Microsoft's 'Age of Empires: World Domination' to Launch on iOS This Summer

[MacLC]

As a longtime RTS fan and AOE player from way back, this looks like the chintziest game ever.

pass.

I agree. It seems to try to appeal to a 7 year old anime fan. Maybe that's just the point, though. I was in college when the first AoE came to mac and maybe they realize I am no longer in the "profitable" demographic.

Maybe they are going after the 7 year old anime fans who probably would not enjoy a more realistic game anyway.

 

[jonnysods]

So I was really pumped when I read this, clicked on the trailer, and, well... expectations destroyed. Doesn't look very 2014ish.

 

[ShinySteelRobot]

IIRC, the iPhone 5S has more CPU and graphics power than an Xbox 360.

So why does this game look like something designed for a Pentium and XGA graphics from 15 years ago?

It actually looks about on par with the original Age of Empires. The one from 1997.

 

[GSPice]

IIRC, the iPhone 5S has more CPU and graphics power than an Xbox 360.

May need to double check that!

 

[JetBlack7]

This looks beyond bad. Shame such a good game transformed into this.

 

[ShinySteelRobot]

May need to double check that!

My bad, it's almost as fast as an Xbox 360 (not faster). According to Louis-René Auclair, Chief Brand Officer at Hibernum Creations:

"The new iPhone 5 is almost as fast as the current Xbox 360, which is enough to convince any game enthusiast that the iPhone 5 is a 'serious' gaming platform."

Note in the above quote he's talking about the 5. I'm pretty sure I saw a statistic somewhere showing the iPhone 5S graphics are actually faster than the Xbox 360.

 

[Levelut]

really?...

these bastards make us wait for ages to get a real Age of Empires game and come up with this piece of crap? I still play AoE II because AoE III s*cks, and this is what they come up with for tablets? why not just make a remake of AoE II? it would be 900 times better than the crappy feel this pathetic attempt of a game looks like. I hate you microsoft and everything you stand for, except AoE II

 

[memcpy]

Why???!! This is the worst trailer for a game I have ever seen. And all of the characters have League of Legends (cheesy game) voices. AoE II is one of the best computer games ever. Why not just focus on that?

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these bastards make us wait for ages to get a real Age of Empires game and come up with this piece of crap? I still play AoE II because AoE III s*cks, and this is what they come up with for tablets? why not just make a remake of AoE II? it would be 900 times better than the crappy feel this pathetic attempt of a game looks like. I hate you microsoft and everything you stand for, except AoE II

There's AoE II HD, but it's for Windows only, unfortunately. BUT you can play it in Wine with hardly any problems, which is what I do. Woohoo!

 

[GSPice]

My bad, it's almost as fast as an Xbox 360 (not faster). According to Louis-René Auclair, Chief Brand Officer at Hibernum Creations:

"The new iPhone 5 is almost as fast as the current Xbox 360, which is enough to convince any game enthusiast that the iPhone 5 is a 'serious' gaming platform."

Note in the above quote he's talking about the 5. I'm pretty sure I saw a statistic somewhere showing the iPhone 5S graphics are actually faster than the Xbox 360.

"The new iPhone 5 is almost as fast as the current Xbox 360" - Louis-René Auclair

Unfortunately Louis-René Auclair is overlooking a plethora of performance metrics. I mean he is a marketing expert, not a GPU engineer, after all. For example,

Fillrate:
iPhone 5S: 163 MPolygons/s
Xbox 360 : 500 MPolygons/s

iPhone 5S: 5.2 GT/s
Xbox 360 : 8 GT/s

Floating Point ops:
iPhone 5S: 76.8 GFLOPS @ 300MHz
Xbox 360 : 240 GFLOPS @ 500MHz (or 144 GFLOPS @ 300MHz, for comparison)

Honestly there's no comparison - take one step into forums that really dig into CPU and GPU performance - even anandtech - and you'll see. There may be a number or two that seem similar on paper, but in reality, you're saying a kid can lift a half-pound dumbell just about as good as an Olympic weightlifter.

I'm definitely not discounting the fact that iPhone GPUs have come along by leaps and bounds - but also note that we are comparing 1-year old tech with almost 10-year tech.

 

[ShinySteelRobot]

Unfortunately Louis-René Auclair is overlooking a plethora of performance metrics. I mean he is a marketing expert, not a GPU engineer, after all. For example,

Fillrate:
iPhone 5S: 163 MPolygons/s
Xbox 360 : 500 MPolygons/s

iPhone 5S: 5.2 GT/s
Xbox 360 : 8 GT/s

Floating Point ops:
iPhone 5S: 76.8 GFLOPS @ 300MHz
Xbox 360 : 240 GFLOPS @ 500MHz (or 144 GFLOPS @ 300MHz, for comparison)

Honestly there's no comparison - take one step into forums that really dig into CPU and GPU performance - even anandtech - and you'll see. There may be a number or two that seem similar on paper, but in reality, you're saying a kid can lift a half-pound dumbell just about as good as an Olympic weightlifter.

I'm definitely not discounting the fact that iPhone GPUs have come along by leaps and bounds - but also note that we are comparing 1-year old tech with almost 10-year tech.

Thanks for posting the numbers. For two of the three metrics it looks like the Xbox 360 is about 3X the iPhone 5S. IIRC at launch Apple called the iPhone 5 graphics "console quality" and it looks like they're sort of in the ballpark, but they still have a ways to go to match the previous-gen consoles.

Still, not too shabby for a tiny device that fits in your back pocket.

 

[GSPice]

Thanks for posting the numbers. For two of the three metrics it looks like the Xbox 360 is about 3X the iPhone 5S. IIRC at launch Apple called the iPhone 5 graphics "console quality" and it looks like they're sort of in the ballpark, but they still have a ways to go to match the previous-gen consoles.

Still, not too shabby for a tiny device that fits in your back pocket.

Definitely. And it's only going to get better!

 

[asiga]

Sorry for reliving an old topic, but I see this game is still delayed. I disagree with most posters in the thread. To my knowledge, iOS doesn't have any AoE-like game. Moreover, all strategy games I found for iOS don't work offline (they aren't strategy games, but MMO, which is another category) and you cannot play against the computer (with some exceptions like Tank Battle 1944, but it's only war strategy, you cannot build your empire).

So, no matter if you like 1997 graphics or not, this would fill a gap in iOS games, because, honestly, I don't see any alternative game right now