That was a really good review. I only know about this game because my xbox advertised it, and I assumed it was some new xbox game. It’s sad to see mobile ads on my xbox as 95% of the games are trash.
I got a good chucke of of the minireview review for it.
Age of Empires Mobile is a fantastic real-time strategy game… oh, wait. Scrap that. This mobile version of the beloved RTS franchise has nothing to do with the original PC games. The gameplay is different, and the monetization is extremely pay-to-win. Unfortunately.
I played at release and haven’t followed it since then. At the time, I remember it being highly criticized and not popular with the community. It has been over a decade, and I could be misremembering.
Yeah I’m not really sure either. I get the sense that either it got better over its lifetime or over time people came around to it à la the Star Wars prequels. But I don’t really remember it. I played it a little early in its life but don’t remember anything about it.
I enjoyed plenty of phone and tablet games back in the day, when it all started (god I feel old). When there were both amazing free and paid games. But then they started including ads, and microtransactions, and then battle passes, and then unskippable ads and promotions, and then progression got locked behind paywalls, etc.
I’m sure there are a few good games out there, but the few attempts I tried a few mobile games again it feels like I always run into having to pay to progress sooner or later. It’s most definitely nothing like the golden ages back around 2010.
But a real Age of Empires game? Hells yes. This was announced not long after the AoE2 and AoE4 ports to console & controller had shown to be successful (at least critically—no idea how they’re doing commercially). So I thought that they had cracked a way to do satisfying RTS gameplay on a mobile device. It’d be great to be able to play a quick Skirmish on the bus, or while spending time away from home without my computer.
So when a few aoe creators showed previews of the game back in February this year, I was rather surprised and very disappointed to see that the game has absolutely zero resemblance to an Age game. That the worst fears of it being a shitty rip-off were completely true. Thanks to those previews, I was not surprised on release this week—though the extent of just how bad even the narrative side of this is was still overwhelming.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
They already ruined it with the first F2P AoE about a decade ago or so, so I really don’t care.
It is genuinely hard to describe just how bad this is. I did the best job I could of my own review over on the official Age of Empires forums. Its worst sin is probably the simple fact that it barely even feels like a game where you make choices. You just click what it tells you to do.
It’s telling that they don’t have an official subforum for this game, although there is one for AoE1, 2, 3, and 4, and Age of Mythology.
That was a really good review. I only know about this game because my xbox advertised it, and I assumed it was some new xbox game. It’s sad to see mobile ads on my xbox as 95% of the games are trash.
I got a good chucke of of the minireview review for it.
Didn’t know it was also a Tencent production. Eww
I had a read over the rest of that review. Damn it was a good read. And sadly very, painfully accurate to my experience.
QQ moar
Are we pretending that Age of Empires Online never existed?
I don’t think so, why? I only played it very briefly, but I thought it had a small but happy fanbase still playing on third-party servers.
I played at release and haven’t followed it since then. At the time, I remember it being highly criticized and not popular with the community. It has been over a decade, and I could be misremembering.
Yeah I’m not really sure either. I get the sense that either it got better over its lifetime or over time people came around to it à la the Star Wars prequels. But I don’t really remember it. I played it a little early in its life but don’t remember anything about it.
Still does
What self-respecting RTS and/or AoE fan plays this kind of stuff on mobile anyway?
Barely anything good ever comes from these kind of mobile games, or any mobile games in general for that matter.
Mobile gaming is like dumpster diving–there are a handful of good ones among the utter trash.
One of the good ones I found is Exiled Kingdoms–it’s an homage to 90’s RPGs, and it’s good on mobile.
Hoplite and Knights of pen and paper 2 are both really good IMO.
Slice and Dice is quite fun. I love these threads as I always end up with new games to check out so thank you for the link!
I was just about to comment about slice and dice too
Balatro is on mobile now. It’s digital crack cocaine
So I’ve heard. I’m avoiding it for the same reason I avoid analog crack cocaine.
It’s problematic. I was on a 5 hour flight this week and I played wheels up to wheels down and legit didn’t realize it until the bump on landing.
I haven’t been sucked into a game like that in decades.
It also slaughters your battery life for some reason.
There are lots of good mobile games. Mobile gaming gets a bad rep from all the prominent soulless cash grab type stuff.
I enjoyed plenty of phone and tablet games back in the day, when it all started (god I feel old). When there were both amazing free and paid games. But then they started including ads, and microtransactions, and then battle passes, and then unskippable ads and promotions, and then progression got locked behind paywalls, etc.
I’m sure there are a few good games out there, but the few attempts I tried a few mobile games again it feels like I always run into having to pay to progress sooner or later. It’s most definitely nothing like the golden ages back around 2010.
There’s a couple good mobile games. Ascension, Lick Be A Landlord, and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are the only ones I play.
This kind of stuff? None. It’s shockingly bad.
But a real Age of Empires game? Hells yes. This was announced not long after the AoE2 and AoE4 ports to console & controller had shown to be successful (at least critically—no idea how they’re doing commercially). So I thought that they had cracked a way to do satisfying RTS gameplay on a mobile device. It’d be great to be able to play a quick Skirmish on the bus, or while spending time away from home without my computer.
So when a few aoe creators showed previews of the game back in February this year, I was rather surprised and very disappointed to see that the game has absolutely zero resemblance to an Age game. That the worst fears of it being a shitty rip-off were completely true. Thanks to those previews, I was not surprised on release this week—though the extent of just how bad even the narrative side of this is was still overwhelming.
I play Broodwar on mobile…😭 sorry RTS fans
I mean, if I could run Civ V on my phone I’d play the shit out of that. Though that’s turn based I suppose.
Check out unciv. It’s an open source remake of civ v with simplified graphics.
Don’t blame me if this ruins your life.