Customer Reviews

Age of Empires III Collector's Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Age of Empires 2 is my favorite PC game ever (see my review) but I've been anxiously awaiting the release of AOE3 since I read about it a couple months back.

Here's my first take of the game. I'll post an update in a month or two.

The Collectors edition is very nice; I personally think it's well worth the $20 extra if you're a AOE fan. A pocket strategy guide is included and provides pretty good information and is enough information for anyone who has played AOE2. (Saves $20 on the regular strategy guide). Read above for the other stuff included - but let me say that I think it's a heck of a deal.

My hardware - I play it on a P4 2.5 Ghz, 512 MB ram, ATI Radeon 9200 256MB. The game loads and plays fine. This game requires a massive video card to have smooth-scrolling during gameplay, and mine barely cuts it. If you can live with a little chop, it should play on almost any recent card. My laptop with Intel Integrated Graphics even plays it just the same without any problems (even though the card is not specifically supported by the game).

About the game - The neatest feature is called "home city". It gives each civ some certain advantages and creates a more challenging gameplay since not only do you have to collect resources for your colony, you also must send resources back home to mommy and daddy. Sending certain things gets you certain things in return; this is handled through the "cards". I'm not a big fan of the 'card' method because it reeks of Civ and other kiddie RTS games, yet the idea is good.

I've not yet tried any of the campaigns so I will not comment on them, but playing single player has been fun. The map is much smaller than AOE2, and I have yet to figure out how to change the size without adding more players (if it's possible to do so). The interface is 3-D and is very similar to Empire Earth and Age of Mythology. The buildings look very sharp and villagers need to mine silver, food, and wood. (I haven't yet seen stone).

There are lots of different military units; this gives a different dimension to gameplay although some (archers, calvary) are very familiar to AOE2. Work on gathering resources, building armies and buildings, trade, and barter with Native Americans (a new, interesting feature). Managing a home city also provides a different dimension that presents it's own challenges.

Comparing AOE3
1. Empire Earth II - I find EE2 overloads me with information. Just playing the game is almost too much work. It looks like AOE3 is quite a bit less complex although creating a huge village, fighting strong players, and managing a home city might prove to be a little more "challenge" than a casual gamer would like to take on.

2. Rise of Nations - I consider RON to be the real update to AOE2. It has a very similar look and feel to AOE2. I find RON to be too much about upgrading civs but if you set up the game to have only 4 civs the gameplay is almost exactly like AOE2 with better units and graphics.

AOE3 is very similar to Age of Mythology in game play. I was not impressed with that game so after playing AOE3 a while I'll have a better feel for how long it holds my interest.

Complaints - My main complaint about AOE3 is the graphics size. I love huge screens and small resolutions (1280x1024 or larger) but the game characters seem way too large, like the game is being played in 800x600. I hope that ES fixes this in a update or future version. I much prefer the size of the Rise of Nations characters, even if it involves a little less detail.

All in all, my early judgement of the game is that of a winner. I only give 4 stars though because of the resolution size. I'm also leery of the 'cards' system for shipping back things to the home city. If I wanted to play a 'turn-based' game I would have looked elsewhere. Hence, I'll reserve final judgement until I get to play with the game more.

I would say that anyone looking for a true updated AOE2 should look at Rise of Nations in addition to this game. I'm probably not alone in saying I would be more than happy to buy another update to AOE2 with more CIVS and a RON graphics look and feel.

Good luck and happy gaming.

As a fan of this kind of games and an owner of previous titles and similar games like Command and Conquer and Empire Earth series, I can say this game is great, the visuals are amazing, and in some aspects this game is more realistic, for example:

An unit which uses a gun, in any preious game this unit will fire his gun even when the enemy is close in this one it will just take out a sword and use a diferent attack, also you can command your units not to use the gun and use its melee attack instead.

The visual are great, when a cannon ball hit a building or when you hit infantry and you see them flying around.

The game play is similar to this kind of games but you have to activate options to enable use of formations or diferent tactics.

I also the like the option where your home city sends you supplies, men, boat, artillery etc.

I have it running in my laptop and i have not have any single problem so far, and i am not using any patch i am using the game as it came from the box so i don't share this kind of comments where people say the game doesn't works, because it does :)

Get the game if you like this kind of games and if you have a computer which has the requeriments you won't be dissapointed

I've been a fan since AoEII and I must admit that I was fairly stoked when this game was first announced.

I went ahead and purchased the limited edition and was extremely impressed with the packaging. It's a nice box and the art book and soundtrack more than made it worth it.

Now onto the game. I'll be honest and say that I am not the biggest fan of 3D games as a whole as I feel that in the attempts to transition from 2D that most companies rush their products and the ends are just...not so good. AoEIII unfortunately feels that way. The graphics are beautiful without a doubt, but play mechanics could have been improved. Unit graphics and animation on the other hand is a bit weak and stilted. Also, given that this period of history (despite how important it is) is not so interesting in terms of military and historical points makes it less than interesting.

Certain aspects were also strange. I am of course referring to the trade posts that (as they get upgraded) can accomodate trains. However, the train just randomly appears then terminates from blank points which kind of reduces the realism. The fact that you can walk your army through a train passing through (which would otherwise scrap your army instantly in C&C: Generals) is kind of odd. The inclusion of the Ottoman is a nice touch, but their involvement in the storyline is...weird.

no offence meant, but most of the other people have no idea what hardware it takes to run any sort of newly released PC games. AOE3 actually runs quite well on moderate machines compared to other games like Battle for Middle Earth II or FEAR, u cant just expect to pop it into some dell computer and expect it to look as amazing as the screenshots. Im playing it on my 5 year old desktop with 1.7ghz pentium 4 (horrible processor), 383mb ram and gforce2 64mb card after hacking the game to run on windows 2000, and it still plays fine, just with very low settings. btw, the game itself is designed to be fun, not educational, but it still is more historically correct than most games out there. The game itself however, does not blast me away like its forerunners. (AOE1 was the only reason i stared playing computer games) the home city feature is basically a more in depth menu of special powers gained with exp while playing, and the RTS elements resembles Age of mythology quite a bit. nevertheless, it is still very entertaining game, and the mutiplayer just gets better and better. The collectors edition is one of the best game packageing i have ever seen, the DVD is informative and fun, the soundtrack is additive, and the artbook and player's guide are just great reads. highly recommend getting the collectors edition even if u are just into RTS games.

This review is for the collector's edition, so some of the content will not apply to other editions. Before getting to the game, I will focus on the extras that come with the collector's box set, as the game buying decision can be separated from the box.

The Collector's Box
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Inside the collectors edition, you get the following
* Age of Empires III game (in the standard box)
* Manual and Quick reference (in the standard box also)
* Age of Empires III demo disk for a friend
* Art of Empires book
* Player's Guide
* Soundtrack of the Age of Empires III music
* Making of Age of Empires III DVD ROM

The best part of the package is the coffee table book (Art of Empires). While primarily focused on Age of Empires III, it tracks through the entire series, showing concept art to finished models. It is a hefty, hardcover book that may, in and of itself, convince many to plunk down a bit more cash. If you are an avid gamer, or merely enjoy computer art, I would say "go for it."

The player's guide is marginal. While it does focus on three types of strategies you can employ, and how to employ them for each civilization, it does not give any huge insights. Perhaps this is good, as a step-by-step winner's guide takes the fun out of playing, but it falls short. I do, however, like that the guide covers the history of the period for each country, giving insight to why certain civilizations have certain advantages. I would not buy the collector's edition for the player's guide alone.

The soundtrack is a nice touch. Game music has greatly improved over the years and Ensemble spent quite a bit of money on the soundtrack of this game. Once again, I would not say this is a sufficient reason to buy the collector's edition.

Making of Empires III DVD? This is an interesting touch to the game package, as it is always neat to understand how things came to be. I might consider this a reason to buy the collector's edition, but it alone would not sway me. Add the Art of Empires book and you have me sold.

Yes, it is a nice package. Your biggest question at this point in time is whether a coffee table book, player's guide that is more of a history book, making of DVD and soundtrack are worth the extra cash.

The game:
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My favorite new addition is the home city, as it forces you to focus on expansion of a civilization from a more balanced perspective. You no longer simply pay attention to expanding an empire and colonizing, you are forced to consider the country financing your exploits. When you play your home city, you have the option of a variety of expansions, each with its own unique pluses to game play. This brings strategy to a whole new level.

I also appreciate the improved physics and graphics in the game. When cannonballs fly, they bounce and break things apart. While this does little for the strategy, it is nice to see the consequences of your actions in a real way.

Also nice to this game is the ability to ally with indigenous native populations. Play the French at least once to see how your natural ability to form alliances comes in handy. Native civilizations do not force you to expand your villages as quickly to gain a bit of defense and commerce. Very nice.

You should play through the single person campaign. While the story is a bit hoky at times, it is nice to run through generations of a single family in a variety of situations. The cinematics are very nice, as well.

Age of Empires III is a great game with tons of cool feature, however, the game was very, VERY, poorly tested and runs horribly for almost everyone who purchases it. For the past four weeks everyone who has bought the game has been waiting for the patch to be released that will just allow them to play the game they purchased for between 50-70 bucks. The game suffers from a buffet line of techinal problems that make the game either impossible to load, or slow it down to the point maddness.
As a result, ES (the makers of the game) have been flooded by complaints and demands for release of the patch (4 weeks now) to fix basic game play problems that should have never made it out of testing and that plague about 90% of the game users. My system requirements more then exceed the listed requirements, yet I still cannot play online (one of the more common problems), however, I consider myself lucky, after reading posts on ES's Technical Support Forum (far and away the most active forum) I realized that many people cannot even get their game to properly play single player mode with out crashing. MY ADVICE IS TO WAIT UNTIL ES FIXES THE PROBLEMS BEFORE PURCHASING THIS GAME. IT WILL SAVE YOU HOURS OF BRUTAL FRUSTRATION.

I have been a fan of this series from the beginning and it has only gotten better with time and later versions. The latest version takes place in a time period with great significance and has always drawn me in. The graphics are great, as long as your computer is equipped to handle them. I started playing on an older computer which locked up during ship battles and such. However, with a newer comp I enjoy full game play. Maybe there were some bugs in the software initially, but I have never had a problem outside of processor speed. Great game, 5 stars.

I have played all the AOE games and love them. This one actually has a bit of a story to entertain you as you go from mission to mission in the campaign.

PROS: Great graphics, that's to be expected from reviews.

CONS: Adaptability. I agree that it seems very much like previous installments. Small changes, but nothing too challenging for seasoned or intermediate players.

NOTES: I have an AMD XP 2700 Thouroughbred running with 1GB PC400 ram and a eVGA AGP-8x 6800GT graphics card with 128MB memory. The game does not experience any of the problems mentioned in other reviews. I have no hangs regardless of army size. My CPU is not overclocked and is running at stock 2.08GHz speeds. My graphics card runs it great stock, but I do overclock it to a higher core speed and have all pipelines and vortexes unlocked. (RivaTuner)

Overall, I have enjoyed this game and if the price were not as high as it were, I would have given it five stars.

This game is good exeept that if you dont have lots
of ram(memory thingy) on your computer than its SOOO
slow. Other than that, it tastes like BEEF!!!!!!!!
it tastes like mums a good very dinners. It sometimes tastes like
chicken. age of empires 2 is also good but get: "The age of Kings"
thats the best age of empires 2 game. it was voted best game of the year.
aoe3 is also good cuz it has good people like samurai and all those guys you can hire to fight for you.