Issue date: 2/13/03 Section: The Verge

After waiting months for its release, "Age of Mythology" has lived up to the hype. Boasting realistic 3D graphics, complex civilizations and hundreds of game play choices, PC gamers find it hard to stop playing.

"Age of Mythology" (AOM) was created by Ensemble Studios, the same creators of such strategy games as "Age of Empires" (AOE) I and II. Topping off their previous success with AOE I & II, AOM offers over 30 epic campaigns, all with options to adjust the difficulty level, multi-player options for online game play, as well as deathmatch and versus mode. All are essential to getting the most out of your AOM experience.

There are nine different civilizations you can choose from, three in each the Greek, Norse and Egyptian categories. Each civilization has different abilities and have various choices during game play. Each civilization can choose which god to worship when they advance, granting of special abilities and aiding them in various military, economic and social ways.

At the beginning of each campaign, civilizations are given a hero to help further the advancement of buildings and armies. Heroes and their abilities vary in the civilizations, so check into which abilities you would like before starting a game.

Throughout game play, the gods may choose to bless you with their godly powers. These powers are usually gained by building temples, monuments or, in the case of the Norse civilization, going to war with others. God powers can be used to aid your civilization or to help you offensively against aggressors. Gods can grant you powers such as forest fire, lightening storm, frost, prosperity, meteor, rain and much more. Word of wisdom though, don't use your god powers right away! They are few and far between during campaign play. By the way, if you have this game or plan on purchasing it, type in BAWK BAWK BOOM. This god power is probably the coolest I have yet to find!

By building monuments, temples or fighting, you gain favor with the gods, which allows you to create mythological units to use in battle. These units are very powerful, and only specific army members from the different civilizations can be used to defeat them. Such myth units available include fire giants, anubites, cyclops and mountain giants. Although they are costly and take up a large portion of your population, these myth units can be the deciding factor in most battles.

Overall, "Age of Mythology" has the most advanced graphics for a strategy game that I have seen in the past year. Campaigns are well formed and character development definitely is top notch. I recommend AOM because of it's superb graphics, wide variety of game play options and general cool godly powers.

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