Modern version of Age of Empires?

[Craig234]

They did make a modern Age of Empires game. It was called Age of Empires Online and it was an absolute abomination! Hands down my most regretted PC game purchase ever. To add insult to injury, Microsoft shut down the servers after only a few years, rendering the game unplayable.

I loved all the previous Age of games but I wish Age of Empires Online had never existed.

I spent a decent amount on it, and barely played it but had fun for the little I played. But I was not at all impressed by losing my money when they shut the servers down.

 

[Red Storm]

I disagree, I don't think AOM and AOEIII have aged badly at all. ES always used a very refined art style throughout all the games, and they've all held up very well.

PS. Were you Red Storm on GameRanger by any chance? I think I played some AOE1 games with a Red Storm a couple of years back.

It's not that they've aged badly, but when you look up close at AoM's units and textures, they're extremely blocky and low detail. This was only partially improved in AoE3 (it's sorta hidden by the excessive use of bloom). Compare this to an RTS like Company of Heroes and the two Age of games look like they were made for the N64. 3D has other graphical issues such as walking animations not matching up with a unit's actual speed, so it looks like they're on an invisible treadmill moving across the ground. I remember spending so much time modding the animation files for AoE3 so that faster units would actually be running instead of forward moon walking. This is just one example, then you have things like villagers gathering food from a dead animal but they're clearly several feet away and are just stabbing at the ground. It's little details like this that set the 2D art of Age of Empires II apart from the rest of the series. The graphical polish was top notch.