Steam Summer Sale, Day 5: Metro 2033, RAGE, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and more originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading This is getting silly: Age of Empires III is ten cents on Games for Windows today

This is getting silly: Age of Empires III is ten cents on Games for Windows today originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Age of Empires 3 collection advancing Sept. 15 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties releases Oct. 23 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While Ensemble Studios finishes Halo Wars, the development of Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties falls on Brian Reynold's Big Huge Games, best known for Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends (and developers of XBLA's Catan).

Reynolds says, "We feel that the in-depth experience of Big Huge Games in the real-time strategy genre, combined with the solid reputation of the Age of Empires franchise, will result in something fresh and unique for gamers." Considering Age of Empires and Rise of Nations are two sides of the same coin, it's certainly interesting to see how chummy Ensemble and Big Huge Games are here, considering they should be competitors. This would also be another recent instance of Big Huge Games working closely with Microsoft.

Strangely, the press release really doesn't drop many details. Asian civilizations will be playable, 15 new Asian "wonders" and "new ways of winning and trading." The screenshot you see above is also the only one that was released. The press release feels like Microsoft is just letting consumers know that Big Huge Games is taking the Age of Empires franchise out for a spin. We'll see how they enjoy the ride when the game ships on ... yeah, doesn't say that either.

Age of Empires III goes far east, or short west, this fall originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 18 May 2007 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Mac Civ 4 shipping soon, trailer released
• Metareview - Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV
• Age of Empires III board game in the works

Age of Empires 3 goes gold for Mac originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mario Party, Civ IV help give Amazon.com record holiday season originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Dec 2005 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The two went head to head in a metareview showdown: Civilization IV versus Age of Empires III. AoE III won in sales, but got edged out in overall rankings, but then it was revealed that Civilization IV was playing injured. Reports of buggy software flooded the nets, and then it was AoE III's game to lose. Then today, a reader informed us that AoE III suffered from a plentitude of bugs as well. The forums are buzzing with comments like:

• vodka-mike: Ensemble's devs and brass should feel ashamed [of] this release.

• Vincedia: OK, so we bought this game, get it home, start to play, and find out we are paying to Beta test? I've had the game for a bit over 2 weeks now and I still can not stop the crashing to desktop.

• gman: What I haven't seen is a response from ES at all.

There are hundreds of posts just like this one, on this forum alone! Is this a case of two competitors both rushing their competing titles out the door only to have them compete against another rushed product? Or was the lucrative holiday season looming, so the "patch it later" mentality kicked in. We love Sid Meier, but we want him to know that the DS doesn't work that way. Now, if Microsoft brings AoE to the 360, maybe they could patch it... but let's not even think about that.

Rematch: AoE III vs. Civ. IV, who's buggier? originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 01 Dec 2005 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Whilst Age of Empires III and Civilization IV are classed in the same genre as strategy games, they have very different styles. AoE is real time and has a permanent "down with the troops" view and feel. Civilization IV, on the other hand, is turn based and features a lot of micromanagement. Rather than trying to represent one age as best as it can, it tries to cover the whole of civilization; from cavemen to spacecraft.

The two games took the 1st and 2nd place on the PC games sales chart for the week ending November 13th. So we thought it'd be very appropriate to write up a versus metareview of the two games - in the style of our previous F.E.A.R. vs Quake 4 metareview. Take the jump to find out what reviewers thought of these two strategy game behemoths.

Continue reading Metareview: Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV

Metareview: Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 24 Nov 2005 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.