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Very Nice Game Marred by Online Competition Phantoms

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 11
Date: September 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I first downloaded the trial edition of this sequel, "Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends." I recommend the trial edition to everyone who enjoys fantasy toys and games. The trial edition is phenomenal, and it costs nothing to download but a little time. It lets people play against the computer/artificial intelligence players, which are very competitive with a lot of level settings, to make the educational part bearable. Even if I hadn't bought this game, I'm still glad I downloaded and played the free trial edition. It made me want to keep playing the game. It just did the right things. It did things so well, it aroused my curiosity to buy the game. So, I bought the game. I like it, a lot. It's so cool. I don't want to spoil the game, but it has cool-looking dragons. Before going online with the game, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to get wiped out right away, so I practiced, practiced, and practiced until I could beat the A.I. players (the "artificial intelligence" players) on the hardest setting, alas not every time. My point is that I got pretty good. Well, I then went online. Needless to say, I still got my butt kicked pretty good. However, now I've played human opponents many times and I have over 2000 experience points, altogether. That means I'm not the best, but I'm worth playing even if my opponent is very good. Now I'm on level five for 1-on-1 play, and level eight for multi-player. My win ratio is over 30%. Setting aside my laurels for a moment, the problem with all of this almost-too-good-to-be-true thing is I still play guys who LIE ABOUT THEIR LEVELS. I'll open up for a match by looking at the statistics of my opponents. I've played quite a few "beginners" at level one, a few of them with "zero experience points," yet how can I lose to them? Is it their first time playing? I have experience. I know what I'm doing. Some guy logs in for the "first time" and beats a somewhat experienced intermediate like me? Impossible; or, at least, the odds of that happening are less than two percent possible. So, why, then, does this happen regularly? I just imagined an explanation: people lie. MicroSoft, the distributor of this game, can show people why they should buy this game, they run an online mode, but they don't really do enough to stop cheaters who fake new identities. Maybe this is okay to MicroSoft. It's not, however, acceptable to me. But, what can I do? Complain. Well, that is what I do. What is the point of character statistics that are used to pair fitting players against each other, if it's actually not going to be fitting? When a player gets good, he runs out of people who would be a fair match for him. Multiple identities ought to be barred. Unlike other online computer games, this game has about 50 players online. That's a very small number. To retrospectively measure this amount, "Battlefield 2" commonly has over 25,000 players. The reason "Rise of Legends" has only a few online players is because no one trusts this game for fairness. The statistics have absolutely NO CREDIBILITY. MicroSoft should enforce a policy, but the people at MicroSoft either can't figure it out or decided to do nothing. They just want to sell an online computer product, but never have to think about its online modes. The results are mis-matched competitions. This hurts the game when people log in to play a friendly match and get beat by the "General Pattons" without even a chance to get going into a match. In the automated pairing, my level five character gets paired with someone who's level 27. I'd rather play online against the A.I. players because getting wiped out by a level 27 is not surprising to me, but what is surprising is that anyone would consider the online modes as fun. I actually log in, online, only to wind up preferring A.I. players because I don't trust other players for fairness. This is because identities and stats mean nothing. MicroSoft, get your thinking caps on.

I paid for this!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Rise Of Nations: Rise of Legends is suppose to be a remake of the glorious rise of nations but Big Huge games failed. Basically the game comes down to moving your one army around to defeat the enemy.Almost every territory you invade is capture or destroy the enemy capital.Unit A.I. in my opinion is horrible some units get stuck or scatter when you ask them to move around mountain or city.There is not much strategy to the game either it merely consist of building a large army and attacking the enemy.In some cases you don't even have to do that each time you invade a territory you have a certain amount of units you start with, and in the beginning it is easy to destroy your enemy.The games graphics may b the only thing thats saves it. I do enjoy the building animations and the mist that occurs when you go to the top of a mountain.But this can only be viewed by med-To high end graphics cards. Anything below a geforce 5700 or ati 9550 may not be able to experience the full depth of the game.
The sound is average as with most games don't expect explosions to sound as if they were happening were your sitting.
In closing statements if you buy a game based on its looks then it is for you if you buy a game based on gameplay and looks buy something else.

Another of Microsoft's unwanted stepchildren

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is old enough to still come on a stack of CDs rather than a DVD, and the support for the game is dismal. Between Microsoft's lackluster marketing attempts, and the difficulty experienced by hundreds, including myself, to apply patches, this game was clearly an afterthought to Microsoft. The campaigns storyline is engaging, and the gameplay is a fun twist on a tired theme. The added gameplay elements manage to be complex without being complicated. Sadly, the storyline is halting and sporadic. The cut scenes feel ill timed and disruptive. It feels rushed, as if the production budget were cut. Between this and that the terrible support, this is a good title, but belongs in the bargain bin.

A significant disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Stopped playing after 1/3 the way through. Why bother. I have consistenly not liked the MS games anyway so I guess I should not have been surprised. There are many with opinions contrary to mine so I guess my best adivce is to see if there is a demo and if so, download an play it first. Maybe it will suite your tastes.

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