The sound of AoW was done well, but being a turn-based strategy game, sound was just not necessary. There are a wide variety of songs included with the game, and a built in jukebox to play them, but I preferred listening to my own CDs instead of the game's well made but uninspiring tracks. We cannot fault the game for its sound, but if there were no sound at all, the game would have been little worse for it.
AoW has what appears to be a strong multi-player aspect, unfortunately, there was nobody to play it with. It suffers from the terrible curse of the worst online games, it uses a web site service for game tracking, and in this case it's Heat.net. While Heat.net is among the better web game trackers, even the simpler in-game trackers are much better. One annoying thing was, even though AoW came out just a week or so before we did our tests, the version of Heat.net that came with the game was outdated so we had to spend a few minutes downloading a newer version. We shudder to think of what it would be like if we didn't have a DSL connection. The game also offers a play by e-mail feature, which we love the concept of but haven't tested.
In the end, Age of Wonders is an excellent, addictive and fun turn-based strategy game with great 2D graphics, fun game play and inspired level design. Its flaws are minor when compared to its ample strengths. I loved Warlords, the old classic strategy game, and Age of Wonders is exactly what Warlords II and III should have been. If you're into turn-based strategy, you should be extremely happy with Age of Wonders.
Jon Simon
Assistant Editor