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Rise of Nations Review - PC

After watching the 2 minute introduction movie, I realised... This is what gaming is going to be all about. You're going to wake up as a caveman creating fire, and go to bed as an armed officer of an equipped military unit specialising in infiltration. Rise of Nations (from now on, RoN) goes from one extreme to the other, and it does it with esteem.

Step aside: Age of Empires Mythologies, Red Alert 2, Stronghold Crusader, and any other strategy sim that has been keeping you occupied through the dark hours of the day, because RoN will present you with an astounding expression of every strategy game you've ever played, combined into one.

Game Play

RoN is one of the most exciting strategy games out there today. It's "Conquer the World" mode will keep you going for days of gameplay. You'll go from being constantly attacked by rebel troops to having to attack major cities like Berlin and Paris, and what's good about RoN is that you can decide where to attack as long as your troops are near the land you wish to assail. The controls in RoN are much like that of every other strategy out there today, you really have to read the manual or go through the in-game guide to learn all the advanced movements, and what all those buttons on the game interface are for!

RoN offers more than 24 unique buildings with upgrades and technological advances that will turn your town into an "Information Age" society. Along with that, it has over a hundred different types of military units performing on all 3 notches, ground, sea and air. You'll also be battling in several different map types, including the Himalayas, the Amazon Rainforest, and even Outback Australia.

Each campaign will last you anywhere from 15 minutes to 3+ hours. When giving this game the good haul, I was up until 2AM on weeknights working out strategies and emerging my empire to reign the world. RoN truly gives you that excessive need to keep playing that you always get in good strategy games, unlike other genres. Without the need to complete objectives, RoN offers a free "do what you want" gameplay system, where you don't necessarily have to upgrade to tanks and missiles hastily.

When setting up your land, RoN is different to most strategies, in which you HAVE to build several cities. You can only have trade routes going within your own empire. This is also a vital function to get money. It's a meagre way to get money, but there wasn't really much other way of doing it. The more cities you have, the more caravans you can send from city to city, and therefore the more money you will have. You can also sell your goods on the market. The prices for buying and selling goods is constantly going up (continued next page)