Age Of Mythology Retold tilts for the modern esports crowd with changed god power mechanics

When I did my undergrad degree in the nowadays-blissful-seeming early noughties, I swore off videogames entirely. I sternly and sorrowfully turned my back on such hit releases as Shadow of the Colossus, Far Cry and yes, even, that PC gaming essential Half-Life 2, so as to spend 11-hour days boning up on Aeschylus and Samuel Johnson. Then, two weeks before my final exams, I somehow went out and bought Ensemble's Age Of Mythology.

I'm not sure why - blame the devil on my shoulder, I guess. It wasn't even a new release at that point. I managed to get good marks in the exams despite several nights of binge-playing, but what direction, in general, would my life have taken if I hadn't bought Age Of Mythology at such a fateful hour? Better or worse? Could I have been some kind of billionaire don with a Pulitzer by now, if it weren't for Age Of Mythology? These things keep me awake at night. Anyway, here's a little more info about the forthcoming reboot Age of Mythology: Retold, which broadly aims to turn this wrinkled titan of the strategy genre into a proper modern esport.

PCGamer have a crisp chat with Microsoft producer Earnest Yuen, who traces his career back to working as a QA on the very first Age of Empires. According to Yuen, Retold "is way beyond what we normally do for definitive editions", and is designed to play like how you remember Mythology playing, rather than how it actually plays today. "We want to build the game in your head," he said, which is a pretty common marketing line among both "remaster" and "remake" developers. I'm beginning to think we need to instigate some kind of sliding scale between "remaster" and "remake", showing the exact gradations that separate a loopy reimagining like, say, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth from a very expensive restoration project like the Halo: Master Chief Collection.

Retold builds upon graphics and engine changes made for the Age Of Empires 3 Definitive Edition, introducing flourishes such as ray tracing and unspecified special effects. But it also changes how the thing plays, increasing the population count to take advantage of the new technology, and giving you manual control over myth unit power usage. The biggest shake-up so far is that god powers can now be fired off several times a match - as with MOBA ultimates, they'll now have a cooldown rather than being once-and-done supermoves.

This particular change has been made with a view to making Retold more of an esport and woo the current Age PvP community, who are presently embroiled in the latest Hidden Cup tournament. "The god power change is both great for esports and for watching the game," said Yuen, adding "that anticipation [of the next god power usage] makes it much more fun to watch."

Also with a view to luring in esportsfolk, the developers are cleaning up the interface and getting rid of various Age Of Mythology exploits, though Yuen didn't go into specifics. "Those things need to be updated, if we don't patch those and fix those exploits the game will not be viable as an esports game," he said. "It's important we need to fix those things so our community can run the tournaments they love."

To return to my opening skit, do you have any similar Sliding Doors moments related to certain videogames? Any classic games bought at exactly the right or wrong moment that might have set your life on a different course? And while we're wasting our precious minutes and hours discussing such things, where exactly do you draw the line between a remake and a remaster?