There are hardly any fans of RTS games which have not spent tens of hours playing Age of Empires II. It was officially launched in 1999 as a heavily updated sequel of the original title released a couple of years earlier. The basic yet engaging gameplay was a total hit in the bullseye, and Age of Empires II quickly ranked next to mega-hits like WarCraft. The complex storyline and huge variety of units kept fans busy for months. Furthermore, it looked like the developer Ensemble Studios has struck a perfect balance between the detailed city management, soldiery units, and epic battle scenes.

No matter if you prefer playing campaign missions, single-player against AI, or multiplayer, you’ll most probably be completely captivated by the heroic saga development. Actually, this unique diversity presented in a rather simplistic way is what was driving users to keep playing. The monumental battles are the icing on the cake and will happen no matter if you are ready or not. Anyway, the developing studio knew that even the best RTS games need updates because otherwise, players will just go on with the next big hit on the shelves. That is why a sequel was released in 2002 with the help of SkyBox Labs disguised as Age of Mythology!

Although it attracted the attention of many players at the beginning, this title did not live up to expectations. Indeed, Age of Mythology is played even today without being much improved over the years, but most Age of Empires II fans just continued with their favorite. Perhaps that was why the company took another shot and released Age of Empires III in 2005. However, the same mistake was made, and the sequel was just too different. A precedent has been set as an outdated version continued to be preferred years after its initial release and despite several updated versions!

First Age of Empires II Update

In 2013, Ensemble Studios, with the help of Hidden Path Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios, released the long-awaited Age of Empires II HD version. It became playable on Steamworks, connecting thousands of players in epic multiplayer battles. Actually, the integration was the only notable difference in this high-definition update of the classic real-time strategy. And the graphics, of course, with significantly improved water reflections, building shades, and unit details.

Although many players highly ranked Age of Empires II: HD Edition, it again failed to deliver something valuable to the old masterpiece. Many users remained mesmerized by the 14-year-old version. Besides the visual appearance, we must mention the upgraded AI, several new trading cards and features, and better workshop support. However, the big boom was postponed for another time. And after a few minor updates, this moment finally came in 2019!

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Forgotten Empires and the publisher Xbox Game Studios finally achieved a major breakthrough in the final quarter of 2019. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition came as a fresh breeze for players nostalgic for the old days. The classic Age of Empires II gameplay was updated with a few additional civilizations widening the historical scope of the storyline. Some of the oldest European nations are now available, including Bulgarians, Lithuanians, and Tatars. Visually, the sequel is much better than everything we have seen so far – 4K graphics, significantly improved visuals (troops, buildings, and surrounding environment), and even more epic video elements.

Players and spectators (another new feature) are not capable of zooming in and out, including during battles and sieges. Besides the new civilizations, buildings, and military units, a new expansion was added without removing any of the previous ones – The Last Khans. Players can enjoy fresh and very well narrated campaigns. The music and voice sounds have been brought to another level as well, comparable with the newest trends. Overall, the game was finally brought to that new level that all fans have been expecting for years. We can’t say that Definitive Edition breathes new life into the Age of Empires II because the title as a whole has never lost its popularity. It’s just that the updates so far have been mediocre!

Great Multiplayer Experience

The Steam integration was transferred to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Only six months after the release of the final version, more than 50,000 subscribers have been reported. This shows how popular the title remains to be after 20+ years! The huge number of followers means that you don’t have to wait long to enter a multiplayer game. Servers are full of potential matches, so you only need to find a suitable lobby through the Multiplayer functionality of the game. It’s unnecessary to say that this aspect was also improved by Forgotten Empires and the other involved parties.

Conclusion

In October 2021, Relic Entertainment, World’s Edge, and Xbox Game Studios launched in a partnership Age of Empires IV! It’s a far superior game compared to Age of Empires II, or at least the commercials say so. The truth is that the classic RTS will never become obsolete. The real question is whether the new version will be at least half as successful or will be forgotten in just a few months. Back in 1999, the AOE2 created a dynasty, and today the title is stronger than ever!

2016 was… Difficult. I won’t go into detail here, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about how terrible and dreadful and no-good the last year was, so suffice to say, the tragic death of a beloved gorilla was the least bad thing that happened in the last 365 days. But hey, on the plus side, at least we got some pretty damn good retro games! The retro renaissance may have passed, but that still doesn’t mean we’re not going to get some titles which truly channel the spirit of the past or give modern concepts that good old 90s spin! I played a lot of retro-style games in 2016, and unfortunately a lot that I really liked (such as “Crypt of the NecroDancer” and “Darkest Dungeon”) didn’t quite make the cut, for one reason or another, but the three that I ended up picking are utterly fantastic! They’re classics such as:

3. Salt & Sanctuary

You love “Dark Souls”, right? Of course you do, who doesn’t like “Dark Souls”? Well, have you ever looked at “Dark Souls” and said to yourself “Hmm, yeah, I mean, this is pretty great, but you know what would make it better? If it was in 2D, with retro pixel graphics”? Well, the guys over at Ska Studios definitely did, and bless them for it! This game is often referred to on the Internet as a 2D “Dark Souls”, but its unique perspective provides a completely different style of gameplay which requires you to think in a very new way. And sure, it also has its fair share of challenges (the absence of a map, while not that noticeable in “Dark Souls”, can be very confusing in “Salt & Sanctuary” because of the lack of reference points), but honestly, if you like the brutal hack & slash series, you’ll like its 2D iteration too, and if for some completely unexplainable reason you don’t, then maybe all you need is a change of perspective!

2. Mother Russia Bleeds

I love this game. I love this game. I grew up on 2D brawlers like “Golden Axe”, “Streets of Rage” and “Maximum Carnage”, and as some of you may know, one of my most favorite games of all time is “Hotline Miami”, which I’m always ready to talk to you about. So the guys at “La Cartel Studios” were like “Screw it, let’s just combine these two and make all of Oliver the Retro Guy’s dreams come true!” And boy, am I glad they did. The game is exactly as awesome as it sounds! It’s delightfully messed up, with creepy, twisted and violent visuals that are able to remain dark while still being completely over the top. Its controls are tight and responsive, and when you die it’s always your own fault, not to mention the awesome new “Nekro” mechanic brings a whole new element that’s not found often in 2D brawlers. Add to that what’s probably the best soundtrack of the year and you’ve got a winner!

1. Stardew Valley

I fell in love with “Mother Russia Bleeds”. I really, really did. It’s one of my best games of the year, period. But… How could I not give the number 1 spot to “Stardew Valley”, a quiet, peaceful game about farming made by one person which, nonetheless, managed to capture the hearts of gamers worldwide? Don’t get me wrong, the game is fantastic – its writing is on-point (even though there’s no story to speak of), its atmosphere is spot-on for a relaxing game that will always bring a smile to your face, its mechanics are well-thought out and well-implemented, there’s a lot to do in the game already, with even more things already being added… But the fact that, on its own, “Stardew Valley” is fantastic isn’t the reason why it’s on the list. The reason why it’s there is because this game, which, again, was made by just one guy (Eric Barone), managed to top Steam’s charts and become the ONLY 2D game to make in the top 40 best-selling PC games of 2016. Wow. Despite starting out as a tribute to the classic farming series “Harvest Moon”, I think it’s fair to say that in many ways “Stardew Valley” surpasses it, and I can’t wait to see what else the developer has in store for us!

Throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, retro culture seemed EVERYWHERE! We were getting retro game after retro game after retro game, various old properties that were famous in the 80s and 90s such as “Transformers” and “GI Joe” came back for an encore to astounding success, hell, even music genres that were popular 20-30 years ago (such as techno and disco) began seeing a resurgence! For a while, it was all about retro, retro, retro, prompting many people to jokingly ask “What year is it?” when faced with so much media that would’ve felt right at home a few decades ago. Games like “Shovel Knight” and “Super Meat Boy” look and feel like they came from a different era, while other titles such as “Hotline Miami”, “Retro City Rampage” and “FEZ” are filled with so much love for the 80s and 90s that one just can’t help but feel nostalgic for days gone by when playing them. The same goes for movies and TV shows – “Drive”, which directly inspired the aforementioned “Hotline Miami”, would feel right at home if it was released as an 80s low budget pulp thriller, and then of course there’s the smash hit series “Stranger Things”, which is essentially the 80s Stephen King adaptation that never was. And this is without listing the dozens upon dozens of revivals of franchises from our past, such as “Star Trek”, “Planet of the Apes”, “Terminator”, “Robocop”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and many, many more.

But in the last few years, the wave of retro things seems to have stopped. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s still occasionally an awesome retro-inspired project that catches our attention (such as “Stranger Things”, as well as Oscar nominee “Mad Max: Fury Road”), but for the most part the media just seems to have moved on from this trend. Looking at the list of upcoming videogames for 2017, for example, only two of the announced games have a retro inspiration – “Shenmue III” and the Castlevania-inspired “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night”, both of which were brought to life thanks to the original franchises’ creators asking for fan support on Kickstarter for one last hurrah. The same goes for movies – the majority of movies that are coming out in the next few years are part of established franchises, with the few that bank on nostalgia (e.g. “Trolls”) being very far in between. Why is that?

One of the biggest reasons why studios are being more cautious with retro stuff is because they’re simply not as profitable as they once were. Let’s look at two of the most anticipated retro products of 2016 – the “Ghostbusters” remake and the game “Mighty No. 9”. “Ghostbusters”, despite a very controversial marketing approach from the studio which sought the help of vocal feminists to label everyone who disliked the movie as a misogynist, still only made $226 million on a $144 million budget, and while initially that may seem pretty great, keep in mind that the budget listed here is only for production and doesn’t include the massive marketing campaign, so the real estimate should be close to about $300 million cost, which means that “Ghostbusters” actually lost money. While I don’t have any sales numbers for “Mighty No. 9”, I do have its reviews, and, as I’ve mentioned before, they’re not that great, with an average score of around 5/10.

But the lack of success for these otherwise massively high profile projects is only a symptom, not a cause. In order to be able to properly answer the question of why retro is not doing too well and gradually disappearing, we need to discover just why it was popular in the first place. And the reason for that is simple – the people who were kids in the 80s and 90s were adults in the 2000s, with disposable incomes. Thanks to the Internet, their nostalgia for the shows they watched and games they played as children reached the ears of the people who actually have the power to bring them back, and so they did. But as the market got saturated by these “retro” properties, a HUGE number of which weren’t really all that great at all (I genuinely fail to think of a single movie reboot of an 80s property that was any good, and many independent game makers opted to use “retro” graphics for their games to cut costs even when they weren’t appropriate). Today, we’ve got our fair share of retro stuff, and we don’t want any more. Instead of looking at the past, we’re looking at the future.

In 2008, “Iron Man” blew people’s minds with the promise of a shared universe between numerous movie franchises, but it wasn’t until 2012 when “The Avengers” hit that this promise was actually fulfilled, and we saw the heroes of 4 movies teaming up to stop a bigger threat. Since then, we’ve learned what the Marvel Cinematic Universe holds for us all the way up until 2019, and the same can be said for the DC Extended Universe, which started in 2011 with “Man of Steel”. Numerous studios are announcing their projects way ahead of time, sometimes without even having a star or a director (we had a release date for a “Captain Marvel” movie way before ANYONE had signed on to work on it). Hell, even franchises based on nostalgic properties, such as “X-Men”, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” are announcing massive cinematic universes spanning the rest of the decade. Perhaps the reason why retro isn’t as prevalent today as it was in the past is because audiences have stopped looking towards the past and have begun looking at the future.

Today on RetroRaunch we’re doing something a little bit different! Retro has always been in our name, and gaming has always been in our blood – so I think it’s absolutely time for us to talk about retro games! Honestly, I’m rather surprised that we’ve never mentioned them before, especially considering just how popular retro gaming is these days. I mean, seriously, everywhere you turn you see people playing retro games or playing games inspired by retro games! It’s insane! Just a few days ago we saw the release of “Mighty No. 9”, a, sadly, very disappointing game inspired by the classic “Mega Man” franchise and made by the same guy who created “Mega Man”! Additionally, we’ve had games like “Axiom Verge” which pay tribute to “Metroid”, “Yooka Laylee” which pays tribute to classic “Rare” platformers, and “Hotline Miami”, which is basically the NES game that every kid wanted to play. My point is that everyone remembers the classics and tries to emulate them… But what about the retro games which flew under the radar? What about the ones that you don’t see tributes of? Well, you can see this article as my little tribute to two games from my childhood which you may not have tried, but should!

Shadow of the Ninja

What if I told you that the best ninja-themed game on the NES isn’t actually “Ninja Gaiden”? It’s true, I swear! While “Ninja Gaiden” was quite revolutionary, with its tight difficulty and awesome cutscenes, I don’t think it’s nearly as fun or imaginative as “Shadow of the Ninja”! The story is simple – in the future, an evil dictator has taken over the US and turned it into a dystopia. You play as a ninja who emerged from the shadows intent on stopping the dictator’s army of robots and cyborgs and eventually sticking a blade straight through his heart! The levels are incredibly diverse and imaginative, and they actually tell a coherent narrative as you start off on the ship which takes you to the US (from Japan, I presume), move through the docks and make your way to the dictator’s fortress. The bosses are truly some of the best, most creative I’ve ever seen in an NES game, and the music, dear lord, the music… I actually still have the boss theme as my ringtone, no joke! And you know what the best part is? You can go through the entire game in co-op mode, “Contra”-style! If that hasn’t won you over, nothing will!

Final Fantasy Adventure

As amazing as the early Final Fantasies were, their storylines were fairly typical for the time – you rescue a princess, you break a curse, you take down an evil bad guy… It’s standard fare for an NES title, just told with lots of text. It wasn’t until the series went into the SNES era that the games truly started telling unique and interesting stories… Right? Well, nope! One of the best stories in a “Final Fantasy” game was actually on Game Boy, of all places! I won’t reveal much about the story, but suffice to say, it actually came close to making me cry more than once – that’s not a dramatic overstatement, it’s the absolute truth! The music is AMAZING, especially considering that the Game Boy’s audio chip wasn’t that good, and the open world is the biggest in any other game (yes, even “Pokemon”). And if you wanted even more proof about how awesome this game is, it got a direct sequel as a little game that you might have heard of called “Secret of Mana”. Yep, you heard that right, folks – one of the best SNES games of all time actually borrowed many of its mechanics and story elements from a Game Boy title! I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to experience the game after learning this, but since the Game Boy cart can be a bit expensive, I recommend that you pick up the remake, “Adventure of Mana”, on Android, iOS and PS Vita. It’s the same game, just with updated graphics!

Let’s take a break from our typical articles about retro stuff and videogames (please don’t boo me) and talk a little bit about one of my all-time most beloved activities – online gambling! If you’ve ever doubted my love for it, all you had to do was scroll down and look at some of the other articles I’ve written on the subject. Indeed, RetroRaunch was, at one point, strictly casino-themed before I began expanding into other territories! Shocking, but a fact nonetheless! I’ve got to be honest – I was inspired by a couple of other articles and videos I recently saw online on some sites and blogs hosted by my friends and thought I’d give it my own spin! With that said, let’s not waste any more time and get right down to it!

FACT: Online Gambling Industry Is HUGE!

In the UK alone, the online gambling industry has an estimated economic footprint of £5 billion, and that’s just in one country! It’s hard to calculate exactly how profitable the industry is worldwide, considering that not every country where online gambling is legal announces its profits from it, but generally experts estimate that the number exceeds $50 billion. That’s actually pretty close to the profits of other big industries, such as Hollywood! Keep in mind that we’re talking pure profits here, not earnings.

FICTION: Most Online Casinos Are Fake

Actually, online casinos have little reason to be fake – they’d be a lot more successful if they manage to hook their players over a long period of time rather than if they just drain them instantly. And besides, creating a fake business is, you know, pretty illegal in more or less every single country in the world, so, you know, there’s that! To make sure everybody’s playing fair, there’s independent organizations such as eCOGRA which test not only the various casinos, but also the games that are available in the casinos and then post the results online for everyone to see. If a game was rigged to assure you wouldn’t win, you’d know it!

FACT: You Can Get Help While Playing Online Casino

If you want to be good at blackjack or roulette, then it’s simple – all you have to do is buy a book or twelve, study everything you can and then hit the casino, but since online gambling is so different there’s not much you can do about it, right? Well, there may not be many books that you can buy, but there’s plenty of sites you can visit which are going to help you out! toponlinecasino.org.uk, for instance, is great for both beginners who are looking for a good place to start and for more experienced players in need of some new knowledge. This example gives lots of insight on how to play roulette online properly.

FICTION: Online Casino Is Impersonal

It’s true that there’s nothing quite like visiting a real casino with a group of close friends and spending a fun night there together, but online casinos still manage to capture at least part of the human interactions, if you know where to look. The so-called Live Casino allows you to play against a real, human dealer who’s being broadcast live to you over the Internet, and will thus respond to your commands and even your chat messages!

I’d really love to see how THIS one happened… Apparently someone somewhere, probably while sipping on vodka (there’s no way a sober man can possibly come up with this) said “Hey, you know what part of Russia needs a large casino resort? The far east, right next to North Korea”, and someone else was like “Sure, that sounds like a great idea”, and then a bunch of more people agreed to it and began constructing a casino in one of the harshest environments on the planet. This can’t possibly be the best way to do it, can it? Either way, it’s officially happening, and Vladivostok will become the host of a huge hotel and casino resort with about 800 slot machines and twice as many vodka bottles on the shelves around them.

In fairness, this isn’t the only big construction project to hit Siberia in the last couple of years. Russia has been attempting to “revitalize” the region for quite a while (which has plenty of resources, but almost no one there to take advantage of them – probably because in January the temperature falls to -18 degrees Celsius, and even in summer it never goes up to more than 20 degrees. Russia is hoping that these projects will add some positives to counterbalance the negatives of the harsh weather and remoteness of the area, offering huge visa exemptions and tax benefits to investors willing to build there.

The genius behind this construction is none other than Macau gambling tycoon Lawrence Ho (owner of casino company Summit Ascent), who has decided to invest half a billion dollars into the casino which would gradually rise up to $900 million as construction progresses. Yes, you heard right – Mr. Ho has decided to invest almost a billion dollars in constructing a casino in Siberia, of all places. Then again, maybe I’m wrong in thinking that this is a bad idea. After all, as Eric Landheer (director of corporate finance in Summit Ascent) says, there’s over 300 million people living less than a 3 hour flight away from Vladivostok, so with the right push this could attract quite a lot of attention from both Russia and China, as well as Japan and South Korea (where gambling is illegal). Attracting the Chinese market seems like a particularly wise idea – as Macau has shown us, Chinese businessmen give a whole new definition to the term “high rollers”, and now that Macau’s recent crackdowns have scared a lot of the gamblers away Russia could become their new home. The question is, would a casino be enough to warrant a vacation to one of the coldest inhabited places on the planet? I suppose it all depends on just how good the casino resort, titled “Tigre de Cristal”, will turn out to be, and also how many other notable tourist attractions will join it in the region.