Age of Empires

I've been giving this a bash recently, grabbed it at £19.99. I do like the overall presentation. The medievil/semi historical touch is very nice, on a handheld that has so many saccharin cutesy RPG nonsense. I like the combat animations too, very nicely done, not cartoony, not too pixellated that you can't get a feel for whats going on. My biggest criticism is the crowded nature of the game in play. Get a few isometric 3d sprites next to each other and you're in trouble to find which one is which, without having to skim over them individually to see their info in the top screen. Target selection does seem tricky, and can lead you to do a dance with the redo menu over and over before you get it right. But I'm using the stylus, not the d-pad and buttons. Taking a village for instance requires you placing iso 3d units in front and behind, and then defensive units spawn on top of the 3d building sprites and it just looks overly messy. Cavalry units taking up the most space and making it even more difficult to see whats going on. Its nice to see the iso sprites moving about and what not, but sometimes I just want an overview of what units are where so I can think about the strategy and not worry about placing wrong units in wrong positions etc.

I must say it has some clout for a handheld strategy game. And even the initial tutorial levels give you something to think about (specifically stopping the battering ram knocking down your church). Worth a punt for that sort of price. But it does have some interface issues, with crowding on the screen. Perhaps I'll try it without the stylus and see if its less frustrating?