"The new nationalities are great, but what impacts the game even more are their unique technologies, which influence the ways in which a civilization is played. For instance, when the Spanish learn Supremacy, their peasants' fighting skills increase such that they can survive longer as front line builders. There are also new units and technologies that almost everyone can get, such as the Hussars--the ultimate light cavalry." ...

"This is a rock-solid real-time strategy offering from folks that have a proven track record for providing historically accurate and fun strategy games. Its depth and long list of features will keep even the best empire builders and military strategists busy for months." ...

"Make no mistake, folks, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings is the current RTS monarch, reaching superlative heights of quality and fun. It accomplishes what almost every sequel sets out to do: keeps the fun stuff from its predecessor while fixing any problems and adding new stuff that doesn't make the game too complicated." ...

"[To] build up your civilization to its strongest potential is by no means a simple feat, despite whatever luxuries the game's elegant interface provides. The original Age of Empires was criticized for combining the pretensions of a complicated turn-based strategy game like Civilization with real-time gameplay mechanics that were borrowed from Warcraft II. But Age of Kings makes good on the original's promises by providing a huge, branching technology tree and a correspondingly profound depth of gameplay that rivals virtually all similarly themed turn-based games." ...

"One thing that disturbed me for a quite a little while about Age of Empires II is that, despite numerous complaints from... well everyone, each of the included 13 races are, on the face of things, pretty much the same. Fortunately, once I got into the game, I realized that this just isn't true anymore." ...