Age of Empires Online First Impressions

Thanks to GamePro I was fortunate enough to acquire a beta key to AOEO (heh). I spent about an hour with the game so far since and I have to say color me optomistic.

The game is a MMO RTS. To be honest I'm not to sure how it works yet either. I do have to say the tutorial is kind of mediocre so far, but that's okay because there are a lot of exciting ways this game could go. You start off with a capital city and get quests which are like missions in any other RTS. So far the only real interaction I've notice that would let you know there are other people playing is a chat window. Aside from that I haven't yet been introduced to the MMO part.

I'll hold off talking about the game play until I spend a little more time and really get the chance to wrap my head around it, but so far I really like the direction Gas Powered Games has taken it. I will say I absolutely love the cartoon like graphic style. Not only is it fun and unique, but it will help the game scale to many budget PC's and laptops, which will be very good for the game's appeal.

I will always have a spot in my heart for GPG. They are most memorable to me for their cult classic RTS Supreme Commander, which is hands down the best non-Blizzard RTS in my not so humble opinion. The game was very macro oriented and focused on amassing huge robot armies and smashing them against each other. It was really about who could get their resource generation going faster and who could keep their supply lines going rather then micro/expansion. They did release a sequel, Supreme Commander 2, a couple years ago but it definitely fell flat and lost a lot of what made the original so incredible. As big of a Starcraft 2 fan as I am I can say it's a shame that the original Supreme Commander couldn't "command" (heh see what I did there) as much of an e-sports following as Brood War and now SC2 control. Still great game if you ever feel like going back into it.

Anyways back to the OT I am super excited for this game because it is already doing something different with the MMO genre. Unlike the WoW clone Rift (IT IS GET OVER IT) this game tries some actual new game play mechanics! It is clearly not trying to be a WoW killer because, despite what Trion seems to think the only person who can kill WoW is Blizzard.

So far the only glaring fault with this game is that you need Games for Windows Live to run it, which I have avoided like the plague so far because I have Steam which works about as good as anything right now. Plus I fear this dystopian future....