Age of Empires
Before the Sims, games like Call of Duty and Toy Story 2: The Video Game (one of the best PC games of my childhood) there was Age of Empires. I remember when my older brother brought a collection set of the first two games as well as their expansions and at first I found it boring but after watching him play it, I gradually started appreciating the strategy behind the game and how it forced players to think before acting and so I decided to give it a go, and I invested a lot of time into the game. I played I, II and III and have fond memories of the games due to how hard they were for me, especially when playing against another player. Building an empire and conquering the map brings a sense of satisfaction, especially when it’s against another someone else.
Though Age of Empires opened the world of Real Time Strategy Games to me and eventually I stumbled across another beast…
Age of Mythology
As with all successful games, there will no doubt be spinoffs. When my brother bought Age of Mythology I remember sitting in the car and looking at the little square CD case (remember those!) and I immediately knew this was like Age of Empires but with the myths and folklore of the old world weaved into the gameplay. This game is partly the reason why I am obsessed with mythology and I preferred this to Age of Empires. The beast units and monsters were more exciting than the ones found in Age of Empires and I got lost in the lore of the game. So you can imagine my excitment after learning that a remaster is on the way!
Honorable Mentions
There were others, although I didn’t play them all that much because I had other games distracting me, but Empire Earth was quite cool, allowing players to progress through the ages as well as The Command & Conquer games. There are so many other RTS games that I haven’t played. I want to dive into the Total War series but have no idea where to start while I’ve played Civilization VI and love that game even though I’m not very good at it.
The RTS genre is not going anywhere and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it… if my storage on my laptop can handle it…
