The third installment of the legendary strategy series from Microsoft and the now-defunct Ensemble Studios proved to be quite a bold experiment, leaving fans with a share of confusion in their hearts. The Middle Ages ringing with a thousand swords, gave way to a new era, the era of curly-haired musketeers and greedy colonizers. The wooden creak of trebuchets and catapults was drowned out by the clatter of bombardments, and the lamp-like isometric 2D was replaced by angular 3D with honest but completely clueless physics.
Age of Empires III Features
The new era has brought a lot of strange, sometimes frankly superfluous solutions to the series. The economy is noticeably degraded: the list of four resources is depleted to three: gold, food, and wood remain, while the stone is abolished. Resource extraction no longer needed gathering points – workers were pounding the gold veins and trees, so to speak, from the cash register. Hunting lost its charm. In the second part of the franchise, which you can download on piratesbay, the timid deer had to be chased by a horse scout closer to the urban center and farms, and the collective slaughter of a huge boar, catching him on the “live”, was another science. In the third Age of Empires, all these and many other pearls of wisdom went under the knife for some reason.
Age of Empires III Gameplay
Yes, our gameplay is even older than a mammoth, but we can forgive a lot for the beauty that Ensemble Studios folks gave us. Here you have excellent animation of units, breathtaking special effects, and some unbelievably exact details of every building or soldier. You can endlessly send troops into an attack, only to admire the way soldier models cheerfully disperse upon catching a solid cannon charge. Or storm the enemy’s fortifications and burn their towns over and over again, enjoying the spectacle of buildings breaking into bricks and applauding the developers at the sight of cheerful flames engulfing some dusty mill.
That said, the local battles are the most beautiful we’ve seen in a long time. And not only the battles! It’s safe to say that in Age of Empires III, everything is impressive: swanky water, where the fish frolic, dazzling sun, beautiful sandy beaches, and lush jungle – all this brings an acute desire with a joyful cry to jump into the monitor screen, to get into that, such a living and wonderful world.
The Big Game
As mentioned in the review, in the game campaign, you are rolling along straight storylines and always play for one side of the conflict, racking up the brains of the English, Turks, or Spaniards. So it is clear that all the advantages of Age of Empires III can be appreciated only in multiplayer mode, where you are not limited by time, and therefore you can defeat the enemy, making a technological breakthrough and setting up guns, while the foe will fight with miserable archers.
Only in multiplayer can you choose which nation to play as. There are a total of eight nations to choose from: Britain, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Russia, France, Holland, and Turkey. I must say that each country has its unique advantages. For example, the Russians produce five peasants at a time, and the Dutch can build banks that provide a steady stream of gold to your treasury. In addition, each nation has special, extremely strong types of troops that can often decide the outcome of an entire battle.
Conclusion
It took five years for the developers to come up with almost the same game we know from 1999, Age of Empires II: Age of King. But on the other hand, it took them five years to create the most beautiful RTS of recent times. Yes, Age of Empires III is worth your money and it will give you several pleasant evenings. But alas, this game is like an expensive Hollywood blockbuster popcorn movie: you will have a great time, eat more than one bag of chips, and admire the special effects and the daring action, but after a couple of days you won’t even remember the title of the movie and you surely won’t watch it a second time.
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