Metareview: Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV

[GetGamer News]

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.




Gamespy gave Civilization
IV and Age of Empires III
(100/100) each. It seems that the reviewers enjoyed both titles so much that they’d recommend strategy fans pick up
both titles. Their quote “No fan of strategy games should leave this on store shelves” at the end of their Civ
IV review could easily be applied to AoE III as well.

IGN handed AoE III a slightly lower
score (88/100) than Civilization
IV (94/100). The main reason for this appears to
be the longevity of the games. The general feeling seems to be that Civ IV offers a lot more single player
replayability: ” There’s a nearly endless variety in the single player game.”

Games TM makes a good point regarding this increased longevity — it’s not entirely accessible to new
players. Talking about Civilization IV
(80/100) they said “Even though stellar work has gone into making the game as accessible as possible, there’s no
escaping the fact that Civilization games are for Civilization fans.”

MetaCritic.com’s scores give the feeling that Civ IV’s extra
content pushed it above AoE III. After a month on sale,
AoE III is sitting at
(81/100) a lower score than
Civilization IV (93/100), which has
been out just over a week.



If you’re a strategy gaming fan, you’re gonna have a hard decision choosing between these games. The most obvious to
choose would be to pick based upon your personal opinions of their different styles. If you prefer real time — go for
AoE III. You’re a turn based kinda guy/gal? Go for Civ IV. Either way, you’re in for a treat: these
are genre defining games.


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