Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (PS2)

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
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Genre(s): Real-time strategy Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Release Date: EU: November 2, 2001 JP: February 14, 2002 Developer(s): Ensemble Studios Publisher(s): Konami Series: Age of Empires Predecessor: Age of Empires Successor: Age of Empires III

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. A PlayStation 2 version was released in 2001, exclusively for Europe and Japan and was published by Konami.

Bad Qualities

1. Graphics, particularly animations, are notably worse than in the original version.
2. Out-of-sync sound effects.
3. Inferior audio quality, both in sound effects and music.
4. Does not have any of the content from The Conquerors expansion despite being released a year later.
5. The control can be confusing.
6. The HUD covers half of the screen, forcing the player to constantly move the camera around.
7. Stiff cursor control, making many things much more difficult to do.
8. No chat HUD. How are you supposed to tell the AI to give you resources?
9. Slightly lower FPS. While not that bad, still annoying.
10. No map editor.

Good Qualities

1. It's Age of Empires at the end of the day, and plays like it.
2. Excluding the map editor, all content from the original game is present.
3. You can connect a mouse, making this game much easier and playable.
4. The music and SFX, in spite of lower quality, still don't sound that bad.
5. This is the first time Microsoft published on other consoles.
   • Minecraft is second time that Microsoft published on other consoles.

Reception

While the original version of Age of Empires II received universal acclaim, the PlayStation 2 version received negative reviews from players citing the above reasons.

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