The first Age of Empires was great. The second one just plain sucked. Sure it has good graphics and an easy to use interface, but the game would always crash both of my computers. You can only play in 800x600 or above  which is a downside also. My computers are not old either, one is a 300p-2  160megs ram 17 inch monitor, voodoo3 etc. The other is a 450 amd k6-2 96  megs ram, Ati graphics, 15 inch monitor. I just wanted to put this warning  out to those who will be purchasing it. It may work fine for you, but I had  problems. It sure is not addictive as the first AOE. Buggy software! Blahh!  I am not anti Microsoft by the way.