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I wrote a review, but it wasn;t shown.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 24
Date: December 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

As you can see from my star rating I didn't like it.

I will not write another review..

Save your money, its AOE all over but worse.

A failed experiment on all fronts

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 20
Date: July 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I remember the previews for this game. It was to have neat god powers, ballanced myth units, and take what Age of Kings made great and make it even better. Well, where the heck did that game go anyway? This surely isn't the game I saw in the previews. Let me get right to the heart of the problems with this game.

1.) The battles are oh so dinky and boring. This is impart to the fact that there's a set limit of only 10 houses you can build limiting your population limit to a low default. That's right, there's no adjusting your population limit like in Age of Kings or its expansion pack (which I now will refer to as AOK TC for short). Add to the fact that each base soldier costs 2 population limit, and you have a really small game. Myth units cost more pop limit, but that sure as heck doesn't offset the fact that...

2.) Myth units are way overpowered. I know ES wanted to show how powerful they are, but some were just out of this world. Like the Anubites only costing 100 food, have 3 times the HP of a base human soldier, twice the attack rate of a human soldier, and an attack bonus vs human soldiers. The myth units just dominated everything. I mean, having 3 or so gold colossus in battle usually means your going to win it no matter what, which isn't fair. AOK TC didn't have any 1 unit that can dominate everything else, here otherwise it's different.

3.) Defense is just as useless as well. In AOK TC, you had to ballance between defense and offense. In AOM, you only work on offensive play. If you're use to someone like the Teutons in AOK you're going to get ate up alive here, since walls are pathetically weak, and fortresses only have 1/5th the HP that castles have in AOK! Who was ES making this game for, nothing but Goth players?

4.) For some reason ES made it so the buildings were back to AOE style. Why I have no idea, since being use to having the units scale to the buildings in AOK TC, it looks really retarded having a villager tower over a house again. Don't forget that you can only build TCs on those settlements that are randomly set on the map, so if an enemy takes your Town Center out in late game and has the map scouted, he knows exactly where you have to build a TC and can defend them well .... you over.

5.) The difficulty was also poor. In AOK, the AI gives you a fair chance to learn how to play on easy, and wasn't a complete cheat on hard. In AOM on easy the computer is comatose and on moderate the AI shows no mercy and plays like ... AOK. Hard is just ungodly difficult and gives you no chance before you're rushed brutally. And unlike in AOK, you can't handle a hard rush in AOM since there is jack in defensive structures and no pop room to have defensive units laying around.

6.) The 3D graphics didn't impress. In fact, I thought they took a step back from AOKs. The units just look bland and blocky, and the terrians look dull and nothing like grass or snow. The water was really nice though, but that's it, the rest looked rather bad. The 2D engine was just right, so why fix something that's not broken? Also there's a whopping 2 map sizes to choose from (unlike the 5 or so in AOK TC), and all of them are dull and bland to look at and play. What fun!

All and all I hated AOM, and I stopped playing only after 2 weeks. The gods barely differed in playing styles for each civs, and it was just didn't have that magic that AOK did. I didn't care about the battles in AOM when I saw the myth units and heros ripping everything apart with no way of me using a superior tactic or something to take them out with my human soldiers.

Crushing down someones wall to degut their town had little excitement since only 1 ram is required for about 1 minutes worth of work before half the wall falls. AOMs Xpac doesn't look much better, it introduces a super unit that costs as much as a wonder and requires another one to defeat it since they're so impossable to defeat. And much like the rest of AOM, it doesn't constitute as fun, it's just stupid.

The game does have some good points, like how each of the 3 civs play radically different from each other. But there's also a down side, that's it only 3 civs. After a short time they get boring with no wide choises other than the minor gods little influnces to the civs playing style. The instruction book also tells you nothing, almost topping Dark Clouds Strategy Guide in being the biggest waste of paper ever. Instead you're prompted to go to their website and print off the real handbook! This is inexcusable, and I expected better from ES.

I know that people are craving another RTS from ES, but in all honesty this felt like a big failed experiment. Even Age of Empires with the Rise of Rome Expansion set is funner than this game, since it sadly seems to be more ballanced than Age of Mythology. Buy the AOK gold bundle instead and play a real game, not a failed experiment. Hopefully ES will learn from this and make Age of Empires 3 a worthy sequal instead of the series unworthy cousin.

Age of Mythology for Mac Review

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Please note: Amazon combines reviews for this basic game, the Titans expansion, the Collector's Edition, and the various operating systems all together. This review concerns only the Mac version. It specifically does NOT address the any of the Windows versions, which may indeed be spectacular. In fact, the Mac version might well be spectacular, but after spending time and money, I really can't say since it won't load correctly.

I'd love to play Age of Mythology--it looks fantastic, and I'm an addict for Age of Empires. But after convincing my loved ones to shell out relatively big bucks for it, and opening it with great joy at Christmas, and installing it with wide-eyed anticipation, I was met not with centaurs and pyramids, but only heart-rending despair. Textures didn't load, so I got odd looking polygon characters and buildings in blue and white instead of Gods and Goddesses. Oddly enough, palm tress came out okay.

Must be a faulty install, right? So I de-installed and re-installed...no luck. Surely there's information in the booklet or on the web page? Nope...but there is contact information, only on the web page.

After a short flurry of e-mail--and I must admit, MacSoft's promptness was greatly to be admired--I was told that there's a driver problem with OS 10.2.8, and since it's a driver problem, there's no fix available. MacSoft's suggestion was that I should upgrade my OS to Panther. Of course, that may play havoc with all the other software I currently use.

My suggestion to MacSoft is that they clearly label the fact that Age of Mythology doesn't work with OS 10.2.8 on the product box itself, in the Read-Me file with the installer, and on their webpage. Since OS 10.2.8 is one of the most common upgrades for OS X, to do otherwise treats the customer most poorly. I'm extremely disappointed.

Bugs of Mythology

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 21
Date: November 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'll tell you what I think of this game as soon as it lets me finish a match without crashing.

Call me crazy, but I don't think you should have to have a degree in computer science to get a GAME to work. If you have the requirements (which my PC MORE than has), the game should run. You shouldn't have to worry about your BIOS or DMA or whether Virus Scan is running to be able to play.

I had problems with this literally from install. Then I couldn't do little things like adjust the resolution so that I could actually SEE the units. Not that it mattered since it would freeze my entire computer to the point of needing to unplug it a before I even got into the game itself. This one's going back to the store until I find out they debugged it enough that the average layman can install it and actually play.

Does not work!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 22
Date: November 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The previous Age of Empire games worked fine on my computer, but this one evidently won't because of my video card. This could have been avoided if the packaging had offered more details, but game companies these days would rather let the buyer not beware and then let them get stuck with trying to get their money back. Forget any help from their customer care, either!

check the system requirements!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: July 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game requires not just OS X, but OS X 2.6 or higher! I have OS X 1.6. I had no idea that the game wouldn't work with my version of OS X. But it didn't. Complete waste of time; I'll have to give the game away. It may be fun for all I know, but do make sure your computer can handle it.

If its not broken, don't fix it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 10
Date: January 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you are a Age of empire loyalist, do not waste your money on this stinker. After installing it and trying it once, I uninstalled it and went back to Age 1 and 2. Its nothing like the originals. I'm a little shocked MSFT could blow a sure thing so badly.

Beware: Administrator Privileges Required!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: February 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Because this game requires "Administrator Privileges" to run (not just install) I can not recommend this game if you share a computer with others -> especially younger others who may inadvertently do damage as "administrators".

You would think Microsoft would have the brains to figure this out! Their game, their OS, why the handcuffs???

Will Not Run on Non-Administrator Accounts

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Beware: This program, like many other recent games, will ONLY run on an account that has administrator privileges on Windows XP or 2000. That means that in most common home settings, school settings, or in public facilities with shared computers most users will not be able to play this game. If you have configured your home PC, for example, so that only you can perform potentially damaging administrative operations and have protected it from accidental damage by your kids by giving them "limited" accounts (a recommended "best practice" you should certainly be following), your kids will not be able to play this game. Similarly, if you have configured computers in a school in the obvious way, with only certain staff given administrative access and all others limited to "user-level" access, then only the administrators will be able to play the game.

Note that although I agree with the general consensus that Age of Mythology is a good game, my feeling is that it this limitation is a fatal one that should have been noted on the box (it is not) and thus I cannot give this product more than a single star, because it simply does not work in scenarios that it should be expected to work, and there are no warnings to this effect anywhere on the box or in the documentation...

Not worth it...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: July 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Age of Mythology, the original, is a great game. The campaign is fun. The random map games are great.The animation is stunning. The monsters and units are well thought out. I would DEFINITELY suggest the original.

**HOWEVER** I feel this expansion pack was not worth the money at all. I played with it installed for about a half hour (and used cheat codes to investigate all the new things) and then promply uninstalled and sold it. The ONLY fun part about it was actually getting the titans, but the atlantians are pitiful in the sense of buildings and units. I was very disappointed in it.

If you feel like trying it, go ahead. But I would not suggest buying it.

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