If you're an aficionado of big battles and the Wonder Race game sounds as if it will bore you to tears, then Defend The Wonder was made for you. It's all about how quickly you can gather those resources and how well you spend them. There's still something of a competitive spirit among neighbouring civilisations as they race to be the first to build a wonder and win the game. Wonder Race does away with combat altogether, and has everybody living in peace and harmony. The other two new games seem to have been designed for those who love resource management and those who don't. That's largely because you are not permitted to build in the immediate vicinity of the monument, so you can't simply capture it and wall it off.
Then defending it isn't quite as straightforward as it might at first I appear either. So first you have to figure the best way to get to it. It might, for example, be on an island in a large expanse of water. The monument is always difficult to get to in the first place. To win, all you have to do is capture the monument and hold it for 500 years. King Of The Hill places a monument at the centre of the map and has the players ranged round the outside. What's really going to breathe new life into your multiplayer games though, are the new game types. Of the new civilisations, only the South American races are blessed with new graphics. The net result of these differences is that playing each civilisation is a unique experience, and you really do have to use your brain to take advantage of their strengths or overcome their weaknesses. Instead they begin each game with a pre-set limit to their total population. Huns for example, on account of their being nomadic and preferring to sleep on their horses (or with them, depending on their personal preferences), do not have the ability to build houses. This is also the case with the five additional civilisations (Aztecs, Huns, Koreans, Mayans, and Spanish) that are included in Conquerors. One of Age Of Kings's strengths is that the civilisations are distinguished not just by different colour schemes and graphics, but also by the technologies and unit types available to them. Fortunately, Conquerors adds some spice to the standard single and multiplayer games by sprinkling in a mix of new races, units and technologies. New campaign games are all well and good, but let's face it, they don't add that much longevity. Unfortunately, the actors providing the voice-overs have once again all been hired from the Dick Van Dyke School of Crap Accents.
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As before, the campaign games are strung together with a series of vignettes outlining the story in a "Meanwhile, back at the farm." kind of way. So this time you get to play with the likes of Attila the Hun and EL Cid. While the Age Of Kings campaigns focused very much on the underdog (William Wallace, Joan of Arc, et al), Conquerors turns its attention to some of history's more successful bullies. The most obvious addition, as you'd expect, is a set of four single-player campaigns. As was the case with the Rise Of Rome expansion for the original Age Of Empires, Ensemble has packaged up a smorgasbord of enhancements and extras that will have seasoned fans salivating from the moment they read the box blurb. It would be wrong though to assume that this expansion CD is just more Age Of Kings campaigns given a bit of spit and polish. On the evidence of the beta version we received, The Conquerors sticks firmly to that tried and trusted formula. And, unlike some young RTS upstarts I could mention, it still has a healthy dose of resource management, which, believe it or not, some players still enjoy. It might only sport a tired old three-quarter isometric view, but then again you don't have to readapt your old flight-sim keyboard claw just so you can move the game camera and give orders at the same time. But let's face it, that's what gives this series its appeal. Not only does it look just like all the other dogs in the neighbourhood (no fancy 3D shenanigans from this beast), it's also somewhat predictable, and the last thing you'd expect it to do is learn any new tricks. You've enjoyed its company for a few years now and you've grown comfortable with it. The Age Of Empires series is becoming something of a trusty old dog.
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