Rise of Nations

Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to people who don't actually play the game...
Review: First off, if I can address the review about the game lacking single player modes... The guy doesn't even have the game.

Not only does the single player mode have the mode he discussed...but it has two other modes as well. There are campaigns (which can also be created by the user) and there in fact is a mode where you can play as many computer opponents as you want. It's called quick play mode. It's **RIGHT ON THE OPENING SCREEN**

In any event, I must tell you that this is absolutely without a doubt the BEST RTS game that's ever been developed. Big Huge Games did an incredibly good job with this game.

This game isn't for the mindless C&C, Starcraft, and Warcraft players. This game is for intelligent players who can handle managing multiple cities and armies at once with the economy as well.

If you want to mass a bunch of tanks and rush your opponent and have a large cluster of nonsense in the middle of the map, buy C&C or Starcraft. If you want to gather a bunch of stone and tower rush your opponent into oblivion and build 3 barracks outside their base.

You can't do that in RoN. You can only build within your city limits...and you add more cities and expand like a true real-world scenario.

BHG added *JUST* enough upgrades, resources, and ages to make this game the best RTS ever. As an avid RTS player, it also makes this the best game I've ever played.

Please also don't listen to the complains about system issues. Very many new games are going to have them and the patch is out now. All is well...and you're insane if you don't have this game.

Rating:
Summary: My faith in the RTS genre is restored.
Review: After holding out for a week, I finally bought this game after watching a gushing X-play review of the game on TechTV (If you missed the show, they have a review on-line). In any case, their review pretty much mirrored exactly how I feel about the game. Rise of Nations takes almost everything that's annoyed you about real-time strategy games and fixes it.

The gameplay is fast, furious, and downright addictive. The unconventional single player campaign has *GASP!* replayability! (It plays like Risk!) Not to mention the game is absolutely beautiful! The buildings alone are works of art and the unit animations are the best and most fun that I've seen in an RTS!

So after several disappointing RTS releases in the past year, Big Huge Games has finally restored my faith in the RTS genre. Thank you!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I am an Age of Empires fan and I have all of them. When Empire Earth came into scene and considering that its creator is the same of AOE I bought it inmediatelly and I do not regret it. At that time I read Msoft was creating rise of nations and with the reputation of Msof I couldn't wait to get it...Well I regret have spent 50 on this Rise Of Nations game for the following reasons:

The game specifications say 128 MB of RAM and 16 of video card, but my computer is by far more than that and the game still runs slow.
The graphics are good when you use the zoom feature but that's annoying when you are in combat against other nations.

You will miss AOE when you play this game.

Buy Empire Earth if you want a RTS game to play the modern era. Unfortunally, Microsoft has let us down this time with this game(rise of nations).

Rating:
Summary: We love it!
Review: As avid AoE and Civ3 players, we couldn't wait to get Rise of Nations. Take a third Civ3, a third Age of Empires, and third Risk and you have Rise of Nations. It moves very fast in contrast to Civ3 games that can take a week. I still play Civ3 when I want to play a laid back game, but RoN will keep you hopping. Sometimes it seems you need two sets of eyes and hands, as you manage your cities and fight in real time. The graphics are the best in details that I've ever seen. The game advised I needed to update my drivers upon installation, which I did. The help information is very good. In fact this is the first RPG I've had where I don't feel like I need to run out and buy a strategy guide in order to play it. Of course, I'm still on the easy level.
Plan to stay up late, as it's hard to stop once you start.

Rating:
Summary: A return to vapor ware
Review: I looked forward to loading and running this game. Reynolds' contributions to Civilization made it a must buy. And Microsoft sort of indicated that it would be produced well.

I never found out.

After three minutes of tutorial the game froze. Had to unplug the computer to restart it.

So I tried playing the game, instead of running the tutorial. Got just about as far and it froze again.

I tried this four times and four time I had to unplug my computer. (I'm running WinXP on a Pentium 4 from IBM.)

So I tried the newsgroups at Microsoft. Lo and behold there are at least a dozen comments on the news groups about system freezes and this game. So I write Customer Service at Microsoft. (Costs $30 to call them, so you email them.) So they run a diagnostic on my system. And they tell me to install a new driver for my video card. I'm a little hesitant to do this, given that IBM routinely sends me notice when new drivers are available. But I download and try it. Guess what setup tells me: "This is not an appropriate driver for your video card."

I'm running an ATI video card. Others I saw with problems were also well known, like nVidia. Microsoft's next suggestion was that I buy a new video card! Nah. I'm afraid I have to return the game.

Rating:
Summary: Rise of Nations... and frustration
Review: I found the game to be fun and rather challenging... when it worked. The upgrades from civ to civ happen quickly and are hard to manage effectively, but you get the hang of it after a while. Unfortunately, you also get the hang of saving your game frequently. I have a powerful new PC and the game just stops instantly. No error message, no warning -- you just go back to your desktop. And there's no autosave feature, so if you've been playing your first time and are 1 hour into it -- poof! It's all gone. Quite frustrating. Sadly, not much of a surprise, considering it's a Microsoft game.

Rating:
Summary: pretty good but could have been more
Review: i had no informatoin what so ever when i first bought this game, and miraculously it didnt turn into a pitfall i thought it was once i bought it. the game is simple enough to get started thanks to the detailed and finally helpful tutorials that are mini scenarios in and of themselves. the ''deathmath'' modes where you face computers is also a good point with endless custom options. the best part by far is the Conquer the World mode which combines RTS with territories and armies that will have any die hard RISK fan drooling. so instead of a war of numbers, every time you attack a country it turns into a scenario in and of itself based on the terrain, # of units you have, and the enemies cities and cards. EX. if you attack from britain from france you'll have to actually cross the bay between britan and france to actually attack the french capital.

now for the low points.. i expected more from a game wtht he concepts of AOE and Empire Earth. the graphics are ok but nothing to oggle at, a basic combat system that relies on numbers and unit type. and theres no time for like in Empire Earth to admire the scenery and fight medievel. the best fighting is in the information age. be sure to put the difficulty on moderate and up though otherwise your in for a very boring game, but the AI is pretty good on hard difficulties.

overall it's a great game for RTS and old fashioned game board lovers with an economy system thats unique in and of itself. but for those ppl lookin for a spectacular visual and gameplay experience, save your money for Empire Earth 2, Civilization III and the upcoming Starwars Galaxies: an Empire Divided.

Rating:
Summary: This game is truely worthy
Review: I only have the free trial of this game and i've already fallen in love!(riseofnations.com) This game mixs Comand & Conquer tactics with Civilization. You can build the ultimate army strait at the start and upgrade it as you go along or you can wait tell the final age(information) and build Nuclear ICBM's and wipe out the enemy with nuclear wastes!
You start out in a B.C. like age and then quickly make it to clasical and medieval! it moves at a brisker pace that makes it much funner than sitting and watching a town grow tell you can do something! I dunno what was up with these other peoples comps and graphics cards i meen really if your gunna play games that cost 50$ each how hard is it to simply buy a 100$ graphics card?¿ And about the other insult to this game... really kid if you've ever played any tactical or civilization oreited game before tell me because the way it sounds you're just to stupid to play tactical games!!

BUY THIS GAME IF ANY THIS YEAR!!!

Rating:
Summary: Blizzard Finally Has Competition
Review: I'm so impressed with this game. This game has all the exact opposite elements of Warcraft 3 that i hate and despise. no rushes, no low populations, no food limit, no cheesy spell heroes and best of all replayability. Some other games like Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires and even Age of Mythology have an element where every single game is exactly like the previous game before it and all the build orders are exactly the same. Every time i play this (mainly against the AI) it's different.

I have yet to have a game that didn't last over an hour. I've been beat and won so many different ways that it never gets old.
If BigHugeGames continues to make quality games like this one Blizzad and Ensemble are going to have some serious competition on thier hands.

The artwork is brilliant and looks so beautiful and just today i noticed a certain "chinese" unit that sets other units on fire. You can watch your enemy burn to a crisp and then fall to the ground. How cool is that?

The other great things about this game in the full version is having so many options of different styles of games you can play.
From "deathmatch", Rush game, no wonders, to having no combat at all. It's all within your control of the type of game YOU want to play. While Blizzard has all it's fanboys singing it's praises, i think the wiser, more mature gamers will embrace this game and have a blast with it. After all what's more fun than your opponent thinking he's got the game won only to find Nuclear ICBM's launched into his bases and watching his "lead" crumble to pieces or full blown naval sea battles with Aircraft Carriers and Battleships and submarines. Can you even have a naval battle in Warcrat 3? don't think so !! Air,Navy,Ground you can do it all in this game. This might possibly be the most perfect RTS ever created to date. It fixes all the problems with previous RTS titles before it. GET IT NOW!

Best game i've played yet. Watch your butts blizzard and Ensemble looks like Big Huge Games is gonna take over...

Rating:
Summary: Civilization meets Age of Empires
Review: I knew it would take a great game to pull me away from Age of Mythology which I've been playing like an addict for over 6 months now. This is the game I was waiting for. As a veteran Player of both the Civilization series (and the far superior Alpha Centauri) and Age Of Empire series, the similarities to both series was immediately obvious. It shoudln't come as any surprise since this game was built under the Microsoft banner (makers of the AOE series) but developed by former Civilization creators. The end result is a game so close to perfection you are forced to wonder why no one had though of it earlier.

While the gameplay is real time, most of the interface concepts and strategy has been adopted from turn based strategy. Basically combat plays like AOE, but city management plays like CIV. It's the best of both worlds really. The depth of research, complex alliances combined with shrewd AI make this one of the deepest real-time strategy games ever made. Probably the deepest. The use of nukes, aircraft, and huge armies result in huge bloody battles that every real-time player looks for.

One of the best concepts taken from the turn based games is the way cities are the key to conquest. Cities can be raided and completely taken over by hostile armies. Cities determine the size and shape of national borders. Operating outside of national borders causes your troops to suffer attrition damage if improperly equipped. Therefore, real-time players used to "rushing' will find they must adopt a whole new strategy. Armies might be the key to conquest, but it's developement that will govern their success.

There are two basic modes to the single player game: quick battle and the campaign. Players of the campaign will notice similarities to another hybrid type series: Total War. There is a huge world map where armies can be moved around like game pieces. After making your moves, the game goes into real time mode with objectives based on the decisions and moves you made previously. Unlike Total War where the real time is strictly combat, the real time portion of the game also forces you to build resources and raise armies if necessary. Exceptional victories are rewarded with game cards that can be played prior to going real time, another added bonus that gives depth to the game.

While their are few real ground-breaking concepts in this game, by taking the best concepts of some of the greatest strategy games ever made is a bold leap forward. Also, after playing Age of Mythology and Warcraft 3 with their beautiful 3D engines, the 2d graphics are a step back, but it's easily forgiven. I've been playing this game for awhile now, and it seems like I learn somethign new every time I play. Liek the best strategy games, there are a lot of layers and a lot of different paths to victory. Any strategy game fan should pick this one up regardless of their preferences.