Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

... As long as you don't cheat

I got a demo version of AGE OF EMPIRES: THE AGE OF KINGS with a computer magazine and was so impressed with this that I purchased the full game . I certainly recommend this game for strategy fans in general and real time strategy addicts in particular

As with so many of these games you start of with villagers chopping down trees , collecting gold and tilling the fields in order to build up the economy , technology and military might but you've also got the choice of choosing different races , terrain , landscapes etc which unlike several other strategy games are in fact different . Not only that you can also choose several missions like embarking on a crusade against the mighty Saladin or unifying the Germanic lands .

I have to confess that not long after starting the game I surfed the net for cheats which spoiled much of the challenge . I awarded myself unlimited amounts of food , stone , gold and wood . I also managed to find a cheat which meant I could arm myself with cars that fired machine guns which while being fun in an anachronistic way ( The game is set round about the 12th century and never progresses beyond this time frame ) of machine gunning massive amounts of enemy means the game instantly stops being much of a challenge . Having said that I still sat in front of my computer for countless days wreaking carnage on my enemies knowing that there would be no chance of me losing a game which speaks well of its playability