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.
History of Western role-playing video games
"Times of Lore", designed by Chris Roberts and released by Origin Systems in 1988, introduced the action-adventure and action role-playing game formula of console titles such as "The Legend of Zelda" to the American computer RPG market. "Times of Lore" and "Dungeon Master" went on to directly inspire several later Origin Systems titles, including "Bad Blood" (1990), "" (1990) and "Ultima VII" (1992). "Ultima VI" made some major changes to the "Ultima" formula, including a constant-scale open world (replacing the unscaled overworld of earlier "Ultima" titles) and a point & click interface.