+This game is a timeless classic made even better by the improved visuals.

- Far too pricey for such an old game

after having played this game for over 250 hours i have concluded that i like it

Fighting old battles again Arkantos?

Age of Mythology is the classic, mythology based spinoff of Age of Empires, and boy was it fun. But does Age of Mythology Extended Edition live up to the original? In many ways, very much so, though the price tag might dissaude you unless you're a huge fan, (like I am).

If you've played Age of Mythology before, you know exactly how this game works. If not, here a basic gist of it. It plays much like Age of Empires 2; you have to collect resources, specifically food, wood and gold, in order to fund your armies, economies, technologies and advancement. sounds basic enough, and all the races work similarly in regards to these resources. The difference comes in the fourth resource: Favour. Favour is generated differently depending on which race you are playing. For instance, the greeks generate favour through worship, the egyptians through building monuments, the norse through heroes and fighting, and the atlanteans through having more settlements.

Favour is the special resource, which ties into the major mechanic of Age of Mythology: Gods and God Powers. There are 12 major gods, 3 for each of the races, and these determine starting bonuses for you when you start the game. the gods also have minor gods to choose each time you advance an age, with a total of 36 minor gods, each offering different bonuses and god powers. For instance Hades gives you the Sentinel God Power, that creates stone sentinels to watch over your town centre, but in the second age, you can choose Athena, who allows you to train minotaurs and the Restoration God power which can heal your units.

Aside from the new favour mechanic, for the major part it plays like the age of empires games. Build Army, upgrade, and take care of your population cap and economy. Rock paper scissors, for basic units, (cavalry beats archers who beat infantry), but add heroes and myth units which can turn the tide of battle. Both the singleplayer and multiplayer are fun, and with the new release, there is a rebirth in the multiplayer, though not as big as the heyday of AoM.

As being essentially a remake (a la Age of Empires 2 HD Edition), AoM:EE is actually fairly bug free, and while it definitely shows its age, the added subtle lighting effects, water and shadows do help to make look better. It is definitely very playable, and for fans of the original, it shouldn't even be a bother.

The campaign is just as memeroable as always, a hunt through Greece, Egypt, Scandinavia and finally Atlantis in order to stop a power hungry cyclops from releasing Kronos, King of the Titans; followed by A New Atlantis, set a number of years later, where you are tricked into releasing the Titans, and must stop them at all costs .

Overall, Age of Mythology: Extended Editon is fun, unique and offers up plenty of value, with 50 singleplayer missions, skrimishes, and now revived multiplayer, though for those who still have a copy of Age of Mythology and The Titans expansion, it might not add a great deal. Definitely recommend everyone else (who's a fan of older RTSes).

I wrote a review for this a while back, and I can say with confidence many issues have been sorted out, but some are still persistent.

If you have never played this game, I am going to say right now to buy this game and play it. The campaign and its storyline is great, the factions are unique and well fleshed out and balance, for the most part, is achieved with some minor discrepencies/exploits which with experience can be learned to be countered.

I will say that the game is not in its glory days anymore as this IS a re-release of a fairly old title. But the multiplayer is also active enough to have a competitive community and there is a revival in the scenario community to experience a taste of the legacy of AoM mapmakers, I suggest looking on http://aom.heavengames.com/downloads/ for more or the Steam workshop downloads provided.


But lets start with the actual meat of the game for anyone reading for determining whether to buy this:

The Extended Edition brings many new improvements over old Age of Mythology and the Titans expansion included, water and other graphics are overhauled and improved significantly. Graphics in general have been improved over the original and the game looks much more vibrant and detailed. This makes playing the singleplayer campaign, which is still one of the better campaigns of an RTS I have played, much more enjoyable.

A new online server is also available for multiplayer gameplay and while its nowhere even close to the glory days of ESO in terms of activity and the amount of scenario makers, some old faces are there both in competitive gameplay and with old mapmakers, and some newer map makers such as myself have been sprouting up. In terms of connection these days it really depends on whose actually in the game but as long as you're computer isn't a toaster your connection and running of this game should go forward without a hitch.

However there is still some bugs that are highly irritating that remain. Desync errors still happen too frequently for my tastes and this wouldn't be so much a problem if it didn't lower the rating of those involved in ranked matches. When someone is on the verge of victory and then a desync error occurs to make them lose rating... its understandable someone would be angry.

There is also more visible lag and connection issues between players then there was on the old AoM in certain instances, such as on certain scenarios or with people with very bad connection to begin with. And the Extended Edition is notable in how it actually lags your computer- some of us may remember we could browse the internet with Age of Mythology running in windowed mode or running other programs while we wait for a game; while this isn't prevented and is still possible the speed of which you do so is stifling and I would not recommend it at all now. (Nor would I recommend it in matches even back then, but if you're in lobby just idling, waiting for your friend to host that game...)

I suggest if you are buying this, do not play on your toaster or similar dinosaur computer, this is an updated version of Age of Mythology meant to be played on semi modern machines.

And as for scenario editors who wish to return to making maps for this game: The online multiplayer community is in desperate need of scenario revival. There is scenarios still being played from time to time but the newer population of competitive players is either unaware of most of the maps or simply do not host them, mostly the former. As for the editor itself, for all intents and purposes its more or less the same as what we know, but there is some notable differences now.

The differences boil down to some old trigger techniques not working, and now causing horrible lag. The old trick of looping Move Army To to move your spawned units to a location, looping it within the trigger editor now causes horrible lag and no longer just simply makes them keep moving there. It acts as if the computer stops their units and tells them to move there, acting as if the loop was just restarting and stopping the order instead of merely continuing it as it did in the past.

There is also UI changes to the editor, and while the function is largely the same it takes a bit getting used to. I can say with confidence though the editor is still fairly user friendly and easy to learn, though trying to find experienced mappers to help you with your project is a little difficult in terms of looking on the lobby- you'll have to consult various forums like AoM heaven or pitch it on the steam forums for this game somewhere. I myself can help with things too, and even old legends like Nottud are still around if you look...

So it boggles down to this, overall: Should you buy this game if you are new, and should you buy this game if you already have age of mythology, the original and its expansion, to relive your nolstalgia?

If you are new, refer to the top. Yes.
If you are an old and musty returning player like me, Yes, but don't expect it to be total brass and shine throughout the entire game. There is some grime to be worked out with this still but I can say with confidence there has been legitimate work and attention on this game to improve it and fix bugs.

(p.s Potato, if you review my review im going to shoot you and feed you to a chimera, not only was your review pointless, it was awful in its critique and if anything uninformative. No one cares about grammar to that extent, it's all about presentation, and the clarity of my review was fine. That is all :D )

Like Greek Mythology? All those crazy creatures from those stories, you can summon. Like mulitple heads? Get a Hydra that grows new heads after battling. Like stones? Medusa turns your enemies into statues. Hercules your man? He's fighting your battles. Get the game if this sounds like something you'd like.

Prostagma?

I find this 10+ year old game more fun than most games that come out now.

BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT.

AoM is a good game. When I saw the extended edition on steam, I bought it for me and my friends. And I regret it.

Problem: They messed up badly with the multiplayer network (Doesn't matter how fast your connection is and how beasty your computer is). Even if played via lan, the lag totally kills the fun, and at least for myself and everyone I know, makes the multiplayer beyond frustrating.

-If you intend to play the campaign and singleplayer ai skirmishes only, go ahead and enjoy. HOWEVER,
-If you want to buy this for the MULTIPLAYER, - DON'T BUY THIS! (unless you can put up with massive lag)

I will change this review once they improved the multiplayer performance ( Which probably won't happen since they didn't already do anything until now about this known issue)

Let me put it this way, I already had this game, I already loved this game and I had played it for more than 300 hours, so when I saw that this edition was going to be available on Steam I loved it, but oh boy I was wrong. I basically bought this, at 40$, rather expensive game to play MULTIPLAYER which was the only option not available with my old AoM game, and the multiplayer of this game is one of the worst I've ever ever seen. It lags, it fails to connect and it is unplayable, even when trying to play with people within my same city it was completelly impossible. So, I would highly recommend you NOT TO BUY THIS GAME since the best word to describe it begins with "S" finishes with "t" and it isn't Suit.

There are many features which make the game great. I'm gonna name a few:

- beautiful randomly generated maps. You can learn everything you need to know about the maps in 2 hours, but even after 30 days of playing they will still surprise you.
- the playable cultures excel with their diversity and fascinating mythology. Unleash terrifying mythical brutes such as the einherjer which will tear your enemies apart.
- Advancing on the map with your siege army and military camps adds a lot to the 'all out war' feeling to the game.
- The soundtrack, the graphics and the overall design make for a true atmospheric environment.

Age of Mythology was the game that initally ignited my passion for online games. It's hard for me to be objective, because I share so many glorius childhood memories with this classic jewel. The main reason I bought the extended edition for steam were simple: The game hasn't aged and they gave access to online-playing. The former AoM servers were unfortunately shut down which was a huge bummer at the time.

THIS is a review of the "Extended Edition" not the original Age of Mythology.
Age of Mythology: Extended Edition has minor improvements and major issues compared to the original game. The whole thing...it's not even close to a rework. Why would you make a reboot of a 12 years old game and still not make any major changes except the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ water? The only things that are new are some trading cards and twitch integration that has no point in this game. Why not? Well, it's because the multiplayer is barely playable due to the massive lag in any kind of server. Even when it says it has 50 ping. What impressed me was that I had read about a guy complaining about lag in LAN! Can you believe this? The developers - Skybox Labs just ruined the whole conception of gameplay in the Extended Edition.
Do you know what else is arrogant about the game? The price. Who would pay 28 (I can even say 30) euro for poorly developed reboot of a 12 years old game? It's worse than the original one which is much better and even cheaper.
Aside from the horrible reboot, Age of Mythology is a great game. It's a RTS game with the similar gameplay of Age of Empires. The game can be very competitive as almost every RTS game and the gameplay is amazing. The campaign mode has an interesting story with almost every element of the mythology. The game was my childhood game and I love it but I deny anything good in the Extended Edition since it's only playable vs bots.
Don't waste that much money on a reboot. It's even slowly dying every day after people saw what a tragedy it is. From top 100 games in steam on the release in the 7-8 place, it got kicked from the chart with thousands of people dissapointed.

If you still own your original copy of AOM I would reccomend not getting this. Unlike AOE2 HD this plays like a real botch job. Nowhere near the amount of care has been taken with this as was with AOE2 in making it "better". This is just altering a few things and charging for it.

Three trolls, four golden battle boars and a pack of wolves have just devastated the last of Thor's town centres, and my gatherers have already moved in to take over their farming network. I am Odin, and my thunder god son had the audacity to attack me during the opening 30 minutes of this random map skirmish.The ludicrousness of this scenario, as mythical creatures of various origins trundle in over peaceful farmland to murder everyone in sight, was Mythology's strength over Ensemble's Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings when it was released in 2002. Mythology's colourful range of high-level fantasy creatures make the final act of any skirmish much more exciting than units of historical repute did in Age of Kings. Kraken trouble the seas, dragon-like nidhoggs circle the skies and hydra grow a head for every enemy they slay.Age of Mythology does feel antiquated, but it is still a lot of fun. It wasn't a notably innovative RTS at release, mostly built on '90s ideas, but it did take Ensemble's blend of Civ-style city management and more conventional military RTS ideas to its creative peak, as well as making the series fully 3D for the first time.The upgraded effects of the Extended Edition, most noticeably the shiny-looking water, help contemporise Mythology, but the character models are the strongest signs that this is a decade-old game. AI is a bit of an issue, too. On a moderate difficulty, the enemies attack predictably in medium-sized waves while rarely putting up an overwhelming defence of their own territories.I don't hold that against Mythology, though, because it is still cathartic to steamroll the AI on random maps. The online multiplayer, too, means you won't be short on smarter opponents, and it seems to be running well, even if the process of finding a game you can join feels a bit arduous.The Extended Edition isn't short on single-player content, either. Collected here are the Titans expansion and the shorter Golden Gift DLC campaign, in addition to the original's mammoth story mode.Each campaign level is prefaced by in-engine cutscenes of hilariously low production values. Voice acting sounds like the product of three almost-drunk friends being handed the keys to a recording studio for an afternoon. This shortfall is probably another sign of its age and the industry standard of the time, but otherwise I think this is one of the better RTS campaigns of its day in the variety of the mission structure.You rarely feel like you're doing the exact same thing twice, and the parameters can change from survival to deathmatches and surprise ambushes. The impressively in-depth Scenario Editor helps to extend the singleplayer's lifespan, and with Workshop support, there's no fear of running dry of stuff to do.Age of Mythology still has a lot of value beyond nostalgia.This isn't a total remake, so don't go in expecting one. The Extended Edition is still a really well-paced and entertaining RTS, one that revels in over-the-top imagery and remains a one-off in subject matter within the oeuvre of the sadly departed Ensemble.

I've played AoM since I was a kid and when the offer came up on this game i simply could not pass it up. This was part of my childhood lol That being said its a fun game, loses its pizzazz if your not really playing with friends and i could imagine most of the people who play it on a regular basis are immortal gods at it now (like Starcraft) but if you can get past all that you can definitly burn a few hours into it if you like simplictic mythical strategy games :) Contra Says: 7/10

It is a great game but the remastered edition lags a lot, even in LAN multiplayer games.
I do not recommend AoM until a patch is released which will fix most of the lag issues.

Great game, tobad it hardly works. Random crashes, random desyncs, if you host a game sometimes people cant join. The "match making system" does not work at all.

As you see I've spent over 600 hours playing this game, and that is not even a lot when you compare it to the time I played the original game for. Definitely had to re-write my review since my other one was made after 30 gameplay hours.

Age of Mythology takes you into one of the most unique and timeless RTS experiences I have ever seen. You have to pick between 4 civilizations: the Greek, Egyptian, Norse and Atlantean - each have 3 major gods to pick from. There are 4 ages to guide your civilization through, each of which unlocks new buildings, upgrades and units. Each of these presents you with two choices for minor gods that you can worship. Every time you choose a god(including the major god), you will unlock a god power that can be used only once (up to 3 times if you're Atlantean) as well as a mythological creature or two that are associated with your god choice + unique upgrades. These god powers can change the tide of the game entirely.


Each civilization is completely different in their design, and there can be differences between identical major gods as well thanks to the minor god system.
The units classes featured are infantry, cavalry, archers, siege, heroes, mythological creatures and ships. The game makes these interact in a rock-paper-sciccor mechanic.

The campaign is very high quality for its time, it can be highly entertaining even now, though. A total of around 50 missions is more than any RTS game will give you. The voice acting is great, though the dialouge and the plot get cheesy at points.

Graphically, the shadows, the water improvements, the map texture improvements are nice, but they cannot hide the dated models and textures. I wish those had been areas of focus when it comes to visual improvements. The lighting is terrible in a lot of cases, so I would recommend turning the "lights on units" option off.

The multiplayer is awesome design vise. A multitude of game modes, custom scenarios (aka minigames), supremacy(standard mode), deathmatch(high starting resources, all upgrades researched) etc will definitely keep you hooked for months, if not years. The only problem is multiplayer performance. Make sure that your system is above the recommended requirements. If it isn't, either upgrade, or delay your purchase until you do in case multiplayer would be your focus. Once you start playing, try to avoid playing people with red ping and try to find practise partners with good computers until fixes arrive at least.

Another thing that needs to be said about multiplayer is that matchmaking is difficult due to custom hosted games having the option to be ranked. I believe this is ruining competition. This is why I will take off points on replayability in my rating. If they fix this, I will change my review for sure.

Overall I am happy with the game, but it could have been so much better. Rating it below:

Graphics: 5/10
Single player content: 10/15
Multiplayer content: 12/15
Music, sounds: 10/10
Moddability, replayability: 6/15
Stability, bugs: 3/15
E-sport features (replays, observer mode): 8/10
Cost/value: 6/10

Final score: 60%

Best Strategy Game Ever

I'm really glad someone brought this classic back to life. I had so many hours of fun with it back in the day. Should you have played the original and would still like to get a taste of it once again, you'll be happy to know that they almost entirely left the game as it was back in the day, only this time with mod support, support for modern machines, and Steamworks integration for multiplayer! Even to this day this classic holds its own and I think you will find a lot of enjoyment out of it even now.