Take your Empire with you!

Everyone's a critic. Want to know what I have to put up with when putting my cartoon together? Look here.

Those of you who have been around here long enough know that I have played and enojoyed the Age of Empires series from Ensemble. So you may be wondering how I feel about the latest version, Age of Empires: Mythologies, for the Nintendo DS. Well...it's great.



As you might guess, this game has more in common with the previous Nintendo DS offering (Age of Empires: Age of Kings) than the PC version (Age of Mythology). Unlike the PC version, the Nintendo game is not a true Real Time Strategy (RTS) game (there actually is a true RTS game for the DS - I'll tell you about that later). Instead, this game is turn-based, where everything waits for you to decide exactly what you want to do with each of your units. Now I prefer having Real Time in my strategy games, but I have to say that I really enjoyed the first offering in this series and this one is even better.

For one thing, there's more units to choose from. As the title implies, you command an army in one of thre mythological periods - Egyptian, Greek and Norse. Not only do you get to command their armies (Egyptian Chariots, Greek Hopolites, Norse Axemen to name a few) but you also get to summon creatures from their mythology - Sphynx, Medusa, Chimera, Giants and more. Additionally, you can turn to the gods for favor to smite your enemies. Be aware that your opponents will be doing the same. As with Age of Kings, the game designers have worked hard to come up with interesting scenarios to keep you occupied.

If you liked Age of Kings, you'll love Age of Empires: Mythologies. If you've never tried this series and you're looking for an interesting war game for the DS, you should give this a try.