Age of Empires III combines amazing graphics, gameplay, and an interesting storyline to make it the ultimate RTS.

User Rating: 9.6 | Age of Empires III PC
By Extelleron | Review Date:
To start it off, Age of Empires III really surprised me in just how good it is. I had played Age of Empires II and Age of Mythology and loved both of them, however even though I had fun playing the AoE III Demo, after Gamespot gave it only a 8.2 I got worried. Not that 8.2 is a bad score or anything, but I expected more out of a game I had been so excited about. However I decided to buy AoE III over F.E.A.R., which I was also considering, because F.E.A.R. just ran like crap on my system. Ive only had the game a couple of days now and ive already spent countless hours playing the single player and skirmishes, and when I get a little better I plan to take it online.

The graphics in AoE III are both incredible and disappointing. The actual textures for the units and buildings don’t look very good, good for an RTS but not that much better than Age of Mythology. In fact the game as a whole doesn’t look MUCH better than AoM. However its the water and shadows that are second to none. When you turn up the Shader settings to High the water is a sight to behold. The shadows are great too with ships in the water. Overall I give the graphics a 9/10, it would get much lower but the water is simply unbelievable. The textures are disappointing however.

The other part of AoE III graphics that are amazing is how interactive the buildings and ships are. In AoE III your units now hurl torches at buildings rather than slash at them with swords (FINALLY! SOMETHING REALISTIC), and after a bit the buildings will catch on fire, and as you further damage the building chunks will fly off exposing the inner structure. Similar things happen with ships, often if you hit a ship part of it will break off into the sea.

Despite the high end graphics, AoE III isn’t all that demanding. My setup is a Pentium 4 3GHz, 1GB of RAM, and a Radeon 9600 Pro and I’m playing at 1280x1024, everything at Max except for Anti-Aliasing at Low and Shadows at Low.

The core gameplay of AoE III hasn’t changed much from AoE II, and considering how good the gameplay was that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Several new features have been added, such as home cities. During play, you gain experience points by building up, gathering resources, or killing enemy units. Eventually you’ll get enough XP to receive a shipment from your home city. Shipments can be of units, resources, or upgrades. Some shipments can only be received once per game, while others may be brought infinite times. As you level up your home city, you get more powerful shipments.

The sound of Age of Empires III is also great. The sound effects are amazing, and I believe all the units have voice overs. The music is amazing too, as with previous Age games.

I would tell you more about AoE III but I just bought it 3 days ago, and haven’t got a chance to play much. However from what ive seen, and ive only scratched the surface, AoE III is a must buy for RTS fans. The graphics, physics, and gameplay are top notch and the game wont bore you quickly with difficult AI and also being able to play online against other players. I would highly recommend AoE III over any other RTS ive ever played.

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