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I have been an Age of Empires fan since the Age of Empires II days. It was my first RTS that I’ve ever played and it cemented my love of the genre. So you can imagine when I heard that there was going to be an Age of Empires Online game, I was intrigued. I figured it would have a lot more PvP aspects to it, and ones that would hopefully be easier to find others to play with than the random matchmaking that had frequent disconnects that I remember from previous titles.

Well I’ve spent approximately the last week playing Age of Empires Online and well, I liked it. Now there are some things that I didn’t really like or were a bit clunky, but overall I enjoyed myself and will for sure play it more. I think the one thing that makes me happiest is that it can be played offline without penalties if you so choose. Good to know I can go offline and my city won’t be sacked.

Like previous AoE games, anyone familiar with the game will be able to breeze through the starter quests with ease. These quests guide new players through the general mechanics in order to familiarize then with how to move around villagers, build army units and improve their culture’s knowledge and defenses. Each quest starts you off with armor and skill points in order to get you started. Once this is over however, you will have to work hard to get better armor and upgraded military. This of course all goes towards furthering yourself with the PvP aspect of the online game.

Unfortunately I didn’t do so well with my PvP games since it seemed that others had spent a lot more time with the game and really leveled up and skilled up much more than I did. Given time though I hope to prove to be a formidable force. The PvP runs better than I thought it would, and I enjoy the interface for it. Players can find 1v1, 2v2 and Ranked matches, while also seeing who the top ranked players are.

Right now only the Greek and Egyptian civilizations will be available at launch, which is fine by me as a fan of all things Egyptian. Civilizations are available as premium packs to purchase, and Gas Powered Games plans to release quite a few once the game is launched. The game is free to play, but only through about 40 hours into the Greeks or Egyptians. This is where a lot of the MMO feel came in for me. You can tell that they have their micro-transactions thought out well. The civilizations will all be priced around $19.99, which can seem a bit steep, but if you plan to just stick with one main civilization isn’t that bad of a price to pay. From then on they plan on releasing more standard cash shop items like special items and armor.

Well I think that’s enough on the good things, let’s delve into some not so good. The graphics are way too cartoonish for me. I know that they’re trying to get more of the kids playing, but the slightly more realistic graphics is why I liked previous AoE games. I can look past it, but it does kill a bit of the asthetic fun of the game for me. The other thing was loading times. Granted most of this can be explained away as a beta issue, which is why this isn’t a complete strike against the game for me, but it is something I’m going to keep an eye on after launch. I also will need to remember that since this is a Game for Windows title, my Xbox friends will actually know when I’m on, and try to invite me to play games and such with them when I’m really on my laptop. I do, however, enjoy that there are achievements.

All in all the good outweigh the bad, and since the game is free to play (for a time) I do highly recommend checking it out at least. As I said, I will continue to expand my Egyptian empire and improve on my city defenses to try and win back some pride in PvP.

For the very first time, a Dungeon Siege title will be available on high-def home consoles instead of just the PC. That explains the move to Square Enix well enough. So now, you can add the PS3 and Xbox 360 to the list of places you can get your “Siege” on. The PC is a given.

Square Enix champions this move as part of its ongoing effort to work with more Western developers. (Basically, they’re trying to take over the world.)

Dungeon Siege 3 will be making a few changes to the series people already love. The game is adding a co-op multiplayer mode. A consequence system where your decisions change the outcome of events (you know, like what’s in every Western RPG these days) will also be featured. Your decisions will affect alliances, enemies, and the story as a whole.

Square Enix sent along a small story synopsis. Read on for more.

Torn asunder, the delicate balance of power between the kingdom of Ehb’s powerful factions has fallen apart. As one of the few remaining members of the disgraced protectors of the land, the 10th Legion, it is up to you to rebuild the once great Legion and stop Ehb from falling into darkness. Joined by a group of unique companions, you will travel through the striking land of Ehb defeating all manner of villains and beasts through a combination of heroic abilities, screen shaking magic and pure cunning.

I had a chance to sit in a demo of Supreme Commander 2 developed by Gas Powered Games.  Supreme Commander 2 is set 25 years after the original game, beginning with the assassination of the newly elected president of the Colonial Defense Coalition (CDC).  The members of the CDC including the United Earth Federation (UEF), the Order of the Illuminate, and the Cybran Nation all deny any involvement and point the fingers at each other which results in a massive galactic war.

This sequel is published by Square Enix and with this partnership they hope to take the RTS genre to the next level by integrating more story elements and characters to the game.  A comparison of the History Channel vs Saving Private Ryan was named as an example – by going more into their lives but still keeping the focus on the strategy and the military.

I have to admit, I’ve not played a lot of strategy games…ok…I’ve not played any, unless Civilization Revolution counts and from what most people say, it doesn’t.  As the demo moved on, I understood why.  First off, even though the game is not polished and is in its earlier stages of development, the game looks magnificent.  They’ve introduced a brand new rendering engine for the game with massive verticality.  Typical RTS games have a rather awkward boundary where you can’t really get a feel for the world around you and here, you have access to all of it. You can zoom into battle right away – as you could in the original game.

They really focused intensely on performance. The demo was run on a computer that was over 2 years old and it looked and performed great.  One of the reasons why I don’t PC game was that I could never keep up with the never ending costs of upgrading my PC which is why I stick to the console.  With Supreme Commander 2, they wanted you to be able to play the game on a 3, 4 or even a 5 year old computer with out too many issues – we all know that there is always something!

We were shown one of the new units in the game – the NOAH Unit Cannon.  You can build units in it and fire them clear across the map.  Another unit was the UEF Armored Command Unit – which is like a giant robot that can be upgraded with jump jets, torpedos, anti-aircraft guns, shoulder artillery, and more.  You can upgrade the head to detach and become an escape pod to fly back to the base to rebuild your Commander.  You can also add Core Dump so that your commander doesn’t become a nuclear bomb in your own base.

There are now three diverse factions – the UEF, the Cybran Nation, and the Illuminate.  They have all been redesigned since the original game.  New designs and enhanced looks along with new tricks that can be unlocked by doing research.  Research is one of the new features in the game to learn more and discover new technology and will offer more playability to the game as well.

The game will be available on the Xbox 360 and the PC and the content between the two will be the same with the exception of the User Interface and they are focusing on making sure that the game will fit for optimal performance.

Seeing that RTS games can go for hours, I was curious if there was a quick play mode and they are working to get games to play on a smaller scale like 30-60 minutes instead of 2 or more hours.  The campaign is run linearly so you play one battle after another.  There is one story and one timeline so that at the end of the third leg of the campaign, you have finished the whole story and have one outcome for the galaxy.

The economy system has been improved so that you will have to have Mass and Energy on hand in order to purchase a unit.  In the previous game, you could purchase units regardless and then there would be a stall in the economy if you didn’t have enough mass and energy.  Now if you purchase something, it is done.

With the improvements to the economy system as well as the readability of the units, the campaign should introduce the player to all the elements of the RTS genre.  The game also features a detailed tutorial for beginners.

They use neural net AI and run hundreds of thousands of simulations in the game and before the game ships , they will do it one last time to educate the neural net with the latest data for balancing and tuning.  The game will have the ability to change strategies on the fly using the neural net versus scripting, as it has been done in the past.

No DLC is planned at this time, although it will be supported, so we will have to keep an out out for new maps possibly.

Multiplayer will follow what was done in the first Supreme Commander.

Supreme Commander 2 will be available in 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PC.