Computer Games: Construction

This will already be our last post about nineties computer games, and this time we will talk about some games that involve some sort of construction in it and that were released in the 90’s.

Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games and the gameplay revolves around two main game modes; random map and campaign. The games were developed by Ensemble Studios and were published by Microsoft Studios. The first Age of Empires came out in 1997 and since then seven titles and three spin-offs have been released. The other Age of Empire games that came out in the 90’s are The Rise of Rome (1998) and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999). The games in the series focus on historical events throughout time. Age of Empires (original game) covers the events between the Stone Age and the Classical Period in Europe and Asia. Its expansion, The Rise of Rome, follows the formation and rise of the Roman Empire. Age of Empires II follows Europe and Asia through the Middle Ages. The Age of Empires series has been a commercial success, selling over 20 million copies. The popularity and quality of the games has earned Ensemble Studios a strong reputation in real-time strategy gaming. Critics have credited part of the success of the series to its historical theme and fair play; the artificial intelligence players fight with less "cheating" than in many of the series' competitors.

Another well-known series of “construction” games is the Sim-series. These games were developed by Maxis and published by Maxis and Electronic Arts. The first Sim game was SimCity, released in 1989, this game was followed by a numerous amount of other games released in the 90’s and later decades (see the timeline), including the immense popular The Sims video games.  

The Sim games are city-building simulation games, in which the player has to build a city (you don’t say?) without any specific goals to achieve. The player also had to face disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes and attacks by monsters. SimCity still proves to be popular and therefore a new SimCity is expected to be released in 2013.

This marks the ending of our Computers Games week, but next week we will be back with movies from the nineties!