Gods and Vikings - An Age of Mythology Review

There aren't too many unique features. It's just a real time strategy game. You produce workers and have them harvest resources to build units so that your war can continue. The main draw is probably the focus on hero units though. A number of units in the game have special abilities. For example, the cyclops unit can pick up enemy soldiers and throw them far away from the battle. The centaur character has a sniper shot that instantly kills weaker units. The sheer variety of abilities and special powers makes each fight quite cinematic and interesting. It's certainly better than a battle of health bars.

The other big feature is the overall polish of the game. For an older title, a lot of effort is taken to make the little details right. If a cyclops throws an armored soldier into a forest, the trees are realistically knocked down in its path. Similar effects work for the special abilities too. It's a minor aspect, but it makes the battles a lot more interesting to watch.

There is a good amount of variety in the units too. Standard soldiers are mixed with relevant mythological units for each of the three story sets. You will also have a number of hero characters to give a little more strength to your army.

The graphics aren't bad for a strategy game, but they aren't great by today's standards. The units are recognizable though and the environments aren't bad. It's basically the definition of mediocre. The animations are well done though, so that makes up a bit for the lower quality.

There was multiplayer in the game at some point. It revolved around basic real-time strategy themes with options for search and destroy gameplay or capture the hill goals. The problem is that so much time has passed since the release, that you will be hard pressed to actually find anyone online for a random game.

I doubt that anyone will have problems with the system requirements. I played this on my old computer which had 1 gig of RAM and an Nvidia MX 420 card. I would be very shocked if your currently functioning computer couldn't play this, since my lackluster model played it with no lag at high specifications. The official requirements are just 128 MB of RAM and a 16 MB video card, so you should be fine.

If you are looking for a good real time strategy game that is right out of the mold for Age of Empires, then just look here. It's a great classic title and you should be able to pick it up for a small price. The campaign is quite long and the gameplay is just fun. If you like a good old-fashioned strategy game, then you will like this one.