The recent Age of Empires IV technical beta gave players beyond the Age Insider programme their first chance to take the highly anticipated RTS game for a spin. It was fine, and I'm oddly pleased to discover that I'm just as mediocre at Age of Empires now as I was 20 years ago.
The beta offered PvP or co-op play against AI in up to 4v4 matches, with the English, Holy Roman Empire, Chinese, and Abbasid Dynasty available on a handful of maps. I had just as much fun playing around with the different civs as I did trying to actually win - it turns out building yourself a nice and tidy wooden wall is not the saviour you think it will be. That AI is also no joke either, even on intermediate settings.
I also found that an early rush can be killer. The English seem especially good at this, as they get access to some hard-hitting infantry earlier than the other playable civs, who have to make do with basic spearmen. Despite the community brouhaha over the art style, I found the graphics pretty enough (although I wasn't playing on max settings), and overall I saw nothing to make me especially concerned for the game's future.
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