Age of Empires 2 HD edition

 I don't do a lot of PC gaming whenever I want to do something fun on my free time.  I usually play snes or some game that I've forgotten about.  However, after having my wallet give money to Steam with their alluring sales, I decided to do some more PC gaming.  The game that I bought was Age of Empires 2, the HD edition, because everything is better in HD as some rich guy would tell you.  So now let's dive right in.

There isn't really one main story in the game.  Instead we get several campaigns with a couple missions for each campaign.  Each campaign involves a famous historical figure from different eras, ranging from William Wallace to Fredrick Barbarossa.  Along with the campaigns from the main game, the HD edition that I got includes the conquers expansion as well, with campaigns focusing on famous conquerors such as El Cid and Montezuma.  You can start with any campaign, but they give you William Wallace's campaign as a training campaign.

Let's look at the positives:  First off, this game is pretty educational and fun at the same time.  You can learn about these civilizations in a history section, and you can play as them and see what there unique skills are.  You start out with villagers and some soldiers, what you have to do there is make a town center, build houses, barracks, etc, and gather materials.  I like seeing progress happen in the game, when you get enough materials to make an army, you feel good inside.  Whenever you get into a battle and try to defeat an opposing civilization, you feel like you're watching a big battle scene from a movie.  Advancing to a new age is great as well, when you have enough materials, you can advance to a new age.  You start in the Dark ages, and then you can go into the feudal age, the castle age, and the imperial age.  What's great about advancing to a new civilization is that you really feel like time has changed.  Also, you can get new buildings, units, and upgrades to units when you advance to a new age.  This game is just fun and exciting.

There are flaws with this game though:  First off, I don't know if it's because I use Ubuntu, but it was hard to get this game on my computer.  I had to get my brother to help me get Play on Linux on my computer and do some special modifications to get the game on.  I hear it was a problem for other computers, but it is frustrating.  Also, when an attack on another civilization doesn't work, you get frustrated and set back.  I know that's how war works, but it's still annoying when an attack goes wrong.

Overall, Age of Empires 2 HD edition is a fun and surprisingly educational game.  I recommend getting this game, along with a new expansion called the Forgotten on steam.  The Forgotten adds new civilizations and campaigns, and it was released in 2013, making it the first expansion in almost a decade since the original game was released.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.