Nothing new, but still, a lot of fun. If you like a good RTS, then this game is for you.
Contents:
Intro/Story
Gameplay
Graphics
Sound
Pros/Cons
Conclusion
Intro/Story 4/10
Age of Empires 3 has one of the most retarded storylines I have ever played through. It consists of three different campaigns.
In the first one you are a fat old Scottish knight like person with the most annoying accent you have ever heard, taking place in the Medieval-like age. Your main enemies are the Ottoman’s and your goal is to find and get to the “Fountain of Youth” before they do…yes, that’s right, “The Fountain of Youth”. All my hopes of this being a nice realistic and historically accurate game shattered. Although playing through it isn’t quite bad, it’s just quite retarded. There is even a mission where you have to find six sunken Spanish treasure fleets so that you can dig up some coins and pay a woman to let you pass. There isn’t much flow either.
In the next campaign you play as his Great-great grandson. This time your uncle has been kidnapped and you must rescue him, all the while making an allegiance with Native Americans and combating the English. This campaign is more believable and is a great deal more fun, especially the fact that you don’t have to listen to that guy’s accent.
The third and final campaign is the granddaughter of the previous guy. This campaign doesn’t really have much of a storyline, from what I can tell you are fighting to protect the rail roads and your allegiance with the Native Americans.
Gameplay 9/10
The gameplay aspect of AoE3 is where the game really shines. From storming a village with an army of musketeers to bombarding it with cannons, it’s all extremely fun.
A new element to this game is the Home City. As you progress through the game you get experience points, which can be used to upgrade your home city or purchase new “cards”. These cards can range from units to resources. Let’s say you purchase the “10 Musketeers” card. On your next game you can go to your home city and click on that card. In a few moments the ten musketeers will spawn from your town center. It’s a really convenient concept, allowing great strategies. For instance, you can purchase many of the unit cards and when the game starts you can use all of those cards and you will automatically have an easy army. The only problem is that some of the cards require you to be in a higher age (referring to time/tech periods).
Another new concept is the explorer character. Basically, this person is the hero and has a few powers that he can use, such as instant kill. If your hero were to fall in combat he will just lie there moaning and groaning and rolling around until you pay a ransom at your town center of come and rescue him yourself.
Since, I have already more-or-less described the story oriented aspect of this game I will focus more on the skirmishes and such in this section. There are 8 different playable factions. Russia, Germany, England, France, Ottoman Empire, Spain and the Dutch. Each faction has their own advantages and disadvantages and special things that are only available to them. For instance, Russia can build infantry units very quickly and in huge masses, but they suck, so it all evens out.
When you’re playing a skirmish it’s a great deal of fun. Like all of the AoE3 games you must gather resources. The resources have been simplified in this game and are now down to stone, lumber and food. Now, instead of dragging the acquired resources back to a storage house the villagers will just mine/chop/pick away until the source of the resource disappears. The resources just go straight to your points. This is obviously much more convenient, but I prefer it much more the other way (previous AoE games) at least that had a gram of realism to it.
Now, when you’re building units you can build them in packs of five. It takes just as long to build one unit as a pack of five (you can have less but five is the maximum). This is a lot more convenient then in the previous versions where you would build one soldier at a time, which was quite unrealistic and took way too long.
If you are on a team map where you and your ally is against two other teams, you may all work together. If you press the enter key you will get a set of dialog options. Such as “work on defense” or “attack here”. Your enemies will also work together and can be quite smart. For instance, one time I was playing both of the enemy armies attacked me from each side, the sides which were most unprotected. I was quite surprised at the intelligence of the CPU. If you are attacking the red team and they are in trouble their ally will come to help, sometimes even retreat from their attack. Unfortunately your ally isn’t quite as smart.
Graphics 9.5/10
The graphics in this game are superb. The terrain, character models and water detail are all spectacular. I especially liked the water effects. The only rebuts I have are when you are zoomed in as much as possible you can make out a few jagged lines on the character models, but that’s not really much of a concern seeing the fact that its surrounding environment is so good looking. Other than that, there’s not really much else to say.
Sound 10/10
The sound is great and very believable. There really isn’t anything wrong with it and it all sounds genuine and in place. The gun shots, cannon fodder, sloshing of the ships it all sounds real and really makes you feel as though you are part of the game.
Pros
Great skirmishes
Extremely fun battles
Cannons rule
Exceptional graphics
Great AI
Cons
Stupid storyline
The guy’s damn accent
Allies aren’t too smart
Conclusion
In conclusion, Age of Empires III is a great game and will provide you with a great deal of fun. Excluding the story aspect of the game there is nothing really wrong with it and is a great deal of fun. You will find yourself playing the skirmishes for a really long time, they’re just so much fun. There’s just something missing in the game, something that would make it exceptional, I just can’t quite pinpoint what that is…