When comparing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare vs Age of Empires II HD, the Slant community recommends Age of Empires II HD for most people. In the question“What are the best multiplayer games on Steam?” Age of Empires II HD is ranked 2nd while Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose Age of Empires II HD is:
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Minimal graphics' requirements allows the game to be accessible to just about anyone
This game was released in 2007 and is still played by thousands online. As it is an older game, you don't need high end hardware to play it. This is great for a lot of people as the requirements that need to be met for minimal settings is quite low.
Pro Great mods are available
Several Tactical Realism mods, and a fantastic Paintball mod that is sure to be a LAN gaming hit. (But you may need to set up a dedicated server for it).
Pro There are a ton of modes to play, with multiple and varied game types, which should change up the gameplay enough to keep things entertaining
There are a number of game types to play in the game including Team Deathmatch, Free for all, Domination, Sabotage and Search and Destroy, making for lots of variation in gameplay. This keeps things fresh for the player as there is a lot to do and explore.
Pro You can easily add a bots mod, in order to extend co-op play
You can get a mod that can be used if you host a server, adding bots to your team and that of the enemy, thus allowing for larger offline battles.
Pro Good dedicated server support allows for huge games
You can scale up to 200 players if a dedicated server is enabled.
Pro Awesome ambiance with a great finish
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Pro Runs on very old computers
As this game is quite old, requiring only a 1.2GHZ processor and 1 Gigabyte of RAM, this title will run on older PC's and laptops alike without issue.
Pro Facilitates the user's preferred pace
This game neither gives the impression of being thrown to the wolves nor that of being left stranded on an island. Whether you want to move slowly and steadily through the game or take things at a more heightened pace, Age of Empires 2 will allow for both (given a little planning).
Cons
Con Short single player campaign
The single player is quite short (though it is not the main focus of the title, as multiplayer is the main reason that one would purchase the game).
Con A lack of proper User Interface scaling makes a clunky UI worse
While this is a remastered edition of a classic Real-Time Strategy title, the UI was left largely unchanged. Selecting workers still prompts you to click buttons to bring up both economic and military buildings, then choosing whichever building you wish to construct. This is uninteresting design and makes the UI difficult to navigate.
On top of this, the game does not feature UI scaling. Since the game is bound to your current desktop display settings, the UI will adjust itself to match that resolution. This means if you play at 4K resolution the User Interface will be absurdly small, making it near impossible to see what buildings you wish to construct or what units you want to train. This is counter-intuitive design, for this era of modern gaming, and makes properly playing the game more of a hassle than it should ever be.
Con Age of Empires II HD is an unsuccessful remaster due to its outdated graphics
With the only notable upgrade being high resolution options, Age of Empires II HD fails at being a proper remaster. While higher resolutions give the game a slight face lift, the rest of the engine is left largely unchanged. This means the graphics we see in this remaster are nearly the same in its original 1999 release. Due to this, the game is grating to the eye and does not deliver on its high definition promise.