6. Age of Empires
Age of Empires was released in 1997 and is a real time strategy game where the player competes against rival civilisations. The player has to manage resources, build a city and an army, all with the purpose of defeating their rival(s). Age of Empires was critically acclaimed, spawning several sequels across numerous platform and creating an extremely successful franchise. When Age of Empires first came out, it was lauded as having deep game-play and having varied game-play. Compared to modern game real time strategy games, however, it would seem simple and dumbed down. If it was released now, Age of Empires would be compared to other RTS games such as the Total War series and Starcraft and would be considered poor. Real time strategy games have matured and become more complex and varied. Gamers now expect more game-play options and strategic and tactical opportunities available to them. Age of Empires just would not make the cut in today's gaming industry. Age of Empires is not user friendly enough to be accepted in today's gaming industry. Some reviews picked up on this at the time but it would be even more obvious and condemning now. As gaming is now becoming more and more user friendly as video gaming and HCI (human-computer interaction) are helping each other develop, the emphasis and need for games is to be user friendly and easy-to-learn but hard-to-master. The interface and menu systems were once an afterthought, an unimportant necessity of games. But now, they are an important aspect of the game, affecting immersion, enjoyment and sometimes even game-play. In the case Age of Empires, it affects the game-play, as real-time strategy games are played by clicking on the interface. The absence of the ability to queue up the manufacturing of units and buildings, and the AI would be picked up on now. These would no longer be minor frustrations, they would be considered game breaking and cause it to fail in the current gaming industry.