#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI UPDATE#
#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI UPGRADE#
#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI FULL#
#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI PROFESSIONAL#

Second is that they got to do a dry run for AoE 2 by first making a Definitive Edition for the original Age Of Empires. They really, really love Age Of Empires 2, and if anyone understands what made the original game tick itвЂ™s them.

#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI PROFESSIONAL#

First is that Forgotten Empires are the ones making it, and theyвЂ™re a group of developers who cut their teeth on AoE 2 modding before turning professional and making the new campaigns and civilizations for the HD Edition. Doing it right is very possible, but god help you if you get it wrong.ДЇortunately the Definitive Edition of Age Of Empires 2 has a couple of things going for it from the outset.

#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI FULL#

As for the former, Blizzard have one excellent example of a full rebuild working well in Starcraft Remastered, where the updated graphics and animations looked exactly like my rose-tinted memories of the game (outside of the mission briefings, anyway), and one well-publicised example of it exploding in their faces with Warcraft 3 Reforged, which I believe still has the lowest Metacritic user score ever. The latter approach is usually the safer (and cheaper) option, but not always - I enjoyed Rise Of Nations Extended Edition very much because it was always a good-looking game and the original graphics took very well to higher resolutions, but I couldnвЂ™t play more than a couple of hours of Age Of Mythology Extended Edition because the early 2000s-era 3D art looked terrible.

On the other hand if you just increase the screen resolution and chuck in a few modern quality of life features and otherwise leave the base game untouched certain people are going to question why they should bother buying your remaster in the first place when the original version has been working just fine for them for a couple of decades, thanks. Strategy game remasters are, in general, a bit of a minefield: the more you tinker with the game, the more likely you are to do something that pisses off the people who loved it in the first place and who you are relying on to come and buy your new version.

What is a little surprising, though, is just how outstandingly good this remaster is. Given that Microsoft is going through one of its more consumer-friendly phases at the moment, and given that thereвЂ™s a proven audience for Age Of Empires out there, itвЂ™s not that surprising that theyвЂ™ve taken a stab at a full remaster with Age Of Empires 2: Definitive Edition.

#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI UPDATE#

However, while Age Of Empires 2 has certainly aged more gracefully than several of its contemporaries, there was no getting around the fact that the HD Edition was just that вЂ“ it upped the resolution while doing nothing to update the underlying look of game, and thatвЂ™s been a bit of a problem as the modern obsession with 4K displays and 144Hz refresh rates intensifies. A couple of years back I discovered that Age Of Empires 2 now has a thriving esports community with some of the highest viewer counts on Twitch during major tournaments I have enjoyed watching many of those matches myself, and thatвЂ™s something that probably wouldnвЂ™t have happened without the efforts of Hidden Path and Forgotten Empires 1. Hidden Path kept at it, however, fixing those bugs and shoring up the game and providing a base for another studio, Forgotten Empires, to release their own campaigns and civilization packs. Granted it did have Steamworks integration for multiplayer, but on launch the game was plagued with bugs and desyncs and so at the time I didnвЂ™t see the long-term value of an AoE 2 with a modern multiplayer backend.

#AOE 2 AI VS ORIGINAL AI UPGRADE#

Back in 2013 I slated the first remaster of AoE 2, Age Of Empires 2 HD, as being little more than a widescreen upgrade for the game.

Aoe 2 ai vs original ai