Games in the PC-based Age of Empires franchise are gigantic and take most players weeks or months of intensive play to master. Scores of units to build, scads of technology to research, an intricate balance of opposing armies' strengths and weaknesses to figure out…it boggles the mind to think of all of the variables and permutations that must considered in the construction of such complicated games.

Trying to squish such massive game play and complex concepts into a handheld experience must have been an intimidating prospect for the developers tasked to create Age of Empires: The Age of Kings for the Nintendo DS. In the end they wound up doing the only thing that made sense: they started from scratch.

Real time strategy makes no sense on a handheld console, so they opted for a turn-based system instead. The Nintendo DS doesn't have the display size or processing power necessary to show upwards of 100 units onscreen at the same time, so single units representing 100 units each have been employed as a substitute. Similarly, sprawling towns with dozens of structures would have been impractical given the DS' tiny screen, so the developers created a system involving just one town centre with a limited number of adjacent buildings.

Now you might be tempted to think that these changes must have taken all of the fun out of the game, but that's not the case at all. It just feels like a different kind of game, perhaps best described as the offspring of a marriage between Age of Empires and Advance Wars that keeps most of the best traits of each of its parents.

For example, players still get to research technologies to level up their civilization, a la Age of Empires. You advance your archers' ammunition from standard to flaming arrows, add murder-holes to castle walls to help repel invaders, and develop new forms of armor scaling to better protect knights and their horses.

And we're still provided a vast array of unit types that have widely differing strengths and weaknesses. Arbelests' arrows are deadly, but these units can't move and attack in the same turn. Trebuchet catapults have incredible range and power, but must be kept safely behind the front lines, lest they be wiped out in a single turn by a group of paladins or champions. And treat monks with respect -- they may not be much of a force in battle but they stand a good chance of converting an opposing army's weaker willed units to their side if they can get close enough.

The turn-based combat system, on the other hand, feels much more like an Advance Wars game. Each unit has a specific move distance and attack range, and can take advantage of terrain bonuses, such as the defensive cover afforded units in woods and the sight benefits realized by climbing a mountain.

Age of Kings isn't quite a lengthy as its forebears, but it's still pretty impressive for a handheld game. Working through the five historical campaigns will take most players in excess of 25 hours -- a number that can grow significantly should players choose to investigate the game's many one-off skirmishes. And if you have a DS playing partner who also owns a copy of the game then its longevity could, for all intents and purposes, be infinite as the two of you explore Age of Kings' impressively deep ad hoc multi-player functionality.

The only real criticisms that can be leveled at Age of Kings have to do with presentation and interface.

The bottom screen shows the map, displayed in three dimensions from an aerial view, while the top panel alternates between displaying unit information and showing short battle movies. No complaints with the top screen, but it's often difficult to distinguish units from one another on the bottom screen. The vain attempt at 3D just causes units to blend together when in a group, making it very hard to select the proper unit. Worse, Majesco's use of the DS' touch screen is terribly clumsy. It's often nearly impossible to select particular units out of large groups, forcing you to switch to the d-pad so you can cycle through individual squares on the map.

Both problems could have been easily resolved had they simply included a top-down map option. Nope.

But the wonderfully well-balanced and strategic game play easily outweighs occasional problems with interface and graphics. One of the best turn-based strategy games seen in a long time, Age of Empires: Age of Kings is a surprisingly worthy entry in the venerable Age of Empires franchise.