Impression: Age of Empires II: HD Edition

Age of Empires 2 - HD Edition: camel riders attack foot soldiers
Kill, camels!

Ah, the mighty ‘Age of Empires II’ by Ensemble Studios. It’s a classic Real Time Strategy Game – resource gathering, base building, killing of all enemies on the map – with a bit of ‘Civilization’-like progression on top. I bought this purely for nostalgic reasons. As a teenager I probably put hundreds of hours into this game (without ever getting any good at it) back in 1999, as I had done with its predecessor two years before. The HD Edition, by Hidden Path Entertainment, makes it run smoothly on newer systems and seems to add a lot of content, which is a shame because I really don’t feel like putting time into it. I used to really like the more realistic look of AoE2, compared to its competitors of the time, but the game certainly aged worse than I did. It’s not just the looks though – it just feels old. There’s still a certain charm to it, but it doesn’t manage to recreate the same magic for me as, e.g. a ‘Baldur’s Gate’ manages to do again and again. It’s a clear candidate for the ‘I will come back to this, should I ever get unemployed and/or alienate my social environment enough’-pile.