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Age of Mythology:  The Titans

Age of Mythology: The Titans

Written by Tyler Sager on 9/19/2003 for PC  
More On: Age of Mythology: The Titans
The original Age of Mythology was a great idea. Take the wonderful Age of Empires engine, polish it up, toss is healthy mish-mash of mythology, and you’ve got a solid and fun RTS. Of course, no self-respecting, successful game can go un-expanded for long. So along comes The Titans to fulfill that obligation.

Like all good RTS expansions, AoM: The Titans adds quite a few new units into the Age of Mythology mix. Most of the units belong to a brand-new empire, the Atlanteans. Besides a handful of myth units, the Atlanteans boast some really unique human ranks. There are no named Heroes, as in the Greek empire, nor are there any special Hero units like the Norse or Egyptians have. Rather, each of the Atlantean empire’s rather pricey human units can be converted into a hero unit for some extra resources and Favor. Need that scout unit to be able to pick up that artifact? No problem! Just convert him into a Hero unit, and soon he’s carrying the newly-found treasure back to your temple. It can be a truly frightening thing to see an entire army of Heroes bearing down on your now-much-less-impressive myth units. As if the ability to turn every human into a Hero wasn’t enough, Atlantean citizens (the resource gatherers) don’t have to carry their resources to a dump site. Whatever they collect instantly gets added to the empire’s resource pool. This ability is incredibly convenient, and makes for some interesting “hit and run” resource collection. Of course, these citizens can be converted into Heroes as well. To help get all these heroes units around the map, Atlantean citizens can build Sky Passages, which act as instant teleporters, allowing an army of Atlantean heroes can quickly zip around the land, causing all sorts of havoc. The Atlanteans also come loaded with some fairly impressive god-powers. These don’t seem to be as powerful as the other empire’s powers, but many of them can be used multiple times.

All of the empires are also given an enormously powerful unit to bring into the fray, the titular Titans. These behemoths tower above everything else on the map, and pack quite a whallop. Of course, they cost quite a bit of time and resources. They can almost be considered a Wonder in unit form; although they don’t necessarily bring about a victory, once one of these giants is brought forth, the tide turns against anything and anyone that might get underfoot. Although these guys are impressive (and quite a bit of fun), I’m not sure how practical they will be to bring into play. Still, watching trees and buildings crumble while enemy units go flying under the onslaught of a Titan is quite satisfying.

The Titans also brings along a new single-player campaign, furthering the story started in Age of Mythology. The beta version didn’t include the complete campaign, but from what I saw the plot was interesting enough to warrant a play-through.

Besides a few tweaks here and there, most everything else remains unchanged from the original AoM. Following the tried-and-true “ain’t broke, don’t fix it” axiom, this is most certainly not a bad thing. The Titans simply gives us more of a very good thing: a new campaign, new units, and some incredible Titans to bring onto the field of war. All in all, Age of Mythology: The Titans looks to breathe a bit more life into a very entertaining title.

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.


About Author

I'm an old-school gamer, and have been at it ever since the days of the Atari 2600. I took a hiatus from the console world to focus on PC games after that, but I've come back into the fold with the PS2. I'm an RPG and strategy fan, and could probably live my gaming life off a diet of nothing else. I also have soft spot for those off-the-wall, independent-developer games, so I get to see more than my share of innovative (and often strange) titles.

Away from the computer, I'm an avid boardgamer, thoroughly enjoying the sound of dice clattering across a table. I also enjoy birdwatching and just mucking around in the Great Outdoors.
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