I thought AOE II was a good game. You can start out as any one of various civilizations (Vikings, Chinese, etc.) and play in different modes. My favorite, well, who doesn't like it, is the multiplayer moder. You can also play on a skirmish, tutorial, or campaign with Joan of Arc or The Holy Roman Empire. The graphics were good for a game made at the time. The gameplay can get repetitive and once you get to a certain point on campaign mode, well, it just becomes blatanly impossible to get to the next level. The sounds were not all that great and were pretty repetivitve. You'll here the same music over and over again, which annoyed the heck out of me and made me turn it off.

Bottom line: Buy or not? Buy...see if you like it, i pretty much did.