Max has loved video games ever since he booted up his friend's N64 and played Mario Kart. He quickly spent all his allowance on any game he could get his hands on, and spent hours playing a dusty PS2.

The name Age of Empires is practically synonymous with the real-time strategy genre. It’s hard to overstate the series's influence on the genre at large, but in 2002 Ensemble Studios took a crack at ...