Revue Age of Empires IV

Garry (or Garri or Gary) Kimovitch Kasparov (in Russian: гарри Кимович Каспаров), born April 13, 1963 in Baku (RSS of Azerbaijan, USSR), is a Soviet chess and then Russian. In exile since 2013, he acquired Croatian nationality in 2014 and lives today in New York. Thirteenth world champion of chess in history, from 1985 to 2000 and winner of many tournaments, it is considered one of the best players in history. In January 1990, he is the first player to exceed 2,800 ELO points. In July 1999, he reached the highest Elo ranking until then, with 2,851 points. This record was beaten only 14 years later, in 2013, by Magnus Carlsen. In 2005, Kasparov renounces the reconquest of his title of world champion lost in 2000. It commits in politics in the opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2007, American magazine TIME places it in the list of Time 100, a list of the most influential hundred people in the world. In 2012, he became president of the NGO Human Rights Foundation, who promotes human rights in the world. It remains nevertheless involved in the universe of failures. It leads for a year Magnus Carlsen in 2009, publishes three sets of books on chess and career: My Great Predecessors (2003-2006), Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess (2007-2010) and Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov (2011- 2014), and Brig The Presidency of the International Federation of Chess (FIDE) in 2014.

As a long-time fan of the real-time strategy, I played at Age of Empires at the time, passing hundreds of hours to face my computer or online with human opponents. With Starcraft, released a year earlier, it was constantly rotating on my game playlist. Of course, over time and thanks to other games, I gave up AOE II but I came back with passion when the final edition appeared in 2017, reminding me how much the game now aged 22 years could be great. Age of Empires II was a masterpiece and continued to be supported, extensive and improved, with new 4K graphics, new campaigns and new civilizations to play. We now have Age of Empires IV, which seems determined to stir up our nostalgia for the previous title while trying to feel contemporary, relevant and turned towards the future. In most cases, it only does these things.

By creating Age of Empires II, the developer Relic decided to ignore the appearance of Age of Empires III, who, to be honest, was an excellent game but not as warmly adopted by the RTS community ... or at least by Me, to be honest. While the new game has net and detailed graphics with increased ability to zoom in closer to the action, for the occasional observer, its overall appearance is very similar to the AOE II DEFINITIVE edition. Of course, like previous games, Age IV does an incredible job using stylized art and architecture to define its eight starting civilizations, and it is clear that a considerable amount of historical research has been devoted to creation Structures and units that are both distinctive for the player. recognize by far while being precise. The new user interface, however, is less impressive. It s simple, corporate and clean, of course, but lack the small design keys that worked so well in AOE II. That said, it s much better than the AOE III screen flight user interface.

The most impressive and new aspect of Age of Empires IV is perhaps its solo campaigns, which start in 1066 with the Norman conquest and move in Europe for the 100 year war, then in Russia and finally in Eurasia for the Mongolian Empire. The documentary is transformed into missions and objectives in the game, composed of documentary video videos of type Channel and actual places superimposed on a computer animation. Campaigns have production values, music and non-field voice narration and do a great job by placing the various missions in their context. The objectives of the mission themselves are similar to those of the previous campaigns, but the framing of the documentary gives them really life, and the use of heroes adds new useful mechanics and an accent on the actual story.

Where Age of Empires III moved the players from the 16th to the 19th century, Age IV reflects the second game by bringing new civilizations into the 11th century. For this new game, Age of Empires moves away from the Civilization gambling book by having a construction requirement to advance the player s civilization to a new age. At each stage, players will choose from a pair of major construction projects, called landmarks, which will influence and strengthen the direction of civilization in the next era. In addition to making the leap over time and architecture, the new mechanism modifies the progress of the game across the four ages.

Mechanically, previous game players will have no problem diving directly into Age of Empires IV, and games feel perfectly familiar. Although there are subtle and effective changes in units animations, they sometimes move less elegantly and can still have path search issues when walls or landscapes block direct progress. The structures of all civilizations look great, with many small touches of details and animations that give them life. The sound design remains excellent, both in environmental audio, combat effects and language extracts from the population as it carries out its tasks.

There are many small visual touches and mechanical improvements that remind us that this is a new game, including new ways to select and group very cool accelerated units and animations that are part of The construction of a wonder or a large structure. In other ways, Age of Empires IV is very similar to previous games. The buildings are always placed on a grid system. There is always a population ceiling of 200, which was logical at the time of slow processors and GPUs, but more now.

Although its impressive campaign is substantial and that there are many options for single, cooperative and competitive multiplayers, punctual scenarios and other ways to perfect and demonstrate your skills, I can not help but feel As at the exit, at least, Age of Empires IV is just a little skinny on the content. There are only eight civilizations - English, Mongols, Rus, Sultanate de Delhi, French, Dynasty Abbaside, Saint Roman Empire and Chinese -. Although it will take a good time to a player to control these starting civilizations, the number is derisory compared to nearly 40 civilizations now available for Age of Empires II. One of the most flagrant omissions of Age IV is the lack of card publisher - for me, one of the most fundamental and pleasant aspects of any real-time strategy game. Certainly, many other civilizations, campaigns, mods and other features will appear later in paid DLC or free updates.

Despite the fact that he looks in the mirror at least as much as he looks towards the future, it is undeniable that the Empires IV captures the addictive gameplay and the mechanical accessibility of the first games of the franchise. It looks awesome, if not entirely new, and the flow of construction, fighting, research and resource management is nice as always. Documentary style campaigns are engaging and immersive. Which maintains Age of Empires IV remotely from the status of masterpiece, it is its determination not to shake the boat, its slightly disappointing functionality defined at the launch and some very minor troubles of the previous securities that should really belong to the pass. Will I dig deep into Age of Empires IV? Absoutely.