Armies of Exigo

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $13.49

Features:

• Real-time strategy game pitting the fortified Empire, the nomadic Beasts, and the subterranean Fallen against one another
• Game is set in fantasy world where war is waged both above and below ground
• Control massive armies of knights, dwarves, elves, gnomes and more -- up to 200 units at a time
• Fully interactive world lets you blow up bridges, create avalanches, and dig tunnels from the surface into the caverns below
• Both single-player campaigns and online skirmishes of up to 8 players

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Armies provides hours of gameplay  [Posted on 2007-01-09]
Awhile back I was looking for a good RTS game after having played through all of the "hype" titles.

Desperate, I found Armies of Exigo and decided it sounded like it was worthy of at least a try.


Gameplay: 9.0/10

The controls in AoE are tried and true. Anyone whose played just about any RTS out there should be able to pick up the game and have the general hang of it in ~30 minutes.

One unique feature (well sort of at least) is the fact that in AoE the battle can take place above or below ground. When you find an underground access point and enter it you'll have an additional mini map open on the bottom left (usually where you have a talking head of the last unit you selected) of your screen.

This will become more important in later missions where you're forced to move underground and attack the surface or to get from one point to another. Sadly side from finding a secret here and there (usually extra resources or stat boosting items) it never really feels it adds a lot of strategy to the game.

The game can be really hard at times and you'll need to be able to deal with limited resources/units in certain levels. Normally in an RTS if you can control the resources early on you can win by attrition. This is a viable tactic in most missions but later on in the different campaigns it will not seal the deal for you.

AoE has everything you need in an RTS, three playable factions (though you're forced to play them in a certain order ie: beat faction X campaign to unlock faction Y), tons units and upgrades for those units, and special buildings you can garrison for special abilities like extra resources or access to merc units.


Graphics: 8.5/10

I was really impressed with the opening movie, for a game that's a few years old it still looks top notch. Other mission cut scenes use the in game engine which obviously isn't nearly as nice as as your opening intro, but they get the job done.

Your units are all well modeled and the attack animations are nicely done. You'll be reminded a lot of Warcraft, but I feel the presentation in Armies is actually much better.


Sound: 8/10

The sound in AoE is reasonably well done. but at times (like most RTS games) the constant voice of your peons can get annoying.

Most of the voice acting is well done though a few unit types get repetitive. The cut scenes are well acted and add to the theme of the game.

You also have the ability to adjust any of the sound volumes in the game to better suit your play style which is a needed feature IMHO.


Overall: 9.0/10

As a whole the game gets a 9.0/10 in my book. The single player game will keep you busy for a good 36 hours and likely much longer than that depending on how you play the game.

Many called this just another Warcraft clone, personally I feel this game is so much better than warcraft 3, if this had been released as warcraft 3 you'd see 5 star reviews across the board and a player base of millions. As it stands this is a unique gem that has a small following but is worth being played by anyone that has ever enjoyed playing an RTS game.

Armies of Exigo [Posted on 2007-01-24]
Armies of Exigo is a strategy war game, very similar to Warcraft 2 & 1, if your a fan of the old school strategy games like me, you'll love this game. Your troops are abit hard to control, due to the controls, but otherwise this is a great game.

"Summary" I gave this one a 4 on the fun factor, a close 5. But a 3 on the quality, not of the game, but of the condition the box was in when I recieved it, the box was smashed & buckled inwards.

It's not Warcraft and will never measure up. [Posted on 2007-02-13]
I must say the graphics are 100 times better then in Warcraft 3 but that's the only positive to a game that tried to outmatch Blizzard. They failed. Miserably.

At first this game was awesome, it had all the prospectives of measuring up to be a fantastic RTS (Real Time Strategy) but it went all down hill from there.
The game - as usual - follows the average fantasy theme with Orcs, Humans, Elves and Undead (Warcraft 3 anyone?) that was a little bit of drag. But if that's what your after, that's all well and good, but the main problem I have to pick with this game is, for some reason it's hard to all buggery to do. Even on easy, without proper healing characters, etc. you just die as soon as you meet the enemy who do double to triple the amount of damage compared to yourself. There's no even stakes at all in this game. In the beginning chapters you just have to get through it with hoping that the enemy doesn't hit your main character otherwise it's game over. At least Warcraft had Altars in the beginning levels!
This game gets annoying at how low your characters HP, damage, etc. are. You can go in with a full-blown army and just be wiped out by 6 enemy units.

If you're in for a challenge, this is the game to play but I warn you this game doesn't come anywhere close to Warcraft!
But if your looking for another type of RTS that doesn't involve Humans, Orcs, etc. try Company of Heroes it's WW1 scenario with all the fun of building bases and sending your men out to war.

started great... [Posted on 2007-07-25]
This game is an RTS type, it has 3 races with a campaign for each. The first campaign ( human ) was a lot of fun, the others are ok, but not as much fun. The video on the intro was really good, as were several of the interludes throughout the campaigns.

Get Warcraft Instead [Posted on 2008-04-26]
If you don't have Warcraft III, get it instead of this game. If you do have Warcraft III, well, you don't need to get this game anyway.

Alot was poured into the graphics, and you can tell just by looking at the game. Textures are nicely details and environments are well done. Units are good too. No complaints here.

Gameplay is where this game falls short. Really short. It plays more like a game from 1998 than 2004. It is your basic Warcraft Clone, that was dumbed down in terms of gameplay. Another complaint is the artificial intelligence. It multi-tasks so efficiently, that it is almost impossible to match its micromanagement. This makes the game extremely hard even on the "easy" setting.

Story is actually good, there is the empire, which are your strong and sophisticated humans. Another faction is the Beast, which are orcs, goblins and ogres. Finnally there is the Shadow, which play exactly like the undead in Warcraft. These three factions come together in a war for some reason (you are never told why) and they basically fight for survival.

Sound doesn't really make an impression.

Multiplayer is very glitched and unclean.

Graphics 9/10
Gameplay 5/10
Sound 5/10
Story 9/10
Length 8/10
Multiplay 5/10
Stability: Minor Problems, Major Problems in Multiplayer

Score 6/10 - Mediocre

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