Age of Empires
"Age of Empires", released on October 26, 1997, was the first game in the series, as well as the first major release from Ensemble Studios. It was one of the first history-based real-time strategy games made, utilizing the Genie game engine. GameSpot described it as a mix of "Civilization" and "". The game gives players a choice of 12 civilizations to develop from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The expansion pack, "The Rise of Rome", published by Microsoft on October 31, 1998, introduced new features and four new civilizations, including the Romans. Although the two games had contained many software bugs, patches resolved many of the problems.
Jade Empire
"Jade Empire" was developed by BioWare, after it earned critical and commercial success with "Baldur's Gate", "Neverwinter Nights" and "", RPGs based on pre-existing "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Star Wars" fictional universes. The game, which began development in May 2001, was the company's first original RPG intellectual property. The concept of "Jade Empire" had existed with company founders co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk since they started BioWare alongside the plan which would lead to "Baldur's Gate"; called a "dream project", their aim was to fulfill player fantasies of becoming a powerful martial arts master. The game was first developed and released for the Xbox. Zeschuk later felt they should have held the game back and developed it for the console's successor the Xbox 360.