Favourite Video Games #9 - Age of Mythology

I grew up playing the Age of Empires series of real-time strategy games, but my favourite of them is definitely this Ray Harryhausen-inspired spin-off. Like its siblings, the game is about starting in a small village, gathering resources, building up an army, and crushing your opponents. While the other games in the series were based on historical settings, Age of Mythology takes place in more of a fantasy world based on Greek, Egyptian, and Norse Mythology.

The factions in Age of Mythology are more clear-cut from one another, so they all play a lot differently compared to the different factions in Age of Empires. Each culture has three different major gods, with different bonuses, and as you advance each age you choose to worship different minor gods who grant different technologies, mythical creatures and god powers. This divine intervention can range from boosting the output of farms or healing your troops to unleashing tornadoes and earthquakes on your enemies.

In addition to the random map skirmishes, the game features an epic campaign following the Atlantean mariner Arkantos. An ageing classical hero, he spends his days protecting Atlantis from pirate raids, but after leading an expeditionary force to Troy he finds himself on a journey which takes him across the world to foil the schemes of the cyclops Gargarensis.

While I'm here, I'd like to mention the expansion packs. The Titans, was released a year after the game's release. This introduces the Atlantean culture, which is less grounded in mythology. There is also a much shorter campaign taking place ten years after the first one, as Kastor, the Son of Arkantos, seeks to help establish a new Atlantis for his displaced people but unwittingly releases the imprisoned Titans who were deposed by the Greek gods.

The second expansion was released only last year: Tales of the Dragon, which introduces Chinese mythology to the game. There is a new campaign, but it's not really related to the other campaigns. At least, the scenarios I played weren't. It was quite buggy so I didn't get very far in.

Strategy games aren't everyone's thing, but if they are, I recommend this gem if you haven't got it already. There's even been a HD reboot on Steam. It hasn't added much, other than a zoom function, but it's kept the original game in all its glory.