31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From an old AOE fan, June 4, 2005
A Kid's Review
= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: Rise Of Nations: Gold (Mac) (CD-ROM)
Well, ever played Age of Empires? I bet a lot of you have. I have played it for a long time, and then, sadly, got bored of it. I needed another historical RTS game. Well, my friends, here it is, RON gold. This game, to me, is like AOE on steroids.
Oh yeah, that guy that said it freezes up a lot, I have a G4 lappy and it works FINE, NO LAG on mine, there is probably a technical error on the game, or in your computer.
Gameplay- 9/10 Basically like AOE gameplay, except with twists to it.
Of course you build buildings, and create units, but more. 8 AGES, yes 8, all the way from the olden slingshot to the nuclear warheads of today! Also the unit production is much quicker, and more effecient for building up your grand army. Also each civilization doesn't have just one unique unit, but more than one, up to 5 i think, or 7, but quite a bit! Also there are RARE resources that you can get for economy and miltary bonus's suck as salt, cotton, wool, wine, and LOADS more!
Graphics-10/10 Fabulous for creating small units like that, especially RTS games. The buildings are highly detailed.
Sound-Surprisingly 10/10! In AOE it makes bad, cheap sounds, in here, the troops march, there's a sound, the swords, guns and all those battle sounds sound a lot more realistic, same with the people dying ( well the dying isn't really important).
Many civilizations, such as the Incans, other Early American Tribes, French, other European civilizations, and even the good ol' Americans.
This is a fabulous historical RTS with fabulous graphics, fierce battles, and realistic campaigns with Napoleon, the Cold War, and much more! RTS fans, here's your chance! Buy this, take my advice.
Since I'm only a pre-teen (darn you adolescense!) you can't see my other reviews so I'll post one here: it's called: After two years..." It's on Final Fantasy Tactics for the GBA! Thanks for reading!
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great strategy game, January 10, 2005
A Kid's Review
= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: Rise Of Nations: Gold (Mac) (CD-ROM)
If you have played the following strategy games you will definetly enjoy this one: Civilization III, Age of Empires and Age of mythology. The game has the most in common with Civilization and Age of Empires. But it's got way better graphics. it also offers a variety of 9 diffrent civilizations to play with. I am a big strategy game fan and even if this is your first strategy game your bound to like it. A great thing about this game is it's time scale. you get start from acient times and end in the information age. Another great part of the game is the distinct differences between the different civilizations and how each one has it's advantages and disadvantages. REALLY GOOD GAME :).
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rise of Nations - a fun game, March 23, 2007
= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: Rise Of Nations: Gold (Mac) (CD-ROM)
I purchased the Mac version of Rise of Nations and have had an enjoyable time playing this game. This is the first Real Time Simulation I've purchased, so all comments should be taken in that context.
The learning tutorials are informative and the quick games (the only I've played so far) are entertaining (especially when one acheives nuclear weapon status...). There's a balancing act between building military items and civilian items that is not easy to achieve. The mechanism which drives "advances" is your library. Researching things like military, civic, commerce, or science enables your progress through "ages" (classical, medieval or industrial, for example). Each advance can affect many aspects of one's national health. Exploring for rare resources, building various structures (which enlarge your national borders) and building a military reserve also add to your nation's health.
As to nations, there are 18 groups or tribes or peoples from history and around the world. Each has special abilities and advantages.
In the quick game, you choose the nation you wish to play, choose the type of map you wish to play on (rain forest, great lakes, old world for example) and hit return. The computer generates a map and an opponent, and your little corner of the world appears on the map. Most of the map is dark, encouraging you to find out "what's out there" by using your scout to, er, scout. As you start in the stone age, it behooves you to build your nation quickly (by building barracks, markets [which allow you to build caravans and merchants], universites, farms, woodcutter's camps and mines). Everything produces various resources which you spend to build other things, generating more resources, building more things, back and forth, over and over. By itself, this can be an interesting struggle. However, the trick is to do all of this while competing against a "hostile" computer opponent. There are options to play against other real people, but I haven't gotten that far, yet. I'm still learning the "hot keys" and trying to develop some sort of strategy/plan of attack...this is where the Real Time Strategy enters into the mix. The computer is doing the same as you (building a nation) at the same time as you. I have a similar game (about 6 years old and OS 9) but it was turn based (I go, you go). So things heat up in Rise of Nations much more quickly than in my older game.
All in all, this is a fun game. The only thing I would say that is a negative is this:
MAC OS 10.4 and up users need to download a patch to allow you to actually play this game. The patch has worked for me just fine, so there's no probelm. Although, it took about 35 minutes (from putting the disc into my computer to actually playing) to get everything synched up. It wasn't a huge negative, I just wish I knew beforehand.
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