I have been a fan of Age of empires II since it was released. The moment I knew a HD version was coming, I was thrilled and immediately bought it on Steam. Forgotten Empires was originally a mod, which was then incorporated into the game, and a handful of the new civilizations have their own scenarios and campaigns (no voice acting though. The unique units and technologies are brilliant. This adds a ton of replayability for random maps as well. The graphics are not enhanced greatly, but the support for higher resolution, such as the 1920 x 1080 Full HD which I play in, is superb. The Steam Workshop has many scenarios and mods which you can download and play with ease, so the possibilities of running out maps to play with are greatly reduced. 10/10 for this timeless classic.

What can I say about Age of Empires 2 and the Forgotten Expansion? I have played this game for the entirety of it's life span. It is STILL fun, still challenging, still motivates me and even sometimes moves me. It is a little dated, sure, but between the ease of playing, the fun of crushing your enemy or enemies with wave after wave of light cavalry, or creating numerous allies, this game is easily the best action rts in a historical setting. ( I say this because Red Alert 1 is an ALTERNATE history game.) For someone who adores this genre, and even casual players BUY THIS GAME! It is a must for anyone who enjoys a well crafted video game.

The Forgotten is the expansion pack that came along with Age of Empires II HD. It brings 5 new civilizations in play, creating and destroying balance on different map settings. If you loved the original game, you must buy this expansion as well. Besides civilizations, there are new and improved tech trees as well. The only minor flaw is that there is no voice-acting during the campaign. But if you can get over this aspect, the expansion is beautiful.

Age of Empires II HD, the HD port of "Age of Empires II: The Conquerors", is already amazing as is (and you can find my review on the "plain" version of the game on this same site), "The Forgotten" DLC adds a lot of new quality content which is also quite historical accurate on a 15 years evergreen game. You get 5 new civilizations and 7 brand new historical campaigns, 3 of them set in Italy, the real "Forgotten" in vanilla Age of Empires II. I'd like to talk about some minor flaws I noticed playing "The Forgotten" DLC content. A few campaign-maps look a bit "amateurish", nothing major ofc, it's just that they slightly differ from vanilla campaign style. New campaigns are missing audio localization, again, nothing major, but I kinda liked to listen to the pre-campaign-map and in-game speech. Minor flaws aside, if you enjoyed Age of Empires this package is a must have, otherwise maybe you're better with the plain HD port only, "The Forgotten" doesn't add new mechanics or such, just more amazing content.

I first played Age of Empires forever ago and it has aged well with time. The city building and army managing is still just as fun now as it was back then. One of my biggest gripes about this game is lake of diversity. While each faction has its own special unit that also has a special look and ability, most of your generic units all look the same and or have the exact same states. Unlike in the total war games where they try to portray each nation as accurately as possible in Age of Empires they try to keep the game as balanced as possible. That being said if you approach this game more like Warcraft 3 then in many ways it is far more expansive and diverse focusing on fielding large armies in formations and managing your food resorces.