Rating: 
Summary: Lives up to the hype....
Review: I just bought the game two days ago. I can't say enough good things about it. If you're a fan of real time strategy games or of Civilization, I'd suggest picking this one up. It does a great job of intermixing the two genres and blending it into one single, almost perfect product.
Rating: 
Summary: Damn, I got too many games to play.
Review: This review is strictly from the demo. But if the demo is only the tip of the iceberg, then I may have to get this one and kiss the outside world goodbye. I'm already playing two other great RTS games, plus I'm a Beta Tester for a couple of great RPG games and I told myself I can't buy anymore games for at least seven months due to limited time in a day. But after playing the demo to death, this game looks like it would be fun and very deep.The demo does its job well in hooking you. You start of as a fledgling tribe in pre-roman times and if you do well you could be sending stealth bombers or ICBMs to your annoying neighbor's way. It does my heart good when I get my country to the point when I can send cruise missiles over my border and to the enemy till my heart content. But that isn't saying the AI is a pushover. In hard difficulty the AI is pretty aggressive forcing you to delay some economic reform and put all your moolas on the military. The demo is absolute fun. An epic RTS without the stupid hassle of rigid resource gathering. Just know what research to do and what infrastructure to build, and then do it better than your neighbor. And reading the reviews I read over the net about this game, then I can see the potential for this game to be a very long experience just to play one of over a dozen faction. Massive replayability for sure. I'll get this game, but I sure would miss the fresh air outside my apartment.
Rating:
Summary: Great game, if only the graphics were better
Review: Don't get me wrong, the graphics are quite nice in this game, but after being exposed to the beautiful artwork in Age of Mythology, they seem much to close to the graphics of Age of Kings. They are better than this, more color detail, but in essence, it is exactly the same. I was extremely disappointed in the nuclear missle graphic. I expected this to be very glorified, but it wasn't at all. The campaign is excellent. There have been complaints of the campaign not having a story, but that's fine. You can find campaigns on the internet with a story. This one has multiple dimensions. You can play as France and unite Europe, or you can play as the Incas and unite with the French against the British. The campaign is turn-based as well, which may be a turn-off for some people (it was for me), but it actually makes it more easy to play and decide who to attack next. The game adds a lot of depth and features that were attractive to many RTS players, but would never get because the whole idea of a turn-based game seemed awkward. Rise of Nations combines these features into a real-time strategy game, making it possibly one of the most advanced RTS games. It will take some getting used to however, because the resource system is completely redesigned and unique. Whether you play turn-based or real-time games, this game will take you some getting used to.
Rating:
Summary: Beta software at best - beware!
Review: First off this is a great game. Second, I can only get through about 30 minutes as it comes to a crashing halt with a big freeze up. Yes, I have updated drivers, enough memory, blah blah blah. Nothing helps and I'm not the only one. check out the message boards for this game. Other than that, I highly recommend it but even more I recommend downloading the demo and playing it for a long while to see if it crashes. If it doesn't... you'll probably have luck with the full version. Frankly I would wait for a patch to be released and then try it. the Four Stars is for the stuff I've actually been able to do minus one star for the crashing.
Rating: 
Summary: Suprisingly ordinary!!!
Review: I have to admit that I now feel very foolish. I believed the hype about "Rise of Nations." I read the large number of incredibly glowing reviews and the "fanboy" lovefests on the message boards. Everyone seemed to be saying that it is the best thing to hit the RTS genre in years. So I purchased it and now, after actually playing it, I'm sad to say that RoN is just an updated "Age of Empires" with some added features. One heavily hyped feature is the "Conquer the World" single player campaign. It features a strategic "Risk"-like map on which the player can move his "armies", engage in diplomacy, attack "barbarian" or enemy provinces, or do nothing and just gather "tribute" from your current holdings. After you've completed this phase, you then press a turn button. If you attacked a province or are being attacked then the game "zooms" you into the RTS section of the game. This will all sound familiar to anyone who has played the "Total War" series of games, which introduced the concept of a combined turnbased/realtime combat system three years ago. However, compared to the turnbased element of "Total War" games (which is often derided as their weakest part), RoN's strategic map is very shallow and dull. The stategy is just so simple! It's also incredibly silly. Why even bother basing a game on history if it's just going to resemble a fantasy game- in one of my games the Aztecs conquered North America and then took over the British Isles during the medieval age! The RTS section of the game is much better, but winning is mostly a matter of fast mouse clicking in order to out produce the enemy. Combat is the incredibly dull "grab a mob of units and send them against another mob of units" so typical of the RTS genre. Tactical finesse plays second fiddle to just queing up a couple of barracks and putting rallypoint near the combat. The addition of national borders and cities is nice, but combat in this game is just like any other RTS- "he who clicks the fastest and most effeciently wins!" In summation, RoN is a decent RTS game. It is nicely polished and I had no technical problems with it. RoN will appeal to people who are either absolutely addicted to RTS games or are brand new to the genre. However, if you're bored of the RTS genre then I would not recommend RoN as something "new." In other words, don't be like me- "Don't believe the hype!!"
Rating:
Summary: What every game should be
Review: Rise of Nations has to be a finalist for game of the year already. Definitely strategy game of the year. I heard this game can be modded to the fullest extent, graphics, AI, sounds, you name it, you can change it. You can play quick games that last maybe 30 minutes, or drawn out campaigns that take hours. The main single player game is the conquer the world feature, which puts you against all the other civs in the game. This feature is very much like Risk, you move from one area to another conquering the world, making allies, moving your armies, defending your capital, etc. There is one missing feature: Your standard storyline campaign. While most games rely heavily on this feature(Warcraft III, C&C) RoN has only 6 very limited learning scenarios that teach you the basics of RTS games and the mechanics of RoN itself. There are no historical campaigns like in AoE and the like. The lack of these kind of compaigns does not hurt this game though. Just wait for the mods. The manual is a bit weak and small, 35 pages, and the fold out chart has only hotkeys and civ descriptions. There is nothing to describe the units or showing you how they advance. Nothing explaining the tech or age advances. I would have expected a chart detailing these items, like most other RTS games. Depth and scope are easily the best features of this game. The fact that you can go from swordsmen and archers all the way up to advanced aircraft and ICBMs makes sure you never get bored with this game. This game is what Empire Earth should have been. This is how all games should be.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't cut it
Review: As with Civilization 3, I was very excited about the release of Rise of Nations. Unfortunately, as with Civ.3, this game was a total disappointment. It fails to deliver on both the turn-based strategy genre and the RTS genre. Trying to please both audiences, it lacks what is attractive about either. RoN's adaptation of turn-based technology advancements is annoying to manage and happen too quickly - you feel as if you are going through a motion rather than taking your 'team' to a new level. There are also many limitations from the RTS perspective; namely, the game moves into the modern age very quickly. After multiple games, I have hardly been able to get a few cities going and no battles before finding myself already in the Gunpowder age. The population cap is set so low that you can barely build one effective army without leaving your cities undefended. It basically a poorly designed Age of Empires with nice lines to represent your boarders. Sadly, this game had the potential to merge two genres that would go very well together. In reality, well have to wait for someone else to take it to the next level. In the meantime, get two computers going at the same time and play Civ 2 alongside AoE2. As for all the good reviews - honestly I would guess they are marketing guys for Big Huge games writing ringers (I am a marketing guy and that is exactally what I would do). I ultimately returned the game to Best Buy.
Rating:
Summary: Fairly good game, but nothing outstanding
Review: I have just tested the trial version, while waiting for the full version to arrive at my doorstep. The game was touted to be a cross between Age of Empires and Civ III, both of which I had played, and it would seem that that is truly the case with the trial version. The graphics, similar to Age of Mythology, is great, cos there's much more to the details as c/f to previous RTS games such as Sierra's Empire Earth or Infogames' Civ III. Game-wise, there's quite a bit of micro-management involved... in fact, more than what I had experienced with Civ III or even Age of Empires! One thing that I found tedious about the trial version however, is the population limit, which is set at max. 200; this is easily capped if certain wonders and military units are built, and existing (older) units will have to be disbanded to accommodate new, more technologically advanced units once the cap is reached. A pretty interesting feature is the additional controls for the individual units; the one I like best is the "scramble" option for the airbase units. This is really cool cos when an enemy attacks, you get to see stealth bombers , attack helicopters and fighter jets coming out from the airbase to defend nearby areas immediately! That aside, the game play is not really different from Civ III...build cities, accumulate wealth, resources and knowledge, and then try to eliminate the enemies, to cover at least 70% of the map's territory to clinch a victory. Since the game play is pretty fast when the difficulty is set at Easy level (it took me about 1-2 hours to complete all the library research), things become a little bit repetitive thereafter. It is here that I agree with another reviewer who mentioned that the game would have been more revolutionary if the game was more complex. Overall, it's a fairly good game which should guarantee a couple of hours of involved gaming.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent combination
Review: First of all, let me explain my gaming interest/background. I believe that Civ II is the greatest strategy game ever developed, bar none. I put more playtime into that game than I wish to admit. Once I began playing the real-time games, namely the Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Warcraft series, they provided a good time but always left something to be desired. I felt they were too one-dimensional, completely focused on resource allocation. Some strategy was involved, but that lay completely in the battle sequences. Rise of Nations has set a new bar. It has brilliantly combined the aspects of the Civilization series with those of the real-time game. If you are familiar with Civ, you will see many similarities, in that you wean ore from mountains, lumber from forests, and so on. The difference is that you have to allocate citizens to build structures (mines, farms, etc.) to obtain these resources rather than get them passively. The research tree is a little more linear but still supremely superior to other real-time games. The Wonder of the World and national border concepts are preserved from Civ, also. An interesting tweak to the game is rare resources, which are scattered throughout the maps, which give your nation special bonuses. You also have generals, which can give bonuses to their surrounding troops a la the hero from Warcraft. The real-time playability is outstanding, garnering the feel of Age of Kings. Overall, this game is outstanding. It is an improvement over both genres of games, a great feat.
Rating:
Summary: Very suprising...
Review: I downloaded the demo as well, and it took me by suprise. I happen to dislike almost all strategy/overhead view games, but this game was just so addictive and stylish from any other. The game design is very intricate and the way that you can progress through time periods is simply amazing, as well as innovative. Im buying this as soon as I can and its going to be my first strategy game bought since command and conquer for the N64, I suggest you do the same.
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