Age of Empires CGW Demo Download Available!

MrFlibble

Litude posted the news at the RGB Classic Games Forums that the very rare, exclusive Computer Gaming World Magazine Demo of Age of Empires has finally become publicly downloadable thanks to Matt Pritchard, an ex-Ensemble Studios employee. Get it here.

The demo uses a late beta build of Age of Empires and contains a unique five-mission Egyptian campaign that is different from the Ascent of Egypt campaign in the full game.

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Volgin · Commander **Joined**: 07 Mar 2009

Does it have wololo in it?

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gufu · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 10:33 pm Post subject:

Nice to see CGW to have some kind of legacy after it's death.

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DUNK!

MrFlibble · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:26 pm Post subject:

Volgin wrote:

Does it have wololo in it?

Maybe, but I haven't checked it out yet Laughing

According to the info page I linked to above, one of the missions' objective is to convert an enemy cavalry unit with a priest, so probably yes. This demo is based on a pretty late beta build, so most features are already there.

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MrFlibble · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:48 am Post subject:

A bunch of screenshots from the demo have been added to the AoE Beta website. You can read more info about the demo here, here and also here.

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Orac · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:44 am Post subject:

It all looks pretty similar to the final version, though the Egyptian wonder looks slightly different.
I might have a look at these 'new' missions, though - even if only for nostalgia's sake.

I would also be interested in any similar demo to AoK - IIRC I've seen a few early beta shots which look substantially different to the final product, but I'm not sure whether they eve saw the light of day in any other form than screenies.

MrFlibble · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:49 pm Post subject:

Orac wrote:

I would also be interested in any similar demo to AoK - IIRC I've seen a few early beta shots which look substantially different to the final product, but I'm not sure whether they eve saw the light of day in any other form than screenies.

AFAIK, there was no special demo for AoK, but a rather buggy pre-release version was leaked and sold by pirates as the final version in Russia and some Asian countries. That version is buggy, but still can be found on the net I think, just google it (NOTE: I have no idea about the legality of obtaining the leaked beta, and in no way do I encourage you to download it, lest provide any download links). Other than that, the AoE Beta site contains lots of information and screenshots about the various alpha and beta builds of AoK.

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MrFlibble · Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:03 pm Post subject:

It is interesting that the regular trial version of AoE does not reject the CGW demo campaign, making it playable in a higher resolution (an presumably with less bugs) if the full version is unavailable (the demo campaign can be downloaded as a separate file here). Since one of the exiting splash screens in both CGW demo and the Trial version depict an Egyptian city, it would be reasonable to suppose that the demo campaign was initially intended to be Egyptian, but then it was changed to Hittites, probably for the reasons of variety (since the tutorial campaign in the full game is also Egyptian).

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