Microsoft Age of Empires III Collector's Edition review:
5 stars (Great Game) - This is a great game! I haven't had any problems playing LAN games (on my WGT624 v2). The home city idea is kinda weird but it is growing on me.
4 stars (Surprisingly Ordinary) - This is not a bad game. The graphics are beautiful, and there certainly is fun to be had here. However, I was surprised how ordinary this game really is. I expected this to be drastically better than previous installments of this series or even other strategy games, and it's not.
I just played Age of Mythology within the last 6 months. When I played that game, I though "gee, this is pretty good considering how old this is...". Well, not much has changed in Age of Empires 3. At least not as much as I would have expected. Sure, the graphics are awesome, but you will need a pretty decent computer to run this game. Also, while the game is beautiful, it is almost as if they just put higher polygon models into the old game. You build a settlement and send out workers, and it is practically identical to AofM. The animations are very similar. Even the buildings look similar. Just with a lot more polish.
The physics in the game create some nice effects. Stuff is blowing up all over the place. This adds a lot to the experience. I expected the physics to have a bit more impact on gameplay though. As things are, entire sections of wall can come crushing down on an army, and they don't even notice.
As far as the main gameplay goes: As mentioned above, not much has changed. Little tweaks here or there. Those are more along the lines of changes, rather than enhancements. Some things they changed, I liked better before.
So while this is certainly a pretty good game with very high production values, it is also disappointing in many ways. There was so much hype around this game, yet it really isn't all that special.
The collector's edition is pretty nice. It comes in a big box and in addition to the game, there is a "making of" video, a short strategy guide (interesting read, but not a major strategy guide), and a very nice book about the art of AofE. And I think there also is a poster. I was happy to have bought the collector's edition, rather than the regular game.
5 stars (An excelent choice) - As a fan of this kind of games and an owner of previous titles and similar games like Command and Conquer and Empire Earth series, I can say this game is great, the visuals are amazing, and in some aspects this game is more realistic, for example:
An unit which uses a gun, in any preious game this unit will fire his gun even when the enemy is close in this one it will just take out a sword and use a diferent attack, also you can command your units not to use the gun and use its melee attack instead.
The visual are great, when a cannon ball hit a building or when you hit infantry and you see them flying around.
The game play is similar to this kind of games but you have to activate options to enable use of formations or diferent tactics.
I also the like the option where your home city sends you supplies, men, boat, artillery etc.
I have it running in my laptop and i have not have any single problem so far, and i am not using any patch i am using the game as it came from the box so i don't share this kind of comments where people say the game doesn't works, because it does :)
Get the game if you like this kind of games and if you have a computer which has the requeriments you won't be dissapointed |
