Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
New WarChiefs Content! You'll find a slew of new sections here on PlanetAOE covering the recently-released WarChiefs expansion and there's a lot more to come. We want to see your recorded games, campaigns, scenarios and strategies, so submit them today! More >
WarChiefs Expansion Released The Aztecs, Iroquois and Sioux are upon us and EnsembleOnline is stirring with thousands of Agers trying to master the new civs as well as the old ones. Be sure to check out our content on the expansion and non-stop news coverage. More >
Saga Online Play this FREE game now and get a unique special unit!
Add Your Clan Profile Are you a member of a clan? Add your clan's profile in our new clan listings section.
Recorded Games Section Download games of your favorite expert player or upload your own to show to the community. Watching recorded games is the best way to improve your game and start winning on ESO.
Tuesday, 27 January, 2009 � Planet Age of Empires News
Bruce Shelley's Second to Last Developers Blog 22:48 PST | Xiphoid | Print NewsWe missed this a few weeks ago, but Bruce Shelley has posted his second to last Developers Blog. These blog entries have given fans a glimpse at what game development is like at Ensemble Studios. This edition covers a lot of topics on Halo Wars, ES' Xbox 360 RTS that just went gold a few days ago. Even though ES will shut down soon, it's great to see that Bruce Shelley and other ES staff continue to interact with the community. Here's a slice from the blog post:
Halo Wars on Schedule: Despite some bad weather in Dallas in both December and early January that sent people home early or even prevented them from coming to work (no snow plows or salt trucks means traffic becomes paralyzed when roads are icy) we have hit our milestones as work winds down.
We believe the game is in good shape and will be available in stores as promised March 3. At CES a release date of February 28 was mistakenly announced and also credit for development of the game was mistakenly given to Bungie, not Ensemble Studios. Corrections are being made where possible.
Halo Wars Coverage from CES: 1UP has some coverage from seeing the game prominently displayed at CES. We are encouraged to read how yet another journalist believes that our team did a great job with the controls and getting people into what is essentially a new genre of game for the console.
Saturday, 24 January, 2009 � Planet Age of Empires News
Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars Goes Gold 11:26 PST | Xiphoid | Print NewsCongrats to the ES team on its last title... Halo Wars has gone gold, meaning that the final version of the game has been sent off for CD duplication. Let's hope for stellar sales and review scores to vindicate how great a company ES was. Here's the press release:
Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios announced today that �Halo Wars,� the highly anticipated action strategy game based on the legendary �Halo� universe, is finished and sent to manufacturing! Created from the ground up for the Xbox 360 console and controller, �Halo Wars� combines a peerless control scheme and gameplay with an incredibly rich, epic story set 20 years prior to the story told in �Halo: Combat Evolved.� The result is a commanding experience that is a must-have for �Halo� fans and a title that is sure to become a classic amongst fans of strategy games.
As fans eagerly await launch day, a video documentary series announced today will explore defining themes of �Halo Wars� and give viewers a behind the scenes look at the game�s development and some of the people involved in its creation. The premier episode captures key elements that frame �Halo Wars� gameplay: the controls, perspective and strategy. The �Halo Wars� video documentary is available for download on Xbox LIVE and can be viewed at Xbox.com/Halo.
In addition, the recently announced Xbox LIVE public demo for �Halo Wars� will be available beginning on Feb. 5 at 2 a.m. PST in Xbox LIVE enabled regions worldwide. In the demo, players will be able master Ensemble�s groundbreaking control scheme in optional beginner and advanced tutorials or jump right into the action to experience the beginning of the �Halo Wars� story with the first two campaign missions. The demo will also include �Chasms,� one of �Halo Wars�� 14 multiplayer maps, wherein players can battle it out in Skirmish mode vs. A.I., playing either as the UNSC with Captain Cutter�s leader powers, or as the Covenant with the Prophet of Regret�s own unique abilities. Don�t forget to set your Xbox to download this demo!
�Halo Wars� is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and 16+ PEGI, and will be available starting Feb. 26 in Asia, Feb. 27 in Europe and March 3 in the Americas. For more information, visit Xbox.com/Halo or HaloWars.com.
"Glu remains focused on delivering high quality games to every mobile platform. In 2009, we will be delivering innovative games based on some of the most popular and highly anticipated brands in our portfolio," said Alex Galvagni, SVP, global product development and CTO, Glu. "Over the past year, our team has worked hard to incorporate the iPhone, Android and other new platforms into the framework of our existing development and deployment processes, and we have a solid lineup of games that will surprise and delight gamers with titles that are refreshingly fun and can be played anytime, anywhere."
...Age of Empires® III - The N-Gage version of the no. 1 historical real-time strategy game from Microsoft. (Available February 2009)
1. Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Red Alert 3
5. Spore
6. WoW Battle Chest
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
8. World Of Warcraft
9. Fallout 3
10. Call Of Duty: World At War
New York � Jan. 15th, 2009 � Sumthing Else Music Works, Inc., through its licensing relationship with Microsoft Game Studios, proudly presents Halo Wars� Original Soundtrack featuring the original music score from the action strategy game for the Xbox 360 developed by Ensemble Studios. The Halo Wars Original Soundtrack is released Feb. 17, 2009 to retail outlets through Nile Rodgers� Sumthing Else Music Works record label www.sumthing.com, and for digital download at www.sumthingdigital.com.
The Halo Wars Original Soundtrack 2-disc set features over 50 minutes of the adrenalized and sublime original score from the Halo Wars game. The music was composed by Stephen Rippy (Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology) with performances by the FILMharmonic Orchestra and Choir Prague. The second disc is a DVD with nine additional bonus tracks, nine 5.1 mixes of tracks from the music disc, two cinematic trailers and one behind-the-scenes video.
�For Halo Wars I wanted to write music that fit both the size of the story and its sense of discovery,� said Stephen Rippy, Ensemble Studios Music & Sound Director and Composer for Halo Wars. �Each of the various worlds in the game feels a little different; each of the main characters brings something to the mix. More than anything else, it was important that these tracks fit comfortably into the existing Halo universe. I hope they�ll take the listener to some new places as well.�
Ryan Tyack led out the Australian team at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney last night. Ryan's chosen sport is archery and he's pretty good at it; he was a reserve for the archery team at the Beijing Olympics. What's interesting is how he got into the sport.
"I just sat around playing Age of Empires all the time and my mum wanted me to do a sport and meet some kids," Tyack told the SMH. "So I chose either fencing or archery as Age Of Empires had swordsmen and archers."
In preparation of the studio's closure, we are going to be consolidating the forums on the site. The biggest change will come to the separate forums for each title. After the consolidation there will only be one Supremacy, Deathmatch, and Treaty forum instead of the current three.
On January 14th we will be starting the processes by making the "soon to disappear" forums read only. They will stay that way until January 21, giving everyone a week to archive posts.
1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Spore
4. Left 4 Dead
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
6. Fallout 3
7. Call Of Duty: World At War
8. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest
9. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp.
10. Bejewled Twist
Microsoft's Robbie Bach just announced during the company's CES keynote that a demo for Ensemble's swansong title, Halo Wars on the 360, will be made available for download on Xbox Live on February 5.
What's more, he announced that Halo Wars would be out on February 28, instead of the previously-announced March 3, bringing the US release into line with the rest of the world.
Finally, Bach took the time to assure the crowd that the Halo 3: ODST expansion will out in 2009.
Having conquered the world of PC strategy in the late 1990s, the Age of Empires series won lots of loyal fans when Age of Kings made its way to the Nintendo DS in 2005. 2008's Age of Empires: Mythologies was even more impressive but it still seemed to miss out on the breakout success that it ought to have enjoyed. It combined the same great empire-building gameplay of the original game but abandoned the realistic setting in favor of letting players lead armies of fantastic creatures from Greek, Norse and Egyptian myths into battle. Massive single-player campaigns and a wealth of multiplayer options made this a must for any strategy fan, but some gamers may have been scared off by the steep learning curve. That and the fact that there are no anime characters on the cover.
On the gaming side, Ballmer will talk up the two Halo universe titles being released in 2009, Ensemble Studios Halo Wars and Bungie's Halo 3 expansion Halo 3: ODST. And that's it. E3 this is not, obviously, as Microsoft has things besides the Xbox 360 on its 2009 slate.
Microsoft Game Studios released today a picture of the Limited Edition of Halo Wars, which includes a special in-game �Honor Guard� Wraith, a graphic novel, six Leader cards and a �Spirit of Fire� patch. As an additional exclusive, LCE owners will get early access to the in-game �Halo 3� Mythic Map Pack.
Wednesday, 24 December, 2008 � Planet Age of Empires News
Merry Christmas 20:05 PST | Xiphoid | Print NewsPlanet Age of Empires would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Hopefully you'll get in a few games of AOE on your days off.
RSS Feeds
