GameInformer interviews Bruce Shelley
Following on from the recent History of Age of Empires video, there is another video released this week which Age and Ensemble fans should check out and it is from GameInformer who have recently interviewed legendary designer Bruce Shelley. The informative video talks in some more detail about his early gaming years, the start of Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires (of course) and some detail about what lead to the closure of Ensemble. Certainly this is an interview no Age or Ensemble fan will want to miss.
Age of Empires IV announced, plus remasters of Age II and III
The legacy of Ensemble Studios continues as this week we learn that Microsoft has announced a brand new Age of Empires game – Age of Empires IV, a continuation of the main series unlike some of the other games released in recent times. Relic Entertainment are set to carry the torch as developers on this new game. The Sega owned studio is similar to Creative Assembly, another Sega studio who worked on Halo Wars 2. There is no release date set for Age 4 just yet, there is however, a very awesome new teaser trailer! Read more
Age of Empires 1 to get definitive edition re-release
Ah, now this is a blast from the past! Age of Empires 1, the very first Age of Empires game and first title shipped by Ensemble Studios is set to be re-released in HD (4K even) on PC later this year. This follows in similar HD re-releases of Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology and Halo Wars. Essentially almost all of the Ensemble Studios catalog has recently been re-released. Certainly a testament to Ensemble’s outstanding legacy.
Gamespot talks to BonusXP about Servo
BonusXP’s upcoming strategy game “Servo” has been in the news over at Gamespot with Kevin VanOrd talking to BonusXP’s Bruce Shelley and Dave Pottinger at last months GDC. The interesting interview gives us some insights on what BonusXP are heading towards with the game. Some interesting tidbits include the play time, with Servo matches taking around 10 minutes a game compared to a longer more drawn out RTS matches such as found in say, Age of Empires. We have seen a smaller game time target with Ensemble’s Halo Wars which typically had matches around 20 minutes. It’s interesting to see that BonusXP are looking at quite a short average game-time with Servo. Dave Pottinger commented: Read more
Robot Entertainment at PAX (Part 2)
Following on from our first part of Robot’s PAX Panel review we now move on from looking at the studios history to present day to looking at some of the interesting prototypes they have been working on in-between OMD2 and OMDU. For the first time we get a glimpse at some of he games that could have been from the creative minds at Robot. Read more
Robot Entertainment at PAX (Part 1)
Some of the bots from Robot Entertainment have been hanging out at PAX Prime this weekend, hosting their very own PAX panel titled “An afternoon of fun with Robot Entertainment”. In our first part of our two part series we cover the first part of the panel which looks at Robot history including their time at Ensemble Studios and the games that lead up to Orcs Must Die! Unchained. For anyone who was in attendance there were plenty of free things being given out including a bag, poster, buttons, t-shirt, band and “Founders PAX” access to the Closed Beta. Read more
Ex Ensembler’s thoughts on AOE 2 HD and AOM:EE
If you’re a Steam user you have have seen for a while prominent features of Age of Empires 2 HD and Age of Mythology Extended Edition available to play on Steam. Its great to see these classic Ensemble titles back in the game for purchase. Joining Age of Empires 3 which is also available for purchase on Steam there are now three major games in Ensemble’s legacy in the modern day Steam store and audiences both old and new can enjoy these great games. Read more
Video game music interviews Stephen Rippy – new music!
An excellent interview has been posted over at vgmonline.net featuring Stephen Rippy – “Music through the ages.” The interview covers all aspects of Stephen’s career from his time at Ensemble Studios working on Age and Halo Wars to post Ensemble work with Zynga working on Castleville. We also learn about Stephen’s new recently released album “Mainland Static”. Read more
Age Community 8 years awards – nominate now, win prizes!
Next month Age Community will be closing after 8 years. It’s been a great 8 years and Age Community has progressed a lot since its inception. Unfortunately Microsoft has decided that change is a-foot and we’ll no longer be able to use the Age Community forum by mid next month.
Now is the time to celebrate all of the great years we’ve had on Age Community. Thus here we present the Age Community 8 years awards! Having teamed up with Robot Entertainment we’ve got some great prizes to award to members of the community to give Age Community the send off it deserves. Read more
Microsoft closing Age Community
Age Community was the excellent online community started 8 years ago by Ensemble Studios back in 2005. The site was set up as the official community website for Age of Empires so that fans could enjoy all Age content in one single place. News, forums, statistics, ladders, account tools and patches were all available on one single website aptly named Age Community. So how did it all go wrong? Read more
