There are as many ways to tackle the difficult task of recreating the past in an electronic entertainment scenario as there are game developers. One giant name in the past re-telling gang hasn't been heard from in a long time. After six years Age of Empires is returning with its third installment. This time around, there are quite a few differences from previous engagements, but the spirit that made the first two Age of Empires games so brilliant is still present, somewhere in there.

The past never looked so great, or at least, not in the last 500 years. With Microsoft backing them, Ensemble Studios had the funding and know-how to put together one of the best looking games ever. Complete with HDR Lighting and many, many other acronyms for "damn pretty", this just might be the most beautiful anyone under an inch tall has ever looked. The lighting, of course, is beautiful, with explosion shine, sun shine, muzzle flares, and an innumerable amount of other lighting sources, one might worry that a single unit will be capable of crashing their system. This is not the case, as somehow Ensemble made this beauty capable of running on surprisingly low end systems with minimal problems.

Another amazing advancement in strategy games is the inclusion of physics. No, players won't be watching the same grate fall to the floor over and over again, but they might be attacking things and people simply to see them crumble and fly about. With the Havok physics engine imbedded in the game, this is a strategy game in which things shot by a cannon know it. For many, watching cannonballs soar through the air on the way to delightfully destroy some previously modern piece of architecture will hold as much anticipation as the best inning of baseball ever played. Buildings don't just light with an increasingly large flame, they crack and splinter with an almost visceral pain at each blow.