Now, imagine playing Rise of Nations with other people online? Gamespy Arcade hosts the multiplayer system, which is absolutely free. From my personal online experiences, this game got my heart pumping; its THAT fun. Best of all, it has a easy learning curve. It took me just about 2-3 games to master the basics. This is a MUST get for all RTS gamers.
Rating:
Summary: lacking in some important areas
Review: Terrain and elevation don't affect gameplay at all, and you don't have walls that you can build. So the game begs you to play offensively. This is really disappointing and limiting to gameplay strategies. Also, though you can toggle some of the settings to make the game progress thru advancements more slowly, the default setting pushes major technology changes every 5 minutes! What is the point of entire Ages of Humanity going by so quickly? You can pause the game and make adjustments, but basically this is an RTS with a slightly more complicated technology tree. If you like Civilization, you may greatly dislike the limited depth and speedy pace of this game.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Game, But.....
Review: I like this game, it's like a better version of Empire Earth, and it feels almost identical too that. DO NOT compare this too anything Civilization related, cause it ain't even close. Anyways the graphics are amazing, there not as taxing on your Video Card as Empire Earths, and the textures and stuff are better then EE too. Also as compaired too Empire Earth it uses almost the same interface and quick start options but with a kick, you get too set the AI behavior, and this is what EE is missing and severly hurts it. You can set the AI on Rise Of Nations anyway you want, and that's the way it'll go, instead of Empire Earth's "Kill All, End All" AI, where if you build a Wonder you'll get blitzed and won't be able too fight them off. The AI on here won't launch armaggedon when you build a wonder or advance in technology, they play very strategically, and follow victory conditions. The Resources in this game are also better, you can accumulate them VERY fast and at times you won't even believe it (that kinda knocks my rating down for this game a bit) It poses no challenge almost, and the AI gets resources just as quick, and next thing you know you see 20 wonders being built (which leads too a game victory) and you've only been playing for 30 minutes. Don't get me wrong though, there's way more good in this game then bad. I mean having resources accumulate like that means you can actual produce enough troops too fend off them raiding parties (unlike EE). Also the City and territory expansion is a neat addition, as well as the different researches. (Upgrades too units and such work in the same way as EE) Another thing i like is that if you got an allie AI nation, they will actively trade and provide support very nicely. Well in short this game is very good, although not quite perfect, but if your looking for a good alternative too Empire Earth, i'd HIGHLY recommend this game, especially if your looking for better, more strategic AI, and some more finer worked out nooks and cranies that plagues Empire Earth. I haven't tried it online yet, but i'm sure it's just as nice. Also it's VERY easy too catch onto how everything works.
Rating:
Summary: Single player mode is lacking
Review: I have been a big fan of the Civ/AoE/Empire Earth series of strategy games and I was really looking forward to Rise of Nations. This game combines some of the best features of both Civ and Age of Empires. I have one major problem with the game, the single player mode. Instead of a traditional single player mode where you can take on X number of computer opponents and have random maps generated, Rise of Nations decided to make the single player mode like Risk. Instead of getting a huge world map, you get a board that looks like Risk. You move your armies from one territory to another to invade. Once you invade, you start a scenario where you have to build up a city, build your defenses, develop resources, etc. Once you finish that scenario and your turn is over, you start over from scratch in another scenario when you invade another territory. You even get cards (like in Risk) when you succesfully invade a territory. Maybe this is their way of combining RTS and turn based strategy games. It doesn't work for me. I'm sure the multiplayer mode is great, but I don't like playing multiplayer for RTS games. I like the solo games that can take me days to finish. I am very disappointed in this game.
Rating: 
Summary: Total ...& Unoriginal
Review: This game was a lousy RTS and was simply another ... of Microsoft's to copy other games and sell them for [$$$] a pop. Have you ever played 'Age of Empires' or 'WarcraftII'? Well then you've also played 'Rise of Nations'. I wonder how the programmers of this game can sleep at night knowing that this game is simply a copy of other RTS games that came before it. But this game is MUCH WORSE because its graphics and gameplay suck for a game that just came out in 2003. I'm dumbfounded by the lack of originality in this game as well as all the other [copies] out there. I'll end by saying that this game is like a bad sequel. You expect it to be as good as the original but it ends up being disappointingly worse.
Rating:
Summary: Innovating the RTS genre
Review: WOW. After playing a match last saturday, I got to admit it this game is the best in the RTS genre right now.
It won't make a revolution, but it takes many great aspects of this genre to create a new standard.
It has a great AI(I mean this AI is very hard to defeat in moderate) as well as graphics. I can't rate the music since there isn't but the sound of each unit is great. Each unit also has an excellent animation.
All of the civilization (there are 18)seem to be very balanced: each one has unique units as well benefits.
So if you are tired of the same RTS repeating itself try this one and you will see how it refreshes the genre.
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