Age of Empires III

"The King of RTS games is back, and better than ever!"

I have been a long time fan of the AoE games, ever since the first one. And after so many long years of waiting for 3rd installment, you can inmagine my excitement when I heard that it was coming soon.

Now, I have, have played it, and love it. Let's break it down...

GRAPHICS-10/10

Absolutly amazing. You must see it. Never has a RTS looked so good.

Now, the charater model up close arn't that spectacular, and when you upgrade a unit, thier appearence doesn't change too much, but they still look awesome anyways.

Now the backround...wowo, just wow. Full renderred 3-D, baby. The water looks real, everything looks so lively and fresh. I only wish all RTSes looked this good.

SOUND-10/10

Seeing is believing for the graphics, and same is true for the sound: you absolutly must hear it to believe it.

The backround music is nice and sets a good atmosphere for starting off your colony, and something new has been added: When you attack or are being attacked, the music track will cahnge to a more compelling, awesome soundtrack. It's a nice touch that really gets you in the mood for kicking ass.

The Age games have been known for being historically accurate, and the traditions live on here. Your unit's and villiger all respond in their native tounge, and it's a cool touch to have it so dead on(I don't know German and Russian and such, but I can make out everything that the Spanish civ. says, so I suspect that the others are accurate as well).

And the sounds of the battle is...amazing. Seriously. The cannon fire from mortars and ships bring a tear to my eyes, it's so impressive. I mean, I've had my volume only on 10 (10/75) and have had roomates come in and tell me they can hear the cannon fire through thir walls. Brilliant.

STORY- 9/10

Has the best Campaign so far, and a lot of great longitivity to it. Simply great.

GAMEPLAY 10/10

Wow...they manage to keep the same formula, but add completely new stuff. It's amazing.

It's the same game objective(build cool armies, slaughter each other, rinse and repeat) but so much has been added, it's hardly the same.

First off, you now have Home Cities. These send you shipments in the form of cards to the New World, once you have gained enough expierence in the game(this is earned by doing just about anything, while some are worth more than others).

New Cards can be unlocked the more exp. you gain, and you can build decks to fit with certain maps and conditions. This adda a whole new round to the gameplay, and I love it.

Next, instead of having 1 unique unit, you now have multiple. The ottomans have 5, while others(like the Germans and French) even have unique villagers. Never before has a game make each different civilization feel so different.

There are only 8 civ. this time a round, but the difference with the Home Cities and such make it where there will only be probally 2-3 civs. you get really good at and master.

There are, however, some balacing issues. Some civs., the French and Ottomans mostly, are broken; they are overpowered in one way or the other. The ability to get nice shipments of Jannisarys in Age2 lead to annoying rushing, plus they are over powered. It can only be a problem sometimes. This is usually fixed if you play "no rush" games.

I could go on forever in this section, but there is so much to talk about, you will just have to play the game to find out.

MULTIPLAYER- 9/10

I hated the MSN server usage for AoE2, it was so hard to actually play a game, with people having differnt versions and such, and even then, most games where nothing but Post Imperila Age rush a-thons that lasted no more than 5 minutes, and it was really bad.

ESO is ahead in leaps in bounds, it is brilliant. Everything is layed out perfectly, games are easy to find, and almost everyone does supremecy instead of deathmatch.

However, when this game first game out, a plauge of problems infested it. The server was down every 20 minutes, I couldn't get connected for days, people would start the game with no Town Center and have to forefeit...but, all of these problem have seem to be fixed.

I have no problem connecting, and everything works find. The only problem is lag, ecspecially during huge battles, and the occasinal loser still using 56k dialup, slowing everyone down. But, beyond that, it's brilliant.

Final!!! 10/10(not an average)

I have waited for this game for so long, and it does not disapoint. It's fast, it's fun, and nobody should be without it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/05