Microsoft Age of Empires III

Graphics nice less entertaining...

Strengths: Microsoft did spend more time working on the eye candy and the new card system can grow on you.

Weakness: Units to similar for all countries not enough special abilities and walls kind of lame

I'm a big Age of Empires/Age of Mythology fan and was greatly anticipating the game. When I started to play obviously I was faced with a noticable difference in game play with the home city and card deck. so took a couple of games to figure it out and the whole XP thing was kinda foriegn to me. But wasn't till I got the hang of it and decided to try playing as other countries that I found there...
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I'm a big Age of Empires/Age of Mythology fan and was greatly anticipating the game. When I started to play obviously I was faced with a noticable difference in game play with the home city and card deck. so took a couple of games to figure it out and the whole XP thing was kinda foriegn to me. But wasn't till I got the hang of it and decided to try playing as other countries that I found there to be a lack of programming on Microsofts part. Might as well stick to one country and play it because their really isn't anything spectacularly different between em and the ships are kinda lame although cool looking you are limited to just a hand full and alot of maps dont really have any good water areas to have them be that usefull. Another thing i noticed is that no animals or indians attack wondering units . kinda lame and unrealistic. So over all was rather dissapointed by the lack of gameplay options and map selections. Hope this helps.

By ScRiPtDeCrYpTeR - Mar 13, 2006

Overall of very good game

Strengths: graphics and many more stuff that i can't remember

Weakness: You must have a lot of stuff in your computer for it work at its best, online play, game price

A good enough game and would lover to play it over and over again. One of my first PC games (sounds g**, I know). I found online play very frustating and prefer playing games against the computer. The Story mode was really good but for the fact that my PC does not have something which allows the ships and fights on the sea quick. Slows my computer down like hell and has a possibility of slowing...
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A good enough game and would lover to play it over and over again. One of my first PC games (sounds g**, I know). I found online play very frustating and prefer playing games against the computer. The Story mode was really good but for the fact that my PC does not have something which allows the ships and fights on the sea quick. Slows my computer down like hell and has a possibility of slowing the computer down. Overall a very good game which can be bought for AOE fans or for RPS fans. Its worth the money I spent although that was a lot.

By MasterShooter - Jan 2, 2007

Not Bad

Strengths: Excellent graphics, smooth and detailed

Weakness: Tutorial is not very helpful and the documentation is limited. Trial and error seems to be the expected method of understanding.

I found it slow to get started as there were a lot of new concepts, like the card system. However, the principles are quite clever and the more you play the more it makes sense. Fortunately, grouping, as in earlier versions, still works (select a group of settlers or military and use CTRL and a number, such as 1, to be able to select them quickly wherever they are using just that number). Sadly,...
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I found it slow to get started as there were a lot of new concepts, like the card system. However, the principles are quite clever and the more you play the more it makes sense. Fortunately, grouping, as in earlier versions, still works (select a group of settlers or military and use CTRL and a number, such as 1, to be able to select them quickly wherever they are using just that number). Sadly, this feature doesn't seem to be documented, but I confess I haven't read the manual through completely - dull. On the whole, though, the game seems excellent.

By stercorum - Nov 13, 2005

AOE 3 (PC)

Strengths: graphics, gameplay, new home city concept

Weakness: civilizations are fairly similar

This is the third installment in the Age of Empires series for the PC. The setting for AOE3 is the new world. You can play as the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Russian, German, Portuguese and Ottoman. AOE3 is a typical real time strategy game: you build settlers who gather food, chop wood or mine gold. They also build your building for you. With the resources, you then can build buildings and...
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This is the third installment in the Age of Empires series for the PC.

The setting for AOE3 is the new world. You can play as the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Russian, German, Portuguese and Ottoman.

AOE3 is a typical real time strategy game: you build settlers who gather food, chop wood or mine gold. They also build your building for you. With the resources, you then can build buildings and create military units. You advance through different ages enabling new technology, more powerful units and more buildings.

Some of the new concepts that AOE3 introduces are 1) Natives, which a civilization can ally with to get technology and native warriors, 2) trade routes, along which you can build trading posts and from which you can collect resources, and 3) home cities. Home cities are probably the biggest change for AOE3. Home cities allow you to send resources, weapons or units to your colony. As you gain experience during a game, you gain the ability to send a shipments from a home city. You have 20 different shipments that can be active for a game. As you gain experience points playing multiple games, you can unlock additional shipments. You will quickly unlock more than 20 shipments and you will need to decide what 20 you want to use. You can also create multiple decks of 20 shipments and then pick a specific one once you see the map and the other civilizations you are playing against

Unlocking shipments is limited to the civilization you are playing so you will find yourself playing the same civ for a while to unlock the better shipments.

The graphics are very good and the game play is fun especially in multiplayer. The single player campaign is OK, nothing spectacular. Single player skirmish games are fun too and give you a chance to practice before going into a multiplayer game. But the experience and shipments that you unlock in offline games does not carry forward to online games. So if you think you will eventually play multiplayer online games, I recommend doing it as soon as possible otherwise you will have to unlock everything again.

Overall I would recommend this game to any RTS fan.

By cheapfrag - Jul 1, 2008

Age of empires 3

Strengths: great graphics, fun gameplay

Weakness: NA

I think all up it was a brilliant game and deserves as much praise as it can get. Ensemble studios succesfully combined great RTS gameplay with absoulutlly brilliant graphics. The only possible shadow of doubt is that it may slow down your computer.

By cctheone - Jan 26, 2006