Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties (PC)
Go east young man, go east.
1/29/2008 12:00 AM | 3 Comments | Page 2 of 2
What's Hot: Three new powers with new units, and more importantly completely new gameplay
What's Not: Bad dialogue makes for a cheesy experience; Campaigns lack much in the way of replayability
Peter Suciu
Status: Heading to Monkey Town ... aka: the Crispy Game Room
While the heart of the game remains the skirmish mode and multiplayer matches, the expansion includes three single-player campaigns, with one for each of the new civilizations. These feature the typical scripted stories that have always been the weakest link in the Age of Empires series. StarCraft-style storytelling it isn't, but that's not what keeps the fans coming back for more, and these stories are actually somewhat superior to the lackluster campaigns from the original
Age of Empires III.
It is also worth noting that although this is the second expansion in the series, it's not required that you own
The WarChiefs to play this game. There is even an option to toggle off the content from the first expansion so players can battle together regardless of whether that add-on is only installed by one player.
There are plenty of other little tweaks and improvements to the game, most of which are more subtle, such as the improved visuals of the maps and units. While
Age of Empires III already did a good job with better effects, Big Head Games' contribution has been to make everything look just a tad better. This outside input means better maps, more diverse settings and even small improvements such as better hot key control.
About the only complaint is that Big Huge Games clearly doesn't know how to handle the voice scripting. It ranges from awkwardly silly with bad pidgin English and accents that are more at place in South Park than a serious strategy game. This was always a failing with
Age of Empires III, and the Asian Dynasties only brings things down a bit more.
Otherwise, this expansion is surely one of the best add-on packs for the entire Age of Empires series, and
The Rise of Rome (which wisely added Rome to the game) is arguably the only add-on that has done more to improve upon the core game. Consider this required study for that master's degree in the history of the world according to Ensemble!
This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
