Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings - Reception

Reception

Reception of The Age of Kings was positive. The game scored 92 out of 100 on both GameRankings and Metacritic.

According to Eurogamer's Geoff Richards, "the list of new features and improvements over the original game is over a page long". GamePro's review similarly focused on "new additions to the genre itself" which it argued made The Age of Kings outstanding. These included the idle unit button and town bell. GameSpy's Carlos Salgado was appreciative of other features; he praised the ability to create individual profiles for different players and to customize hotkeys. Meanwhile, IGN appreciated the new abilities given to the villager unit—the review stated villagers "now play an important role not only in the collection of resources, but also in town defense and even in combat."

Allgame's Michael L. House enjoyed the use of soundbites in civilizations' native languages, which he said was "very influential in developing an era-enhancing atmosphere". Eurogamer said this feature "gives a personality, rather than the standard "Acknowledged" grunt of military RTS games", also stating that the use of female villagers provided a good variety. Game Revolution's review explained that by being set in a more recent epoch of human history, The Age of Kings was able to "add character to an otherwise impersonal style of gameplay". Computer and Video Games approved of The Age of Kings' use of shorter, more focused campaigns, compared to its predecessor, while Game Revolution noted that even in slower sections of the campaign, the historical narrative helped maintain player interest. GameSpot said that with the screen full of units, "you can begin to imagine how their historical equivalents once prospered", while GameSpy said The Age of Kings presents "realism rarely seen in the RTS genre". IGN staff argued that while the strengths and weaknesses attributed to different civilizations made the game more realistic, the fact that they were still mostly the same prevented The Age of Kings from "delivering the same battlefield impact of StarCraft or Tiberian Sun".

House also praised the gameplay interface, which he said "couldn't be simpler", as well as the advanced grouping and path-finding systems. Nash Werner of GamePro said that the formation tools were wonderful, and complained only that they could not be assigned to naval units. Computer and Video Games generally agreed, stating that "the controls are very user-friendly and well explained". GameSpot's Greg Kasavin wrote that despite the game's improved graphics, "there's nothing foreign about its appearance" and that most game features will be "immediately recognizable if you've played a real-time strategy game before". PC Zone agreed, but in a negative sense—it argued that The Age of Kings "is essentially an update of a two-year-old game".

Richards was surprised by the quality of The Age of Kings' graphics, considering they were all bitmapped. However, Allgame complained that units were sometimes difficult to tell apart, a point numerous reviewers agreed on. It also called the sound of The Age of Kings as a negative, but not something significant enough to draw players away from the game's overall quality. IGN stated that cutscenes were somewhat bland, but that overall the graphics added "an amazing amount of detail to the actual game". Its main criticism was for the in-game speech used in campaigns; it rhetorically asked "why can't they just find a Frenchman to do a French accent?" Alex Constantides of Computer and Video Games rated the graphics highly, saying that some in-game buildings are "so grand you'll even feel guilty about burning them to the ground". Werner agreed; "the most noticeable graphical advancements", he wrote, were "the sheer size and scale of things". Game Revolution stated "AOE2 is the best looking of the 2D RTS games out there right now".

In January 2000, three months after its release, Microsoft announced that they had shipped two million copies of The Age of Kings. The game topped sales charts in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia and Korea. It would spend the next two and a half years on top 20 sales lists. The Age of Kings was top selling game in October 1999, and the fourth highest selling game in 1999.

The Age of Kings won GameSpot's Strategy Game of the Year in 1999, and was a nominee for Game of the Year. GamePower also named it Strategy Game of the Year, while PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World gave it Editor's Choice awards. The Age of Kings won Strategy Game of the Year and Computer Game of the Year at the 2000 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awards. It was also nominated for Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, and Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering. IGN ranked The Age of Kings the 53rd best game of all time in 2005, and the 10th best PC game of all time in 2007. GameFAQs users placed it 56th in a poll of the best games ever.

The Age of Kings was highly influential on its genre. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, a 2001 game by LucasArts, shared The Age of Kings' game engine, and was heavily influenced by its mechanics. Empire Earth's design was also similar to that of The Age of Kings; GameSpot said it "borrows most of that game's controls, interface features, and even some of its keyboard shortcuts". Rick Goodman, designer of Age of Empires and The Rise of Rome, designed Empire Earth. GameSpot's Scott Osborne argued that the gameplay of Cossacks: European Wars was heavily based on The Age of Kings.