anubhav_har
In the zone
will certainly buy the game..
Age of Empires 3 Discussions...
- Status
navjotjsingh
Wise Old Owl
Link to 3DAnalyser please? I could not find an english site giving details on its latest version.
ctrl_alt_del
A Year Closer To Heaven
Finally managed to get the link. Here it is.
3DAnalyze
Anyone who has already tried the demo, please review it!
3DAnalyze
Anyone who has already tried the demo, please review it!
ctrl_alt_del
A Year Closer To Heaven
Age Of Empires 3 : Demo Review
A new Age Of Empires game is bound to generate excitement. And so was the case when AoE3 was announced to be in devlopment. Me being a RTS fan, was eagerly awaiting for the game to come out. Though a bit apprehansive that the game might not run at all on my underpowered gfx card-less system, I was still ready to give it a try.
The good news started to flow in when the demo was released for download. 375Mbs only? That was amazing, since we all have got accoustomed to 700Mb+ demos a long time back. So last night before I went to sleep, put the download on. By this morning, the dmeo was on my HDD ready to be installed. So without any further ado, I started the installer and browsed the forum while it installed the demo on my PC. As soon as the demo was installed, I was ready to test it.
I am well aware that my PC doesn't meet the requirements in any way. At P4 1.5Ghz, 256RAM and an Intel Onboard Extreme Graphics, I hardly had any chance of running the game at all. As predicted, the game warned me that my gfx controller was not upto the mark to play the game, yet it let me try to run it. And the game actually initialised!!!
At first the default setting was 1024*768 but I would be a fool to try to run it at that resolution. So quickly navigated to the Video Options and downgraded it to 800*600. What's more amazing is the game loaded almost instantneously. I was presented with a screen where I had to get a profile name, name my city and then give a name for my Hero. After that you will have to choose a civilisation. I chose British and the game then took me to the familiar screen with a few villagers and a Town Centre.
Now here things get a wee bit complicated. Your City and your Town Centre are two completely different things. Your City is from where you set out to colonise the world. It's the Town Centre where you will be actually playing the game. I will come back to the use of the City soon. So I started the normal routine of gathering food, wood and stones, as it is in every AoE game. A small departure from the previous installments is that here, when you gather wood, the trees are not felled. I guess it's kinda like the RoN where resources didn't run out, saving you from micromanagement. Also while a villager is gathering food, he need not shuffle between the Town Centre and the food source. As long as he is working there, the food will continue to accumulate. These are the initial things that I have noticed. I am sure much more such nitty-grutties will emerge as we continue playing the game.
Now to the Hero unit. Your Hero is the explorer in the game and you can send him out to explore the map that is covered by Fog-Of-War. As the Hero wanders about on the map, he will come across hidden treasures which only he can collect. Generally the treasure will be guarded by fierce wild animals which you will have to eliminate in order to gain thetreasure, which can be anything from a stockpile of gold to food or maybe wood. You may have a few soilders assist him in this noble quest so as to assure that he returns back hale and hearty. In any case, he won't die in case of excessive injuries. It will take some time for him to limp back to normal before he can be commanded by you again.
Now for the City Centre ( I am not sure if that's what it shouldbe reffered to as, so kindly excuse ). Whenever a Hero discoveres a treasure, you gather expirince points. The same with the villagers working. The expirience points that you gather continue to pile up in a small circular indicator. As soon as the indiacator is full, you gain one upgrade point. Now when you click on that point, you will be taken back to a screen that shows your City Centre. Here you can choose between many bonuses that your upgrade point offers such as a big contigent of food, or extra army men etc. You can choose to accumulate your points and use them at your will. Clicking on the circular indicator again takes you back to the Town Centre from where you can continue playing the game.
At this point, I had to quit because I had a call waiting. However, I noticed that on quitting, I was taken back to the City Centre where there was tally of all my points accumulated in the time I had spent in the Town Centre. I am not sure how it will affect the gameplay in long run, but it seems to be of some importance in the whole scene. I will update my impressions as soon as I get back from college an try the rest of the game.
In the meantime, people with no gfx card can take heart at the fact that it atleast runs, and runs quite smooth at low details. So make sure to try the dmeo and see if it runs or not. Who konows, you might get lucky. Please excuse any mistakes that I have made as I haven't yet spend any quality time with the game and this is a quickie first impressions. Have fun!!!
A new Age Of Empires game is bound to generate excitement. And so was the case when AoE3 was announced to be in devlopment. Me being a RTS fan, was eagerly awaiting for the game to come out. Though a bit apprehansive that the game might not run at all on my underpowered gfx card-less system, I was still ready to give it a try.
The good news started to flow in when the demo was released for download. 375Mbs only? That was amazing, since we all have got accoustomed to 700Mb+ demos a long time back. So last night before I went to sleep, put the download on. By this morning, the dmeo was on my HDD ready to be installed. So without any further ado, I started the installer and browsed the forum while it installed the demo on my PC. As soon as the demo was installed, I was ready to test it.
I am well aware that my PC doesn't meet the requirements in any way. At P4 1.5Ghz, 256RAM and an Intel Onboard Extreme Graphics, I hardly had any chance of running the game at all. As predicted, the game warned me that my gfx controller was not upto the mark to play the game, yet it let me try to run it. And the game actually initialised!!!
At first the default setting was 1024*768 but I would be a fool to try to run it at that resolution. So quickly navigated to the Video Options and downgraded it to 800*600. What's more amazing is the game loaded almost instantneously. I was presented with a screen where I had to get a profile name, name my city and then give a name for my Hero. After that you will have to choose a civilisation. I chose British and the game then took me to the familiar screen with a few villagers and a Town Centre.
Now here things get a wee bit complicated. Your City and your Town Centre are two completely different things. Your City is from where you set out to colonise the world. It's the Town Centre where you will be actually playing the game. I will come back to the use of the City soon. So I started the normal routine of gathering food, wood and stones, as it is in every AoE game. A small departure from the previous installments is that here, when you gather wood, the trees are not felled. I guess it's kinda like the RoN where resources didn't run out, saving you from micromanagement. Also while a villager is gathering food, he need not shuffle between the Town Centre and the food source. As long as he is working there, the food will continue to accumulate. These are the initial things that I have noticed. I am sure much more such nitty-grutties will emerge as we continue playing the game.
Now to the Hero unit. Your Hero is the explorer in the game and you can send him out to explore the map that is covered by Fog-Of-War. As the Hero wanders about on the map, he will come across hidden treasures which only he can collect. Generally the treasure will be guarded by fierce wild animals which you will have to eliminate in order to gain thetreasure, which can be anything from a stockpile of gold to food or maybe wood. You may have a few soilders assist him in this noble quest so as to assure that he returns back hale and hearty. In any case, he won't die in case of excessive injuries. It will take some time for him to limp back to normal before he can be commanded by you again.
Now for the City Centre ( I am not sure if that's what it shouldbe reffered to as, so kindly excuse ). Whenever a Hero discoveres a treasure, you gather expirince points. The same with the villagers working. The expirience points that you gather continue to pile up in a small circular indicator. As soon as the indiacator is full, you gain one upgrade point. Now when you click on that point, you will be taken back to a screen that shows your City Centre. Here you can choose between many bonuses that your upgrade point offers such as a big contigent of food, or extra army men etc. You can choose to accumulate your points and use them at your will. Clicking on the circular indicator again takes you back to the Town Centre from where you can continue playing the game.
At this point, I had to quit because I had a call waiting. However, I noticed that on quitting, I was taken back to the City Centre where there was tally of all my points accumulated in the time I had spent in the Town Centre. I am not sure how it will affect the gameplay in long run, but it seems to be of some importance in the whole scene. I will update my impressions as soon as I get back from college an try the rest of the game.
In the meantime, people with no gfx card can take heart at the fact that it atleast runs, and runs quite smooth at low details. So make sure to try the dmeo and see if it runs or not. Who konows, you might get lucky. Please excuse any mistakes that I have made as I haven't yet spend any quality time with the game and this is a quickie first impressions. Have fun!!!
QwertyManiac
Commander in Chief
Whoa !
cool review there ctrl_alt_del
Waitin for the release (sounds like warcraft experience pts)
So will it run on Mx 4000 128mb ?
cool review there ctrl_alt_del
Waitin for the release (sounds like warcraft experience pts)
So will it run on Mx 4000 128mb ?
enoonmai
Cyborg Agent
Wow, awesome job, Cody. I am really happy you were able to play the game on your PC without a video card. The fact that the game runs pretty well on your PC at 800x600 is a testament to the scalability of the game. What remains to be seen is how the framerates hold up when there is a lot of action on-screen. I remember AoM freezing up a couple of times for a few seconds on a slightly underpowered machine when there was too much activity on the map.
Since Cody has covered the Skirmish mode in quite a detailed manner, I will focus my attention to the other parts of the game. First off, the Campaign mode. The Campaign mode seems to be divided into three Acts, each Act dealing with a different part of American history during the time of the colonization and industrialization of the Americas. The Acts are called Blood, Ice and Steel respectively, and for the demo, only two missions from Act III - Steel are available. Just like AoM, the missions are unlocked as and when you clear them, allowing you to proceed through the story the same way as in the previous AoE and AoM games. The history behind the story is well researched, and even though my early American history is vague at best, I am sure the game draws from events in history pretty accurately. The events and characters in the AoE3 demo at least, aren't as well known as William Wallace or Joan of Arc from AoE2. (From a small precursory search on Google for Major Cooper, it seems that this was a circa 1850s Major after whom Fort Cooper in Florida is named, and played a major part in the Second Seminole War.) The game, in classic AoE fashion, also allows you to replay the missions you have already cleared. The Difficulty Levels are as usual - Easy, Moderate and Hard, seeming to break with the multiple difficulty options presented in AoE2.
The game draws heavily from its newer predecessors, namely AoM and RoN, not to mention, some cues from the "other" famous RTS - Warcraft III. The cutscenes in the game somehow eerily resemble the ones from Warcraft III, although with a lot more detail. The cutscenes are rendered in-game but are sometimes rendered in the normal plane instead of the usual isometric view, which adds to the realism of the game. Each character that's currently speaking has a light circular halo under it, like the way W3 used to highlight characters that are currently speaking. The cutscenes in the demo appear to switch freely between the normal plane and isometric view, but the game doesn't seem to allow the player to switch to the normal plane view ever.
The presence of the Havok physics engine is easily noticed. Explosions send chunks of rock and debris hurtling from the damaged structures and the smoke and firing effects are absolutely world class. The game's minimap allows you to find heroes, use signal flares, talk to other players, and use the Advanced and Toggle functions of the minimap, which doesn't seem to have changed much at all from it's predecessors. Resource gathering is again through food, lumber and gold. Markets and Trading Posts generate gold and experience, and the Experience Points accumulation paves the way for what the key feature of AoE3 is - Persistent Home Cities.
Persistent Home Cities is EXACTLY what the name indicates. The Home Cities that you build for yourself and the technology upgrades and improvements that you make persist over single player as well as multiplayer games. The other previous AoE/AoM/RoN games had the problem where all changes you made to your Home City or Base and all the technology that you researched and unlocked were lost once you finished the mission and moved on to the next level. Even though the next level would be set in the same place as the previous one for some missions, the system would arbitrarily select the Age and technology that you had available and you had to do everything all over again. This is not the case with AoE3. Persistent Home Cities ensures that you will never ever have this problem with this game.
Of course, this brings up the obvious problem. You might like different strategies and different researches, more of a certain building type, etc. for different maps and different playtypes. For example, I don't want to create a settlement with lesser protective walls for one map and then have it demolished in another scenario where it would have better to have more walls and more outposts. It also works the same way with resource collection. Sometimes I want more resource processing structures and sometimes I want more structures associated with the war machine. To solve this problem, the game allows you to maintain and create different "decks" with multiple "cards" in them, allowing for different maps and strategies. Also, like RoN, each Home City is unique for a culture and there appear to be certain "bonuses" associated with each culture and each Home City and the technology available for it on the Research and Upgrade trees.
Also, as Cody pointed out, the Home Cities can be a place where your experience points can get you more food, gold, lumber, settlers, combat units, trade caravans and advanced weaponry, depending on the Age you are in and the number of experience points available. This feature appears to be a bit too easy for advanced RTSers, since Experience Points keep accumulating steadily as long as you play even averagely and can then be traded for more goodies without even breaking a sweat. In addition, the Town Centers can be upgraded to more advanced versions, and here, more of AoM inspired tricks come in. Just as in AoM, where upgrading required to select and ally with one of the Gods/Goddesses, upgrading the Town Center in AoE3 requires you to select a Politician from that age to ally with. Each politician requires a certain amount of conditions, resource or existing military establishments and provide different benefits. For example, allying with an Admiral would give you Dock benefits, while allying with a Marksman would give you extra military units. So far, from the demo, its not known whether allying with some units would grant "special" upgrades, such as a special unit or a new building or upgrade.
Talking about all of this, its very important to focus on micromanagement. Since quite a number of people found the micromanagement and upgrade/research paths in RoN to be a bit tedious, Microsoft and Ensemble have stuck to the traditional Research/Upgrade trees with this game, to continue to keep existing AoE players who might be put off by too much of a change. Cody already pointed out the part about resource gathering and micromanagement, and it seems to work fine, freeing you to colonizing the world, rather than worry about running out of food or wood. Drawing once again from AoM, each single player campaign appears to have two Hero characters (highlighted by a white star beneath them), and while so far, both Hero characters are always available, it is unclear whether there will be missions that will require the Hero characters to work independently of each other or not. Also, if a Hero character is gravely injured, he/she doesn't die and then be revived as in AoM, but simply lies on the ground, writhing in pain for quite some time, healing slowly and then limping away. Its also unclear whether this will be constant throughout the game or whether there will be a set number of times that the Hero character can be gravely injured without dying permanently and ending the mission as a failure.
Building and repairing is done through Settlers, who can build Manor Houses, Town Centers, Mills, Farms, Docks, Outposts, Barracks, Protective Walls, Churches, Firearms Ranges, Stables, Blacksmiths, Arsenals, Mining Posts, Trading Posts and a lot of other advanced structures, depending on the Age you are in. Settlers automatically find work, and do not seem to be lounging around uselessly, making you search for a "Find Idle Villager" button everytime you want to make sure everything's ship-shape.
The sound system, as always, is top notch, and the music, classic AoE. The sounds of the various units and the battle noises are recreated superbly and voice acting for the Heros are extremely professional, and the whole of the game is acoustically A-class. The graphics aren't genre redefining or groundbreaking in any way, retaining the look and feel of the classic AoE, but the small things that you don't really pay THAT much attention to make the game visually very appealing. For example, the smoke effects of a passing train, the tiny muzzle flashes from the weapons, the debris from a building being attacked, the shadows on the ground from buildings and trees (which are pretty darn realistic and depend on the position of the Sun, the building and your perspective, as in real life) and all are rendered excellently well and lend a bit more reality to the game. The game also allows you to zoom in to a Warcraft-III level zoom detail, but its no Rome: Total War. Don't be surprised if the game looks more like classic AoE rather than reality.
The single player campaign for the full version of the game will feature 8 European civilizations, 24 Single Player Campaign scenarios, 15 Random Map games with multiple civilization options and Skirmishes with 7 computer personalities. I haven't had the opportunity to try out the multiplayer aspect of the demo yet, but a simple glance already showed quite a lot of people playing online. The game also features online matchmaking via the Ensemble Studios Online v2, pairing you up with someone who's the best bet for you as well as allowing you to play with/against your friends online. Load times for the game are superfast, even faster than AoM, which is something that surprised me.
All in all, AoE3 looks to be a surefire success once again in the RTS world. I can't wait for the game to release. I hope Microsoft launches the AoE3 Collector's Edition in India. I really do! In the meantime, here's some screenshots to whet your appetite. More information on units and strengths, weaknesses and tactics and a rudimentary strategy guide will follow soon.
AoE3 Load Screen
Main Menu
Campaign Mode - Selection Screen
Cutscene
Home City and Trading
Objectives Screen
Hero Units and Market Options
Units, In-game Menu and Unit Upgrade Options (Stable)
Town Center Upgrade - Affiliation/Politician Selection
Town Center
Settlers - Various Build Options
Skirmish Mode - City Creation Screen
Closing Screen - Full game features
The final verdict on the demo:
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 7.5/10
SOUND: 9/10
FUN: 9/10
VFM: (based on download size for the demo): 9.5/10
TILT: 9/10
OVERALL (not an average): 9/10
END NOTE:
Reviewer's System Configuration:
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz
Corsair XMS 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel
Gainward GeForce FX 5950U Golden Sample
Western Digital Raptor 10kRPM SATA 80GBx2
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
I am really happy you were able to play the game on your PC without a video card. The fact that the game runs pretty well on your PC at 800x600 is a testament to the scalability of the game. What remains to be seen is how the framerates hold up when there is a lot of action on-screen. I remember AoM freezing up a couple of times for a few seconds on a slightly underpowered machine when there was too much activity on the map. Since Cody has covered the Skirmish mode in quite a detailed manner, I will focus my attention to the other parts of the game. First off, the Campaign mode. The Campaign mode seems to be divided into three Acts, each Act dealing with a different part of American history during the time of the colonization and industrialization of the Americas. The Acts are called Blood, Ice and Steel respectively, and for the demo, only two missions from Act III - Steel are available. Just like AoM, the missions are unlocked as and when you clear them, allowing you to proceed through the story the same way as in the previous AoE and AoM games. The history behind the story is well researched, and even though my early American history is vague at best, I am sure the game draws from events in history pretty accurately. The events and characters in the AoE3 demo at least, aren't as well known as William Wallace or Joan of Arc from AoE2. (From a small precursory search on Google for Major Cooper, it seems that this was a circa 1850s Major after whom Fort Cooper in Florida is named, and played a major part in the Second Seminole War.) The game, in classic AoE fashion, also allows you to replay the missions you have already cleared. The Difficulty Levels are as usual - Easy, Moderate and Hard, seeming to break with the multiple difficulty options presented in AoE2.
The game draws heavily from its newer predecessors, namely AoM and RoN, not to mention, some cues from the "other" famous RTS - Warcraft III. The cutscenes in the game somehow eerily resemble the ones from Warcraft III, although with a lot more detail. The cutscenes are rendered in-game but are sometimes rendered in the normal plane instead of the usual isometric view, which adds to the realism of the game. Each character that's currently speaking has a light circular halo under it, like the way W3 used to highlight characters that are currently speaking. The cutscenes in the demo appear to switch freely between the normal plane and isometric view, but the game doesn't seem to allow the player to switch to the normal plane view ever.
The presence of the Havok physics engine is easily noticed. Explosions send chunks of rock and debris hurtling from the damaged structures and the smoke and firing effects are absolutely world class. The game's minimap allows you to find heroes, use signal flares, talk to other players, and use the Advanced and Toggle functions of the minimap, which doesn't seem to have changed much at all from it's predecessors. Resource gathering is again through food, lumber and gold. Markets and Trading Posts generate gold and experience, and the Experience Points accumulation paves the way for what the key feature of AoE3 is - Persistent Home Cities.
Persistent Home Cities is EXACTLY what the name indicates. The Home Cities that you build for yourself and the technology upgrades and improvements that you make persist over single player as well as multiplayer games. The other previous AoE/AoM/RoN games had the problem where all changes you made to your Home City or Base and all the technology that you researched and unlocked were lost once you finished the mission and moved on to the next level. Even though the next level would be set in the same place as the previous one for some missions, the system would arbitrarily select the Age and technology that you had available and you had to do everything all over again. This is not the case with AoE3. Persistent Home Cities ensures that you will never ever have this problem with this game.
Of course, this brings up the obvious problem. You might like different strategies and different researches, more of a certain building type, etc. for different maps and different playtypes. For example, I don't want to create a settlement with lesser protective walls for one map and then have it demolished in another scenario where it would have better to have more walls and more outposts. It also works the same way with resource collection. Sometimes I want more resource processing structures and sometimes I want more structures associated with the war machine. To solve this problem, the game allows you to maintain and create different "decks" with multiple "cards" in them, allowing for different maps and strategies. Also, like RoN, each Home City is unique for a culture and there appear to be certain "bonuses" associated with each culture and each Home City and the technology available for it on the Research and Upgrade trees.
Also, as Cody pointed out, the Home Cities can be a place where your experience points can get you more food, gold, lumber, settlers, combat units, trade caravans and advanced weaponry, depending on the Age you are in and the number of experience points available. This feature appears to be a bit too easy for advanced RTSers, since Experience Points keep accumulating steadily as long as you play even averagely and can then be traded for more goodies without even breaking a sweat. In addition, the Town Centers can be upgraded to more advanced versions, and here, more of AoM inspired tricks come in. Just as in AoM, where upgrading required to select and ally with one of the Gods/Goddesses, upgrading the Town Center in AoE3 requires you to select a Politician from that age to ally with. Each politician requires a certain amount of conditions, resource or existing military establishments and provide different benefits. For example, allying with an Admiral would give you Dock benefits, while allying with a Marksman would give you extra military units. So far, from the demo, its not known whether allying with some units would grant "special" upgrades, such as a special unit or a new building or upgrade.
Talking about all of this, its very important to focus on micromanagement. Since quite a number of people found the micromanagement and upgrade/research paths in RoN to be a bit tedious, Microsoft and Ensemble have stuck to the traditional Research/Upgrade trees with this game, to continue to keep existing AoE players who might be put off by too much of a change. Cody already pointed out the part about resource gathering and micromanagement, and it seems to work fine, freeing you to colonizing the world, rather than worry about running out of food or wood. Drawing once again from AoM, each single player campaign appears to have two Hero characters (highlighted by a white star beneath them), and while so far, both Hero characters are always available, it is unclear whether there will be missions that will require the Hero characters to work independently of each other or not. Also, if a Hero character is gravely injured, he/she doesn't die and then be revived as in AoM, but simply lies on the ground, writhing in pain for quite some time, healing slowly and then limping away. Its also unclear whether this will be constant throughout the game or whether there will be a set number of times that the Hero character can be gravely injured without dying permanently and ending the mission as a failure.
Building and repairing is done through Settlers, who can build Manor Houses, Town Centers, Mills, Farms, Docks, Outposts, Barracks, Protective Walls, Churches, Firearms Ranges, Stables, Blacksmiths, Arsenals, Mining Posts, Trading Posts and a lot of other advanced structures, depending on the Age you are in. Settlers automatically find work, and do not seem to be lounging around uselessly, making you search for a "Find Idle Villager" button everytime you want to make sure everything's ship-shape.
The sound system, as always, is top notch, and the music, classic AoE. The sounds of the various units and the battle noises are recreated superbly and voice acting for the Heros are extremely professional, and the whole of the game is acoustically A-class. The graphics aren't genre redefining or groundbreaking in any way, retaining the look and feel of the classic AoE, but the small things that you don't really pay THAT much attention to make the game visually very appealing. For example, the smoke effects of a passing train, the tiny muzzle flashes from the weapons, the debris from a building being attacked, the shadows on the ground from buildings and trees (which are pretty darn realistic and depend on the position of the Sun, the building and your perspective, as in real life) and all are rendered excellently well and lend a bit more reality to the game. The game also allows you to zoom in to a Warcraft-III level zoom detail, but its no Rome: Total War. Don't be surprised if the game looks more like classic AoE rather than reality.
The single player campaign for the full version of the game will feature 8 European civilizations, 24 Single Player Campaign scenarios, 15 Random Map games with multiple civilization options and Skirmishes with 7 computer personalities. I haven't had the opportunity to try out the multiplayer aspect of the demo yet, but a simple glance already showed quite a lot of people playing online. The game also features online matchmaking via the Ensemble Studios Online v2, pairing you up with someone who's the best bet for you as well as allowing you to play with/against your friends online. Load times for the game are superfast, even faster than AoM, which is something that surprised me.
All in all, AoE3 looks to be a surefire success once again in the RTS world. I can't wait for the game to release. I hope Microsoft launches the AoE3 Collector's Edition in India. I really do! In the meantime, here's some screenshots to whet your appetite. More information on units and strengths, weaknesses and tactics and a rudimentary strategy guide will follow soon.
AoE3 Load Screen
Main Menu
Campaign Mode - Selection Screen
Cutscene
Home City and Trading
Objectives Screen
Hero Units and Market Options
Units, In-game Menu and Unit Upgrade Options (Stable)
Town Center Upgrade - Affiliation/Politician Selection
Town Center
Settlers - Various Build Options
Skirmish Mode - City Creation Screen
Closing Screen - Full game features
The final verdict on the demo:
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 7.5/10
SOUND: 9/10
FUN: 9/10
VFM: (based on download size for the demo): 9.5/10
TILT: 9/10
OVERALL (not an average): 9/10
END NOTE:
Reviewer's System Configuration:
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz
Corsair XMS 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel
Gainward GeForce FX 5950U Golden Sample
Western Digital Raptor 10kRPM SATA 80GBx2
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
ctrl_alt_del
A Year Closer To Heaven
Awesome in-detail review Prof! Just as soon as I get home, I am gonna get busy with the Campaign mode. I completely forgot to mention that it was the Skirmish mode that I tried out. I am dying to see some combat on-screen and see the Havok engine in action.
Just as soon as I get home, I am gonna get busy with the Campaign mode. I completely forgot to mention that it was the Skirmish mode that I tried out. I am dying to see some combat on-screen and see the Havok engine in action.
G
Guest
Guest
gteat yar .. i luv strategy games .. cant wait
enoonmai
Cyborg Agent
Playing the game a bit more now, I am getting very surprised. Has AoE3 broken the tradition by introducing the main characters as fictional ones? Searches for the connections of Amelia Black, Beaumont the Prospector and Major Cooper with early Colonial American History are throwing up no reference at all in Google. If this is the first time that Microsoft and Ensemble have introduced fictional characters that they created into an Age of Empires game, then it seems to be a major break, since most other AoE games focus on actual characters and events in history rather than taking a general era and then weaving a game around it. A search for the Falcon Railroad Company threw up no references again. Can any AoE fan confirm if all this is true? Is AoE3 *gulp* fictional?
I urge anyone who has the demo to advance quickly to the IIIrd Age and then get a Rocket at the Home City and then try it out against the enemy. I don't think I have been this happy seeing little characters go flying into all directions when the rocket hits them. I would have been happier if the game included a map with some water bodies. I haven't gotten around to Skirmish mode yet, so maybe Cody can confirm if there are water bodies in any map. I can't wait to see the spectacular water effects and to get my X800 XT PE and have the game rendered in glorious HDR. Ahhh!
I urge anyone who has the demo to advance quickly to the IIIrd Age and then get a Rocket at the Home City and then try it out against the enemy. I don't think I have been this happy seeing little characters go flying into all directions when the rocket hits them. I would have been happier if the game included a map with some water bodies. I haven't gotten around to Skirmish mode yet, so maybe Cody can confirm if there are water bodies in any map. I can't wait to see the spectacular water effects and to get my X800 XT PE and have the game rendered in glorious HDR. Ahhh!
deathvirus_me
Wise Old Owl
The demo rockz .... i've waiting for this game quite for some time now .... graphics are very impressive and soothing ... and considering the specs its running on this will surely be another hit ......
ctrl_alt_del
A Year Closer To Heaven
Yup Prof, the Skirmish mode indeed has water bodies. The one that I played on last night had a considerable amount of water covering the map, enabling me to have some battle ships give a hard time to the enemies.
A small correction. Resources can run out completely. After having hacked off a tree or silver mine of all it's resources, they will disappear and you will have to look for new resources.
A small correction. Resources can run out completely. After having hacked off a tree or silver mine of all it's resources, they will disappear and you will have to look for new resources.
netcracker
Journeyman
Cool game....can't w8 to get my hands on it.
Like any other RTS fan, I was eagerly awaiting the release of AOE 3. I even downloaded its demo which took me 20 hrs to download. Here's my experience with the demo.
Villagers don't have to drop their resources at Lumber camp or mill. Resources grow automatically as long as citizens work there. So Microsoft has taken a huge elemnt of micromanagement out of the game.
We have a hero unit which can't be killed. How rubbish is that?
There is no stone, so only food, wood and gold are to be collected.
Only a single fort and 2 towncenters can be built. So expansion and defence becomes less strategic and more difficult.
Monks can't convert.
A cumbersome interface and not so intuitive home city idea only added to my frustration.
Graphics are only a notch above RON and the Sound is not inspiring at all.
From my point of view AOE 3 completely sucks and those awaiting its release should stick to AOE 2 which was a masterpiece.
I just hope RON legends doesn't turn out to be as bad as AOE 3.
Villagers don't have to drop their resources at Lumber camp or mill. Resources grow automatically as long as citizens work there. So Microsoft has taken a huge elemnt of micromanagement out of the game.
We have a hero unit which can't be killed. How rubbish is that?
There is no stone, so only food, wood and gold are to be collected.
Only a single fort and 2 towncenters can be built. So expansion and defence becomes less strategic and more difficult.
Monks can't convert.
A cumbersome interface and not so intuitive home city idea only added to my frustration.
Graphics are only a notch above RON and the Sound is not inspiring at all.
From my point of view AOE 3 completely sucks and those awaiting its release should stick to AOE 2 which was a masterpiece.
I just hope RON legends doesn't turn out to be as bad as AOE 3.
GunshotSilence
Journeyman
looking at my rig in the signature, will the demo run on my pc??
QwertyManiac
Commander in Chief
cant see ur siggy pal !
Well, will it run on a MX card ?
Well, will it run on a MX card ?
GunshotSilence
Journeyman
noqw see mysig and tel me is it worth downloading the 350 mb game? i mean will it run?
- Status