When comparing World in Conflict 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 singleplayer games on Steam?” Age of Empires II HD is ranked 22nd while World in Conflict is ranked 48th. 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While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time.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 Engaging story
Taking place during an alternate history 1980's, World in Conflict depicts a world in which the Cold War suddenly turns hot, with the Soviet Union invading Europe and the United States. With a majority of the US military staving off the Russian advance in Europe, a small, retreating force of United States Armed Forces is left charge of repelling the Soviet assault on American soil. The campaign takes the player to the upper west coast of Washington, the mountains of Colorado, lush green fields in France and the snow-covered forests of Russia, each mission telling a story of the world's desperate attempt to stop the Soviet advance.
Pro Balanced battles
Utilizing an enhanced rock, paper, scissors combat system, World in Conflict allows balanced in play, as this intuitive system is something most are familiar with in RTS games and will be easy to grasp.
Pro Customizable AI lets players have fun without friends
In skirmishes, you can set up different personalities for, and customize, the AI. Before matches, you select certain roles for the AI to take: Infantry, Armor, Air, or Support, as well as define their difficulty. If you wish to have the max player capacity (16), you can set up the AI to take over seven positions on your team, leaving you the role you wish to play as for that battle.
Pro LAN battles between friends and AI
World in Conflict features LAN play with up to 16 players, including AI opponents. This is ideal for large-scale battles among friends and the all-but-forgotten LAN parties of old.
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While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time.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 Lack of multiplayer ranks
No ranking system, which are prevalent in most online experiences, is present in World in Conflict, thus inexperienced players can too easily join in on matches with experienced players. Due to this, matches may be lopsided, especially if one team has more experienced players participating on it, or a team that always plays together.
Con Multiplayer taken offline
On October 6, 2015, Online Multiplayer through Massgate was to be terminated, however the server shutoff was postponed due to public outcry. Since that time, the game no longer connects to Massgate servers and requires players whom wish to experience the online Multiplayer component of World in Conflict to download a mod that re-enables multiplayer once more. Because of this, matches are scarce and is all but dead.
Con No challenges to manage
The designers have dumbed down the game to make it easier for new players to learn, however this makes it less rewarding to experienced players who are looking for a challenge.
Con Weak gameplay
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.