A few years ago, my friends and I would get together at someone’s house with our computers and have a LAN party. The game of choice was always Star Craft because of its highly addictive nature, innovation, and “cool aura” that it had. Several years have passed and the RTS genre has gotten extremely stagnant. A few game developers have added several new things to the genre such as heroes, but the game still plays the same. The question remains, can this genre ever be revitalized to its former glory?

While attending the launch party for Age of Mythology, I talked to an employee of Big Huge Games about the release of their new game, Rise of Nations, and a few things that it had to offer. It sounded good in theory, but a play test would be needed to see if this game could live up to the ambitions that they had for it. The answer is a resounding yes! Rise of Nations has what it takes to compete with what I call “The Big Three:” Ensemble Studios, Blizzard, and Westwood Studios; who I consider the best Real Time Strategy game developers. This game throws away a lot of things that have become the staple for RTS games, and really makes you feel that you are in more control of your mighty empire.

What makes this game so unique and fun to play? There is one main reason for this; Rise of Nations revitalizes this genre because it blends the mechanics of real time and turn based strategy games into one. As weird as this may sound, the game does this flawlessly and expounds the gameplay a hundred fold. The next question remains, how is this accomplished? If you have ever played Risk, after you choose a nation you place your pieces on the board and than look at all the neighboring nations and see which one is in attacking range. Once that is decided players than proceed to attack it and hope that they can regain control over this new region.

This is exactly how the game starts in campaign mode, players choose a civilization and then taken to the world map to try to conquer it. Once gamers find a territory they wish to inhabit, the game switches to real-time strategy mode. In this mode, players will do all the normal things they would in any other RTS such as gather resources, create an army, and take over the land. With this new gameplay in motion, gamers have to be more tactical when they want to invade a county. This also provides an enormous replay value, since no two games will ever be the same. Also it takes the comforts of both genres and combines into one. Turn-based games take day or even weeks to complete, while a real-time game takes around an hour or more. Players get to conquer the world at a few hours at a time.

A few other points of interest are the way towns are managed. Each town can only have five farms. Depending on the how many resources are around that area will obtain how many citizens will get to help players get more of that specifics resource. For instance, if a player places a lumber camp and there are not many trees around, than only a few people will be able to cut trees, same goes for mines. The reason for this is that players always need to keep in mind that they have to continue expanding their borders.

Another thing that is great about Rise of Nations is the AI of the citizens. One of the most annoying things in any RTS is when your grunt workers just sitting there doing nothing. If players assign a citizen to build a building than forget about builder, after they finish they will automatically go help chop wood, mine, or repair any building. If all of those assignments are filled, they will remain idle until you tell them to do something.

The way that the military is handled is also very interesting. For instance, if a player creates an archer, instead of one coming out, there will be a group of three. This helps players build their armies faster, and have a bigger army as well. This feature creates epic battles. Gamers might be thinking that is all fine and dandy, but what about the population limit. I have created a ton of citizens and an exorbitant number for my army, and I never hit the limit. This helps put the emphasis more on having fun than worrying about some lame limit they have to keep up with.

The game will have the players army’s fighting with sticks and stones, all the way up to missiles and beyond. Unlike Empire Earth, players will be able to progress to each age in a short amount of time. This brings much depth to the field and makes it that much more enjoyable to play.

Rise of Nations is rated T for Teen.

Gameplay: 9.7
Big Huge Games have created a masterpiece that many games will have to contend with now. This game innovates in many areas, and gives this genre the needed boost to revitalize gamers interests again.

Graphics: 9.3
The game is a great looking game! It doesn’t beat Warcraft III in the graphics department, and that is due to the fact that it isn’t fully 3D. Also all of the animations look splendid as well. Each of the units has their own set. An example of this is the villagers, when there is nothing that they can do they will just sit on the ground, showing that there is nothing to do and they are bored. The environments that they players will battle are well detailed. Overall the game looks impressive.

Sound: 9.2
The music in Rise of Nations is pretty well varied depending on the situation that the gamers are in. If they are in the heat of battle, the music will pick up and the opposite happens when it is a time of piece. Also each of the units has their own sounds, so they are easily recognizable. When the players are far along, they will be able to tell if a bomber is coming or a missile, which is great to know!

Difficulty: Medium
Rise of Nations has a slight learning curve, but anyone who has played any RTS game will understand the games concepts in a short amount of time. The hardest part is making sure that you have the correct things researched.

Concept: 9.5
The way this game has two strategy games combined is pure genus. It is amazing how much depth this adds to the game. This one concept gives this game an infinitive amount of replay value, and it was worth the time the developmental team put in to creating this game.

Multiplayer: 9.6
Going along with the unique single player game, the multiplayer games will never be the same experience twice. Up to eight people can participate in a multiplayer game with over thirteen different game types to choose from. To prevent “rushing” the developers have put in a “rush control;” what this means is the creator of a game can set a time base rule or event based (getting to a certain age) before players can attack each other. This was a great addition to the game, and shows that this developer has listened to some of the things gamers hate most about playing multiplayer games online.

Overall: 9.5
Rise of Nations is awesome! There are no other words to describe it. The developers have created a fresh twist to this stale genre and players will enjoy it immensely. Go out to your nearest retail store and pick it up. This is one purchase you will not regret!