News bite: Orcs Must Die! XBLA Sale + Skirmish Hall launches for AOE-O
Orcs Must Die! features on this weeks Xbox Live sale. Now is a great time to tell all your friends about the need to go Orc slashin’, from just 600 MS Points! Be sure to check it out and spread the word! http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Orcs-Must-Die/
In other news Hero Academy is due to launch globally in the next few days. Your nickname for Hero Academy will be the same as that on your RobotEntertainment.com profile. Why not encourage your friends to sign up online so that they are ready to go into battle when the game launches for iOS devices in the next few days? Read more
Persian civilisation launches for Age of Empires Online today!
Great news for Age of Empires Online fans – Microsoft Studios and Gas Powered Games are today pushing out the brand new civilisations, the Persians! The Persians will be the first “pro” civilisation. This means players start straight away at level 20 allowing players to immediately tech up and start with gear already attached. Players will be able jump straight into the action with Persia with no worries about having to trudge through the early levels for experienced players. This does come at a cost though as there is no story driving campaign quests with the Persians. Microsoft Studios clarified on the reasons for this as follows:
Persia won’t have a story campaign, since our goal was to get players access to high level content quickly. We’d love to create some Persian story content later, since that culture has an amazing history, but for this launch, we wanted to focus on a way to accelerate advanced players into gameplay. Read more
AOE-O patch detailed, Dusty interviewed and first Orcs Must Die video blog!
Ian Vogel the design lead at Microsoft of Age of Empires Online has announced an overview of the upcoming patch to Age of Empires Online. This patch has been in great demand of the community and the pressure has been on to develop this patch quickly. There has been some dis-content with the Age Online community about how long this patch has taken to develop and how it has potentially impacted on player numbers. Age of Empires Online was pitched as an “evergreen” game with the possibility of regular updates, its been a shame that updates thus far havent been pushed out in speedy time. Hopefully in order to ensure community continuity patches will be smaller and faster to release rather than this first patch which appears to be pretty large. There is indeed alot coming in this patch, from gear changes to PvP and Crete. Also mentioned in Ian’s latest post is that the Persians will soon be on their way as a playable civilisation, they are currently on schedule for October, so look out for them soon!
Kenny Newell reviews Atomic City Adventures – Case of the Black Dragon
Avid Age of Empires Online players will no doubt recognise Kenny as radiokenny on the AOE-O forums. You may remember Kenny as the person behind the genius Rogan Knight project which will soon be coming to a conclusion. The Rogan Knight project involved sending a figurine of a knight to Age fans all over the world and then have the knight posted to Robot Entertainment HQ for a group picture. You can follow the journey of Rogan Knight here: http://mapvivo.com/journey/15239. Rogan is currently in the hands of Kristin “BatsyBatsy” Reilly at Microsoft Studios where he is pending a photo shoot. It wont be long until Rogan‘s journey is over!
Today however, Kenny is here to share his thoughts about Windstorm Studios’ Atomic City Adventures which was released last week. Kenny is a big Ensemble Studios fan and as such has been quick to check out Atomic City Adventures, an independent game by sole employee, Dusty Monk. Check out Kenny’s thoughts on the new game below! Read more
Age of Empires Online review – Part 3 – Art & Design
Part 3 of the Remember ES Age of Empires Online review looks at the art style of AOE-O and other aspects like the UI design. Firstly, it is important to note that the engine behind Age of Empires Online is the same engine we have been used to for the last few iterations of Age. AOE-O uses the Bang! engine first introduced with Age of Mythology, the first Age game to utilise modern 3D graphics, moving away from the 2D bitmaps used in Age 2. Age 3 demonstrated just how excellent the Bang engine can be at generating realistic graphics (remember the water!). The Bang engine was used perfectly to produce the stunning realistic art style of Age 3. AOE-O uses the same engine but does things a little differently, instead of using a realistic art style like Age 3 we now have a more “cartoony” style with AOE-O. Read more
Age of Empires Online and Atomic City Adventures launch. Plus Orcs Must Die coming this October
|
|
Its been an exciting week for fans of studios formed out of Ensemble Studios. This week saw the launch of both Age of Empires Online from Robot Entertainment and Atomic City Adventures from Windstorm Studios. Part 1 and 2 of the Age of Empires Online review are currently online at Remember ES, with further parts on the way, plus reviews for Atomic City. As these games have come out so close together Remember ES is playing catch up to get this content out for you! Read more
Age of Empires Online review – Part 2 – Multiplayer
Multiplayer
Multiplayer in Age of Empires Online takes two forms – player vs player (PvP) or Co-Op play. PvP is similar to traditional Age of Empires multiplayer and refers to players being matched against each other, such as “Supremacy” and “Deathmatch” on ESO from Age 3. Co-Op play on the other hand refers to co-operative play where players join forces against the AI in quests or the Defense of Crete. Read more
Age of Empires Online review – Part 1 – Gameplay
According to the online countdown over at AOE-O Fans, Age of Empires Online is now just 2 days away from launch. A number of community members have been lucky enough to secure pre-release keys to play the game early ahead of the August 16th launch date. Remember ES has been checking out the pre-release and today wanted to share my thoughts on the final product. The pre-release is the full version of the game, although there will be a small patch in the coming days for the full launch what we are seeing is the near final version. In just 2 days Age fans worldwide will get what they have been longing for, a new release in the Age franchise since the Asian Dynasties release in 2007.
The Remember ES review will be split into 5 parts:- Gameplay, Multi-player, Art & Design, Sound & Music and Conclusions. Each part will be coming out over the next few days, so keep checking back! Read more
2 new civilisations and a new booster pack for Age of Empires Online revealed!
Microsoft Studios today announced 2 brand new civilisations to the Age of Empires Online family, the Celts and the Persians. Both of these exciting new civilisation will be available in the holiday season, they wont be available at launch but will be DLC for a little later down the road. This gives players plenty of time to enjoy the Greeks and Egyptians before moving forward! The new civilisations bring with them new unit and building art, including new gear. Each civilisation will likely have its own unique play style including different bonuses – they’ll certainly shake things up for competitive players! Read more
Age of Empires Online beta draws to a close, plus new Orcs Must Die previews and wins for Robot at RTS-Guru
Updates today on two anticipated games coming out in the next few months thanks to the handy work of the bots at Robot Entertainment. Its been a long time since Ensemble closed in 2009 and in the coming months we are going to see the release of two major PC games developed by Robot which have been eagerly awaited since the studios original formation. First of all, Age of Empires Online is nearer completion as today Microsoft has announced that the beta period is closing on July 1st. After this period Microsoft and Gas Powered Games are pushing ahead trying to get the game ready for launch on August 16th. It’s been great fun playing the beta which has been supported by an excellent online community. A huge amount of progress has been made since the first closed beta build became available. Although, there were some things the community didn’t agree on, on the whole there have been improvements and adjustments made along the way thanks to community feedback. The team at Robot, Gas Powered and Microsoft have regularly engaged the community and took feedback seriously. Read more
