GBAtemp book game club would appear to be at edition 57.The feature otherwise known as GBAtemp book game club is pretty much summed up as a suggestion of a game is made and then those that want can discuss parts of it or review things about it among the others in the thread. Unlike the Retro reviews thread this is less about us reviewing the title and more about the others that want to take part. The selections are also more focused on the GBA, DS and Wii with the occasional aside into systems the DS can emulate but between rom hacks, homebrew, leaked code and commercial releases there are some big libraries to get though. Equally this is not just about the best games for the system (those do feature heavily though) and games that tried something interesting in general or for the system can easily find themselves the subject of an edition.There will be occasion compare and contrast episodes, extra selection criteria or a certain game run might be posed but those will be mentioned if they apply to an edition.
#57- Age of Empires: Mythologies (DS)
An interesting release from a number of perspectives. The original age of empires series was a very popular real time strategy game for the PC back in the late 90's and early 2000's but by the time of release the series was nowhere near as well known as it was in the series heyday. Early on in the DS lifetime though there was a turn based strategy game sporting the Age of Empires name and this was part sequel to that and part handheld spinoff of the Age of Empires spinoff known as Age of Mythology. Both games had interesting twists on the Age of Empires formula and although this second title was accused of dumbing down by virtue of removing a few features some might instead say streamlined instead. At first glance gameplay would appear to be similar to either the DS ports of the Anno series or the DS port of Civilisation and although neither is entirely wrong we hold it does manage to carve out a niche for itself by virtue of the somewhat quicker play which some that like the idea of those other games but did not care for the execution might be on the lookout for.
Developers Griptonite Games are usually better known for film tie in games and doing the handheld ports of titles (they did several entries in the Assassin's creed franchise for the handhelds). Did they besmirch the legacy of classic franchise or did they prove they are more than just the developer of cheap and cheerful handheld ports?
gbagotw should get you other links in this series