Rating: 
Summary: Great and VERY relaxing!
Review: This is the kind of game that you must play when you're stressed. Just pick up your favourite civilization and ravage your enemies' towns! Some people wrote that you need more than 100 Mb of memory... It's false. I play it on my good ol' PC with 64 Mb of memory and runs pretty smooth. If you love strategy games, do not think it twice. Buy it right now! The only mistake is the buildings from Middle East. The byzantines did not have those type of mills! Also, they do not have any mosques. They were Christians! Those are the only mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: well balanced master piece
Review: Most stradegy games that i've played have just a little economy and alot of milatary. This game has alot more economy than most, i think this make s it better. But its balancied becuase it has alot of milatary too. This game is worth the money. The AI is much improved over AoE. I do think that single player is to hard sometimes, but that makes you think more, after all what is a stradegy game for. It has a minor bug though (i hope they release a patch soon), when you put it on easiest mode with 150+ the comp. will resign after 5 minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: Great game, but not for addictive personalities...
Review: Someone once told me that AOE is the cocaine of computer games. It's true. The game is fun, but I would prefer shorter playing time. Three hours a pop is a little much.
Rating: 
Summary: Gamer from Michigan
Review: Many a time I would start a campaign, just start-barely move a person and all of a sudden I would get the message that I lost. Also, I have found that I couldn't play a deathmatch with the computers because they all gave up right away. Also when I would play a random game and group myself with a computer against say 2 other computers.....may ally would give up right away and the 2 computers would immediately attack me-frustrating! I'm hoping there will be some patch to fix this. However, I really enjoyed all the other enhancements-especially grouping my troops and being able to see villagers who are standing behind something!
Rating:
Summary: Great Game, if your a REAL gamer
Review: I'll be honest and say AOE II is hard, but hello, if it was easy what fun would it be? When compared to AOE I it is simply amazing. The Graphics are better, the computer doesn't suck, villagers don't get stuck in trees, resources are more plentiful, the maximum population is higher, and everything is bigger. Some people with smaller monitors may complain about the large buildings but at 1028x768 they're small enough for me. The addition of battle formations is also welcomed. But as with all strategy games, strategy is most important. No longer can players simply wipe out an oppenent with 20 phalanxes, you must, gasp, actually combine arms to best protect valueable seige weapons, destroy buildings with tons of hit points, and succesfully keep your troops healed. NOW, as for the games difficulty. If your a wuss or down right suck, this game is not for you. The computer is good, agressive, and fast, but certainly not impossible. I can beat two computer oppenents on easy in about and hour and a half. Moderate takes about twice the time or even longer. On easiest, however, the computer is incredibly easy, even my little sister can beat it. Overall if you can click a mouse and want a game that takes for an hour to a whole day get AOE II and get it now before you forget. And by the way, if you think its to hard, your wrong. Its just what REAL gamers have been looking for.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, encompasing, engaging
Review: I enjoyed and spent many hours with AOE1 and am not disappointed with AOK. Microsoft did a great job of keeping the integrity of the first game while adding a whole new level of complexity and a new stash of weapons. I will no doubt get my moneys worth from this game and look forward to hours of frustrating fun. A note of warning, this game takes serious commitment. An average campaign or match can last hours, and it takes a while to get the hang of what to do...which, I think, is the best part. Definitely a thinking game. Sure the buildings are a bit larger than 1, but they are more proportionate. Not an issue. Overall a great game and an excellent sequal.
Rating:
Summary: Shovelware
Review: AoE II is AoE I with enhanced graphics, but it's the same game. Granted, they've fixed some bugs from the first game (such as path finding) and made archer's arrows actually arc instead of flying straight, but under the face lift lies AoE I. When playing solitare games, you always get gang banged simultainously by all other civs. This is AoE's way of balancing your brain with the very weak AI. Why didn't they enhance the AI so it fights with itself instead of every game having 3:1 odds against the player! If you start beating on one of the three civs, the other two rush you with all of their troops. If you get higher technology levels than the AI players, all three rush you with all of their troops. And of course while you're managing your forces in battle, the computer is fighting the battle as well as cranking out more forces and moving them to the front. Humans can't manipulate building troops, managing farms, fighting battles, rapairing damage, and building new structures simultainously like the computer can. Bottom line - if you are obsessed with AoE I, you'll enjoy AoE II because it is really the same game. Like AoE I, this game is really only good when playing multiplayer games against HUMANS so all players are on the same multitasking playing field. Oh, and some people reviewing this game mistakenly refer to this game as a strategy game. This game really has no aspects of strategy at all. It's really a tactical game in which the player who can throw together a horde of troops first wins.
Rating: 
Summary: AOE is boring and needs more than 128 meg of ram to run well
Review: build build build build build build build. fight. build build build build build build build. lose. that's about it for the Age of Kings from Microsoft. MS just can't get it right with games.
Rating:
Summary: go buy memory!
Review: this would have got 5 stars if they wouldn't have lied to me and told me i need 32MB to run the game. THAT IS BULL! you need 128MB in order for it to run smooth. so now i have to go buy some DIMMS.
Rating:
Summary: Very good--but not great
Review: The game has a number of improvements over the original. I like being able to hide the villagers in the town center so they can fight back, I like the gates, and I like the fact that the buildings are much more difficult to knock down. There are a number of other improvements as well. If I have a gripe, though, it is that the campaigns are much too difficult, and not terribly intriguing. The campaigns in AoE I were excellent, particularly the Nineveh thing, and the campaigns in the Rise of Rome add-on were, each and every one, simply spectacular. I can't even imagine the number of enjoyable hours I spent playing--and thinking about--winning these campaigns. But in II, the object seems to be simply to survive. You are attacked early and steadily, most of the time by more than one civ., giving you little time to develop resources. Very frustrating, and not as much fun as the original.
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