Age of Empires III – The Good, the Bad and the Just Plain Ugly! Il explain y this game ended up being not
On Oct 18, 2005 Microsoft released the North American version of it’s long awaited game “Age of Empires III”. Microsoft promised a whole lot that this game would be the most spectacular real time strategy game ever. My answer to this is: “Microsoft, what were you thinking!”
The Specs
Although Microsoft gave age of Empires a whole new style with better looking graphics, this game really is a hog for what you get. If you enjoyed playing Ages of Empires II on your Celeron or PIII, forget it! You need a minimum of a 1.4 GHz processor, 256 MB of RAM, a 64 MB video card, 2 GB of hard drive space and a decent sound card. Now to be honest with you, if you’re not using a NVIDIA video card, you’re going to need at least a 128MB video card. I’m telling you right now that I have a 1.9 GHz with 1 GB of RAM and a 128 MB video card and the game is slow. The recommended specs are, get this, a 2.0 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 256MB video Card and 3 GB disk space (not a game for everyone’s average PC). Now, I heard and have seen it run better on some systems versus others but it still does not change the fact that it’s a hardware hog.
Game Play
Well, if you have played Ages of Empires II then you’d better forget most of what you know. The interface, although not too hard to understand, takes about 1-2 hours to fully get the hang of it. The new game features are great and the player interface is very easy to understand.
Once you’ve mastered the interface and are about to control your units, the game play is quite simple and easy to use. The good side of Age of Empires III over it’s predecessor is that the new game features are a lot of fun. Call in re-enforcements, get special skills depending on what you do in the game and a couple more fun features. Story mode is not too much different from Age of Empires II except for the fact that you find yourself in the year of the discovery of North America. Cut scenes guide you through a very good story and throw you into an easy learning curve making the first couple levels pretty simple to play.
The Good
The game graphics are more 3D and the cut scenes are really incredible. When you go from a cut scene to the actual game play the transition is seamless. The game follows the same style of gamming experience as Age of Empires II, and is true to its nature as a RTS (Real Time Strategy). It’s pretty easy to get hooked to the game, if it doesn’t crash, freeze or run too slowly. And, the learning curve for a newcomers to Age of Empires is pretty short. Players will really enjoy the multiplayer mode which is one of the greatest things about this game. The multiplayer mode presents new advantages. The more victories you get, the better the equipment you get in the next game you play. Really and truly a great deal better then Age of Empires II as far as multiplayer goes.
The Bad
Okay, so you took a great classic Age of Empires II and wanted to make it better. That’s great! But don’t try to tell us that making the game a bit more 3D makes this a worthwhile cause to upgrade your PC. The game sounds are nothing to cheer about. The same background tracks will drive you nuts after the first couple hours of game play. In some parts of the game, your musket-equipped soldiers will have to fight a band of pistol carrying bandits. Now, I am not a firearms expert (although I have fired the C-7 and the lien field in cadets back in the day) but if I fire at a guy with a rifle, he is going to get hurt a lot more then if he gets hit with a pistol. The game really needs to think over it’s realistic-ness level.
The Just Plain Ugly
Well, I said it once and I’ll say it again; This game is a HOG. Not to mention it took them about a month to finally release the first patch for the game fixing some really bad bugs such as levels freezing, graphic glitches and more. There are still people out there reporting bugs, but then again, isn’t it expected? We are talking about a Microsoft game! Seriously, I find that this game gobbles up too much resources for what you get -- not enough bang for you buck. I’d wait and buy a copy for no more than $19.99 when it eventually goes on sale.
If you have a new computer system and want to play a good RTS this is a good pick. Even with it hogging all that power, I still liked the game. You’ll have to decide for yourself. If I am going to pay $49.99 for a game, it better be worth it!