1. Yablo

   10

   I love thise game... no more wasting time on making buildings to get resources in faster. The cards add great new demension to the strategy of the game. The only thing that needs to be worked on is the hit points of buildings.. they go down a bit fast.… Expand

   • Helpful? 4 of 4 users said Yes.
2. JonM

   8

   I thought this game was a great improvement from AOE2 because of the superior graphics (To AOE2). I am a little annoyed at the card system it made (That's why its an 8 of 10). Instead of all countries BASICALLY having the same units, there is a main spread. Each country has its own strength and are equally powerful if you use them the right way (AOE2 the pawning factions were was just Vikings, Tuetonics, Mongols, and Huns). The AI did not improve, that's not so bad because the AI is smart. Should be recognized as AOE's series "last game" (That I know of, besides War Chiefs).… Expand

   • Helpful? 3 of 3 users said Yes.
3. MarkS

   7

   First of all, the Fountain of Youth, at least the QUEST for the fountain is not myth.. a lot of men and explorers died in the hunt for it.. Anyway... the game it's self is not a jump forward, except for in the graphics/physics department. The lack of a gathering point is annoying, and the upgrades are rather weak. It's a good fun game if you wanna kill time, but if you are a HARDCORE AOE fan, you will not like it.… Expand

   • Helpful? 2 of 2 users said Yes.
4. HwoDragon

   4

   AOE 3 was a disappointment. It's predecessor was a brilliant, fun strategy game. There were lots of unique civs to pick, historic campaigns to play, and a simple, easy, but flexible map editor. AOE 3 has only a handful of civs, and you have to buy the expansion pack to use any native american civs. There are 3 long campaigns each with 5 minute missions in the place of a ton of short campaigns and a few individual missions. The first campaign was just silly. Magic. No kidding, magic. In the first campaign you have to find the fountain of youth and destroy it to keep a secret organization from using it's powers for evil or something. It sounds like some sort of bad sci fi. Another thing that irritated me when I played was that everything is so... big. The inability to zoom out combined with the fact that every soldier in my army is half an inch tall means that there is very little room on the screen. Not only that, but the maps are very small too. I found myself quickly running out of room to build, and, when I just started and was playing on the easier levels, found myself accidentally destroying an enemy because my guards went rouge. That's another problem. AOE 1 had that command list where you could pick formations, and set units to patrol, guard, escort, or just not attack anything. That's all gone in AOE III. If you want to guard your base with troops, you have to constantly pull them back to keep them from following a trail of retreating enemies back to their home base. In this version, instead of just reducing troop training time, troops train in squads up to 5. Personally, I have no objection to this change though, it saved me one time because I had to train soldiers while under attack, and if they had been coming out 1 by 1 they'd have been slaughtered. And then there's the realism. I'm sorry, but if your unprotected fleeing screaming villager can take over 15 BULLETS TO KILL, there is something seriously wrong. Bullets are incredibly underpowered in this game. Even after buying a special upgrade that gives me massive bonus damage versus villagers, it still took way more bullets than it realistically should have. A game where bow and arrow > gun is one where the laws or reality are warped. There are 2 things in AOE III that keep me from giving it a 2 or 3. The first one is the home city option. Though it isn't exactly "Age of Empires" style, it did a nice job of motivating me to keep playing. After all, I can't just stop with a level 9 home city, I have to go to 10. And after that, why not 15? or 50? Another thing that was fairly well done was the graphics. I don't mean the troops. They all look like a mess of colored triangles. And the buildings just look like buildings. Nice, but nothing to write home about. I'm referring to the thrill I get from positioning 16 cannons in a circle around his town center and firing, watching pieces of it fly 50 feet into the air and land in a shattered heap on top of the mess that used to be a colony. The physics in the game, though also somewhat unrealistic, (Houses appear to weigh nothing, a 20 foot long chunk that must weigh at least 1 ton can be blasted straight up into the air and come back down as if it were a lego brick) are very fun and visually interesting. All in all, this is an okay game, but if you are expecting Age of Empires III, you won't get it. This is just another rts.… Expand

   • Helpful? 5 of 11 users said Yes.

See all 86 User Reviews