Age of Mythology: The Titans
System: PC
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer:
Ensemble Studios
Released: September 2003
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Capabilities: Online Play
Review Written: October 23, 2003
The Titans is the expansion to last year’s real time strategy game,
Age of Mythology, and is developed by Ensemble Studios, the same folks who
made the fine line of Age of Empires games. Interestingly enough, The
Titans isn’t the standard expansion pack where there’s mostly changes and
additions to existing civilizations. Instead, a whole new civilization,
Atlantis, is added to the existing Greek, Norse, and Egyptian civilizations and
each of them also get the ability to create “Titans,” which are mammoth God-like
units, that are practically invulnerable and can only be destroyed by a massive
army.
Now the Atlanteans have some distinct advantages over the other three classes in
The Titans. First off, their exclusive Myth units have some vicious
looking attacks. Their “Behemoth” can brutalize the foe with his powerful
head-butt. Then they have the more intriguing “Promethean” unit that is one mass
of clay, and when initially killed, it splits into two units that also then need
to be vanquished. The Atlanteans also have a few devious God powers. The most
notable power is the one from their God, Kronos. He has the sneaky ability of
teleporting any building across the map as long as it is not in the fog of war.
This can churn out some rather cheap tactics where you can teleport a few pairs
of towers right outside your enemy’s gates so you have an advantage when you
start your onslaught against him.
I actually thought the Atlanteans were easier to learn how to control than the
other civilizations. One big plus for them is that their villagers don’t need to
drop off resources at anytime, so that means their resources grows the fastest
than any of the other factions. They also can build town center expansions
before anyone else because they don’t need to advance in age before the other
classes, it is actually vital that you do build these expansions in quick order
because the Atlanteans gain favor (resource for worshiping the Gods that is used
to create the Myth units) from the amount of town centers that are constructed.
The last significant advantage this new civilization has is that any of their
human units can be converted to a hero unit at any time you desire, but at a
price of course. So as you can see with all these advantages the Atlanteans
have, especially with spending a lot less time on resource management, then this
would be a prime faction choice for any RTS novice player.
Besides the addition of the Atlantis race, there are a couple other enhancements
in gameplay. There is now a limitless cue of units for you to create. So if you
want to do some old-school RTS action by gathering up one gigantic force of
fighters, than feel free to do so. The other main addition is the Titan units.
They automatically appear for your class as soon as a “Titan Gate” is
constructed. They are available late in the game, right near the time you can
make a Wonder. And just like Wonder’s, the opponents get notice of once you
started building a Titan Gate so they can prepare for the forthcoming
destruction. These humongous Titan units do wealthy amounts of damage, and
watching two Titans duel each other simultaneously is something to marvel at.
It’s too bad there weren’t any other enhancements to the three existing
civilizations. Expansion packs usually balance out the playing field, addressing
key complaints about blatant obvious advantages and disadvantages to factions
ala with Blizzard’s Warcraft and Starcraft expansion titles being
the most noteworthy. Sadly, no such enhancements are found, and while the new
civilization and addition of Titan units is appreciated, the lack of any other
new units or technology upgrades to existing factions leaves me disappointed.
All the same textures, unit models, and animations from the original Age of
Mythology remain in tact in The Titans. It is still hard for me to
except that the main game engine is in 3D. This is because the main overhead
view for gameplay still looks similar to the old Age of Empire titles,
but once the camera zooms in for the cut-scenes in-between campaign missions is
when I realized how ugly some of those character models can be. They definitely
don’t stack up to the stellar, and far better textured models in Warcraft III,
but thankfully the cut-scenes aren’t a key factor in RTS games, and the graphics
as a whole are acceptable in their in right.
At least the new Titan units and most of the Myth units stand out from the rest
of the human character models. The animations for some of the God powers are
also a thing of beauty. Some that come to mind are the meteor storms that rain
down from the skies above, and a bolt of lightning that strikes a unit dead.
Most of the same background tracks from before are recycled in The Titans,
but thankfully the soundtrack in Age of Mythology is so fitting to the
Mythological theme being presented that there was no need for additional tracks.
A new little melody is played for whenever Titan units wreak their rampage, but
aside from that and new voice acting in campaign missions, everything aurally
from before is still in place and sounds just as good as it did the first time.
There are over a dozen new campaign missions in The Titans. If you’re
like me, that’s what I head for first. The new campaign missions cover all four
factions and takes about 15 to 20 hours to beat overall, so rest assured the
amount of new single player material will keep you occupied for a while. Then
there’s the standard map editor that’s packed in again where you can create your
dream battlefield and share them with everyone online. Online play is also a
blast, as Microsoft optimized the ESO matchmaking service to support buddy lists
and implemented other bells and whistles to make finding an online match faster
and more convenient.
RATINGS
Graphics: 7.7
Sound: 8.8
Gameplay: 8.8
Replay Value: 9.0
Overall: 8.6
If you’re a big RTS nut like myself and already own Age of Mythology,
then by all means go out and buy The Titans expansion right now. A whole
new civilization and a slew of new campaign missions are well worth the price of
admission. While I still would have appreciated more enhancements to the
previous factions, what they included here is still justifiable for a purchase,
and shouldn’t be missed any fan of the popular line of RTS titles from Ensemble
Studios.