Age of Empires III

[Chroelle]

Well I got the game cheap on an internet auction a couple of weeks ago, and I have played it over. I think the storyline and the way the set it up is great. I think the game plays good, but there might be a reason for that...

It is not that far from the AOEII launches... So many years later and what they cook up is almost identical. They try to sell the game on the new graphics engine which will prove more realistic than ever... Well yes it does look cool when a ship or a house crumbles, or when a soldier goes flying after taking a direct it from a cannonball... BUT And this is a big BUT!!!! How come that after so many years, you can still only support 200 people under your flag? How come Cossacks and Medieval lets you move armies in tens of thousands around on a map and AOE still only lets you have 200 soldiers (if you kill off all of your settlers to get maxed out on soldiers).
Also I am thinking that it is weird that a totally new game still lets me beat it with two against me on the hardest difficulty, hands down.

Dont misunderstand me...the game is great... just as it was great lots of years ago. I want more... How come there can only be two teams in a skirmish...Why cant I control and indian tribe (heck I could do that in the last prequel...) Why is there a limit to the amount of towers that I can buy? Honestly....With a more realistic physics engine embedded in the game I wonder why they hang on to a so unrealistic touch as that.

The addition of a home city is a good touch, and with the whole card-deck as a fun thing to play around with. Again some short comings with that but they can be signed off as beginners mistakes. This is new, and engineous, so I am forgiving. I do think the home city should be more interactive and you should be able to see it grow with your own eyes...

I do recommend the game to anyone who liked the prequels or this type of game in general. But dont go and buy it full price. Find it at a used game store or on the internet auctions. I am looking for the expansion "Warchiefs" now, and I hope it brings more things into the game. Hopefully it will do the same as other expansions have done in this series before, and up the population limit!

[spanek]

Even though I am a a huge fan of RTS (from the time of Dune II) games, I never liked the AOE series or anything Microsoft gave to this genre. There is only one game that I don't get tired of playing... Starcraft!!! It is the best RTS (in my opinion) ever. Too bad that Blizzard is putting all of its money on WoW and hasn't released Starcraft II yet.

Another game that I propose, which I started a few days ago, is C&C 3. I played at first and I was cursing EA of having the same things all over again. But after the 8th mission everything change!!!! I will say only one thing... 3rd tribe in the game!!!

[Railwaymodeler]

I only got to briefly play AOE3. A customer dropped by his system and had AOE3 in the CDROM drive. I played it a bit on the computer to 'test the video capabilities' of the system.

It seemed a little different from the regular AOE series, and I liked AOE II a lot better myself, to be honest.