Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots Exp. Pack : Games : Web Wombat

I make an exception for the Warcraft games because I have an obsession with orcs, but other than that I find it difficult to sit through prolonged exposure to the genre without reaching for my trusty sawed-off.

Why, you ask?

Because, while I do have patience, I also happen to have a life, and sitting around for hours on end dragging little men in kilts from one end of the world to the other, while aesthetically appealing, is not my idea of fun.

Apparently, unlike most of the world, I don't have a God-complex.

Still, I will give credit where credit is due, so anyone who happens to be breathlessly reading this can stop chewing their fingernails and relax. Ready to continue?

Good. Rise of Nations was, essentially, Age of Empires squared, spanning six thousand years from the Stone to Information Ages with varied units and an innovative real time/turn based style of gameplay.

Age of Empires squared can only be a good thing, right? Right. In fact, it was such a good thing that it garnered a Game of the Year award and high scores across the journalistic board.

The attention to detail is truly impressive

With Rise of Nations garnering such success, it was only logical that an expansion pack would follow.

Now, since we're still talking logically here, I think I'd better mention that it is almost a given that expansion packs never manage to provide enough content to equal the play time available in any one game.

Not so with Thrones and Patriots. We have a grand total of six new races (bringing the total number up to 24), specifically the Americans and two types of American Indians (Lakota and Iroquois), the Indian Indians, and Dutch.

Just to round out the field, we've also got the Persians (prince not included).

All six races have totally new abilities and some new units, and, to go with the new nations, Microsoft has thrown in four new campaigns, all of which are good.

The abovementioned campaigns are reasonably spaced out, time-wise, playing out such events as the conquests of Napoleon and Alexander the Great, the Cold War and, to add a bit of flavour to the proceedings, the migration from Europe to the "New World".

Of course, we don't get to play the sequel to that last campaign, where all the migrants realise the New World isn't really all it's cracked up to be and catch the first boat home. Pity.

The number of naval units takes many
battles to another (enjoyable) level

I won't go on about the graphics and sound etc, etc, yada yada, ad infinitum, on account of the fact that Will Barker and dear old Tom Fahey did that on my behalf in their original Rise of Nations review, so those wondering what happened to the word count here can check their review out for the straight dope on all matters visual and aural.

Any who accuse me of laziness can just come over here, put that blindfold on, and stand against this sunny, bullet-riddled brick wall; you know, the one I prepared earlier.

Now, with the threats and shameless promotion out of the way, I can move on to my conclusion, like so:

All in all, a nicely put together expansion pack from the cyborg assembler drones at Microsoft Games which gives all you strategy fans several good reasons to continue playing Rise of Nations, like the ability to play as a Persian. That has to be good for the soul [Don't knock the Persians - Ed].

Me, though, I think I'll be sticking to my orcs, soul or no soul, thankyou-oh-so-very-much. Green men with axes are just dead sexy, don'tcha know?

Game: Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots Exp. Pack
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Big Huge Games
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots Exp. Pack is on the shelves now.

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