A blast from the past: Age of Empires 2

Nothing shouts trebuchet like a walled wonder.

The chances are, if you have been playing video games for longer than ten years, you are well acquainted with the screenshot above. Age of Empires 2 marked a golden age for the RTS genre. It was at a time when thousands of nine year olds were tricked into learning history by the most popular exclusive of it's time. Parents and children alike finally met in harmony over what appeared in the eyes of an adult as a Medieval learning programme and in the eyes of the kids as a knight on knight bloodfest.

What was fun about Age of Empires? Within the game you were god. It allowed people to control other people in a very perverse way, with sweet looking graphics. The Sims had recently exploded, having exploited our inner power-freak already and Ensemble were following (in many ways) a similar route with their second instalment. How many of us can claim they didn't build jaguar pens on the 'create mode' and watch sadistically as villagers got torn apart. Or create opposing armies of thousands and make them charge each other, just out of curiosity or boredom. There's probably more wrong with a game like this than with Grand Theft Auto but under the glossy appearance of an educational experience, funnily enough no one seemed to care. Besides, playing a dark age tyrant is pretty fun.

Dictatorial undertones aside, Ensemble also did a beautiful thing by this game. It's difficult to listen to the theme tune without having to breathe a heavy sigh of nostalgia. It was so immersive, you could lose yourself for hours constructing giant cities, exploring the hundreds of units and buildings. The graphics were intelligently implemented and gave the game a look that still holds substance today. What's more, conquering an enemy would involve destroying their pain-stakingly created villages, one by one and for this reason was a savagely glorious affair. Nothing can beat setting each house alight, before laying waste to them all with a single round of flaming catapult fire. As a child, there was also plenty of information to soak in. You could stray from the action for a while to visit the history pages. Yes, to learn! Although I often spent more time wondering how an overweight king could outrun my best cavalry.

The recent instalments, although undoubtedly accomplished games, lack the pure brilliance of this little gem. Maybe it's time to start bringing back the old methods. Whad'ya say Microsoft?