Game feels a little underwhelming to be honest...

[poke_ravi]

especially for the $60 price tag. It could have been much better if they spent more time on it. I'm glad I got it for $10 as part of the gaming pass. The game is by no means horrible but at this point AoE II 2 DE beats it by miles. After only playing for 3 hours here's what I've noticed:

- There is no reason for the graphics to look like they are from a game 10 years ago. The vegetation is not detailed at all and the color palette is way too cartoony for a historical RTS game. The units and buildings lack the detail that you would expect in a game from 2021.
- The UI is terrible and one of the worst aspects of the game right now. There's no way to effectively see how many villies are on farms, berries, etc like in Aoe II DE. Actually this was in the original AoE II I believe. And the UI doesn't even tell you how many spearmen, archers, etc you have. Wtf??
- Also regarding the UI, the minimap is not as helpful as it was in Aoe II. There's no way to filter by resources, units, etc so it can be difficult to locate resource piles on the minimap if things start getting cluttered.
- The unit movements feel clunky at times. In addition, you can't see where you've set rally points for your units and the scout doesn't have auto explore. Again these are features that were in AoE II.
- The civs are somewhat different from eachother but not as unique as I thought they would be. Yes the Chinese have tax collectors, the muslim civs have spiritual units, etc. but their base units are pretty much the same except for the appearances obviously. This can be a good thing or a bad thing I guess.

All in all I think the UI issues can be fixed over time but I'm not so sure about the graphics and the gameplay is pretty much AoE II in most regards so I don't see the $60 price point being justified. I would say it's worth $40, maybe $50 if they patch some of these things.

[Sir Moisty Capybara]

Originally posted by Dumbledank:

idk who cares about graphics that much and content-wise the game is fine. I don't see how it's barebones at all. "Not that much stuff added from AoE2 DE" This game plays on an entirely different engine. What do you even want added? There's an upper limit on stuff that can be changed without losing the Age of Empires identity.

- Regicide
- Diplo options
- Custom pop settings

just for starters

[TheDiaper]

Originally posted by Dumbledank:

idk who cares about graphics that much and content-wise the game is fine. I don't see how it's barebones at all. "Not that much stuff added from AoE2 DE" This game plays on an entirely different engine. What do you even want added? There's an upper limit on stuff that can be changed without losing the Age of Empires identity.

-No mods
-No editor
-No pause no restore (In custom lobbies even)
-Bad hotkeys
-Bad UI
-Bad UX
-Bad hitbox
-Bad unit clarity

Graphic isnt my concern either, but I also find it barebone.

[TheDiaper]

Originally posted by Grey:

Imagine failing math so badly that you think a 7/10 is a bad score.

-80/ 100 is a bad score when everyone gets 90+.
-99/100 is a terrible score when a high schooler takes part in an elementary school exam.

So yes, 7/10 can be a bad score.

[MuscleBearGamer]

Originally posted by tiny E:

Gamespot gave Diablo 3 a 9! 😆

Nuff said.

Perfection.

That made my day.

Enjoy your awards.

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

Originally posted by A Jerking Ape:

Originally posted by Grey:

Imagine failing math so badly that you think a 7/10 is a bad score.

-80/ 100 is a bad score when everyone gets 90+.
-99/100 is a terrible score when a high schooler takes part in an elementary school exam.

So yes, 7/10 can be a bad score.

nah

[Zaxx]

I don't get the argument about "bad graphics". I guess people focus too much on the close up detail or simply judge the game too harshly because honestly I don't think I've seen image quality this good in an RTS overall. I'm playing on medium to low settings but the terrain and the bases look awesome:
https://i.imgur.com/NJtyjEY.jpg

That's some great lighting and scene composition there, nothing even compares when it comes to RTS. AoE 2 DE? Sure it's nice and all but 3D graphics are just more dynamic, they feel more "alive" and they sure as hell can't make you feel the height differences on a map like AoE 4's visuals can. It's awesome and it truly saddens me that some people focus on some of the low quality individual assets instead of looking at the big picture. Like holy hell when you're sieging a base and the cannons start firing, ah, it's a thing of beauty.

The only downside I feel is the animation quality: units could move a bit more naturally, their collisions / pathing can look janky and some transitions (like a unit going up on a wall) is just immersion breakingly lazy.

[THENETWORK]

bruh the game has a healthy playerbase idk why are you so negative, game does a lot of good

[AutumnWolf]

Have you checked out other reviewers beside the one that fits your biased narrative? Metacritic gave this game an 82 and a 7.8 on the user score. Meanwhile on steam,

https://steamdb.info/app/1466860/

User score sitting at an 83%

So you literally going to just look at "ONE SINGULAR REVIEW SCORE" any person with a thinking brain that can put two +two together will see that youre using that one single review score to fit your narrative.

[THENETWORK]

Originally posted by Sir Rage A Lot:

Originally posted by Varivox:

[...]

As for graphics... you do realize that a lot of people still play AoE2? Those graphics ain't much to call home about either. I don't think most people really care all that much about that type of thing, unless they are particularly egregious, otherwise CoD would have updated their graphics this century.

And yes... who still looks at reviews from sites like Gamespot? Those sites have been bending over backwards for corporate sponsors and free review copies non stop. Like a previous poster said, Diablo 3 was give a 9/10 by Gamespot... I'm guessing Blizzard invited the Gamespot reviewer over so they could go cubicle crawling and oggle the female staff for that score...

Age of Empires 2 DE looks better than AoE4.
Here is direct comparison:
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/of-all-the-cons-that-the-game-has-which-one-bothers-you-the-most/173674/153

As for second part, I strongly advice not making allegations like that - it is not worth to risk stuff with those.

are you on drugs???? we are comparing 2d to 3d ??? the 3d us undeniably better so I dont know what you are comparing, a 15 year old game in 2d vs a 2021 game in 3d

[TheDiaper]

Originally posted by LadyOfDarkness:

Have you checked out other reviewers beside the one that fits your biased narrative? Metacritic gave this game an 82 and a 7.8 on the user score. Meanwhile on steam,

https://steamdb.info/app/1466860/

User score sitting at an 83%

So you literally going to just look at "ONE SINGULAR REVIEW SCORE" any person with a thinking brain that can put two +two together will see that youre using that one single review score to fit your narrative.

AOE2DE has an even higher score in both steam and metacritic, yet there were and still are a ton of flaws.

[AutumnWolf]

Originally posted by A Jerking Ape:

Originally posted by LadyOfDarkness:

Have you checked out other reviewers beside the one that fits your biased narrative? Metacritic gave this game an 82 and a 7.8 on the user score. Meanwhile on steam,

https://steamdb.info/app/1466860/

User score sitting at an 83%

So you literally going to just look at "ONE SINGULAR REVIEW SCORE" any person with a thinking brain that can put two +two together will see that youre using that one single review score to fit your narrative.

AOE2DE has an even higher score in both steam and metacritic, yet there were and still are a ton of flaws.

And so what? AOE2DE metacritic is sitting at a OMG whopping 84! Thats two points more than AOE4 like give me a break dude, who cares?? Its just 2 stupid points it is not like AOE4 is completely underwhelming. The game did great and an 82 is nothing to shake a stick at. This is the pure definition of a nit pik i swear to god.

[IJustDontCare]

mod support comes next year.

[TheDiaper]

Originally posted by LadyOfDarkness:

And so what? AOE2DE metacritic is sitting at a OMG whopping 84! Thats two points more than AOE4 like give me a break dude, who cares?? Its just 2 stupid points it is not like AOE4 is completely underwhelming. The game did great and an 82 is nothing to shake a stick at. This is the pure definition of a nit pik i swear to god.

Those scores mean nothing, as most of the people are casuals, simple as that.

[Beefers]

Casuals play games too, in fact casuals play far more games. What a silly argument to make either way. Plenty of non casuals also loving it. It is like I took some weird time loop back to the 90s were everyone talks about hardcore vs casuals like it is a real divide. It is all just gamers having fun.

[Sir Moisty Capybara]

Originally posted by LadyOfDarkness:

Originally posted by A Jerking Ape:

AOE2DE has an even higher score in both steam and metacritic, yet there were and still are a ton of flaws.

And so what? AOE2DE metacritic is sitting at a OMG whopping 84! Thats two points more than AOE4 like give me a break dude, who cares?? Its just 2 stupid points it is not like AOE4 is completely underwhelming. The game did great and an 82 is nothing to shake a stick at. This is the pure definition of a nit pik i swear to god.

Why are we even considering binary review systems here?

You can't even make review without recommending it or not recommending it, and it is painful to review any game that is just mediocre. Also 84% for AAA game on Steam isn't that great either. But yes, let's care about binary reviews with "I like game" as entire justification of said review.

If you are going to buy the game, the last thing you should do is looking at some 1 sentence long reviews with no value in it and I for one I will say (but with pretty big pain) - go read game journos, at least you can have chuckle at their expense.