User Reviews (31 - 41 of 190)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Solid game: download patch

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

AOE 3 is a solid realtime strat. game. I am a huge fan of age of mytholoyg and the AOE 2. I'm not a huge fan of the whole home city thing and wish upgrades after age-up were more prevelant. Online play seems to be slow if your teammate's or enemy's computer is not to spec with the game. It is like molasses. Overall I'm satisfied with the buy, but I'd wait for the price to get closer to 30-35 dollars before you purchace. See you online.

Down and dirty...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off I'm an RTS/Strategy junky. You can keep your first person shooters and sports games as long as you leave me the RTS's. Unfortunately this one stinks. It's a complete step backwards in playability and fun. It does go forward in the graphics department but in the end that doesn't make up for a bad game. The thing that gets under my skin is that they shrunk the game. It seems like you are only able to control half the units compared to AOE 3. It reminds me of Warcraft and how Warcraft 3 just completely messed up that series. I guess I'll just hold me breath and wait for Supreme Commander.....

Not worth buying, a big disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: December 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing AOE I and II for years, but I have to say this is a big disappointment. Except for 3D, I don't see any improvement
any all. This is a game that will be forgotten quickly. If you have not bought so far, don't.

It's.... ok.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: August 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The only things that this version of AOE has over the rest are the good graphics and the fact that there aren't a million "races" that are basically all the same. The ability to work with the Native Americans and the concept of a home city are interesting ideas, but they aren't that useful and they don't add much to gameplay. This is pretty much eye candy AOE and that's where it stops. It's still on OK game to play, but I wouldn't shell out the bucks for it. It came bundled with some hardware that I bought thankfully, so I didn't really waste much money on it.

Slightly dissapointing third installment carves path for future RTS games

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: November 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Age of Empires, a critically acclaimed computer game series that a lot of us have heard of. After nearly a 4 year layoff from the last installment, Microsoft finally releases Age of Empires 3. The game is set from the discovery period (Christopher Columbus time) to the westward expansion. Choose between 7 civilizations including the French, English, and Russians as they each struggle to control the new world. The game includes a story based campaign mode and a skirmish mode. In both these modes you must manage a home city. The game has its ups and downs, and here they are.

Graphics: To start off positive, the graphics in this game are outstanding. Watch as buildings and ships slowly crumble to peices, which is unlike any game before. 5/5
Skirmish mode: The skirmish mode offers a choice of civilization and contains a well designed but rather limited selection of maps. Low resource start-off makes games slow. Limited adjustable features. 3.5/5
Bugs: Few,if any, major bugs exist within the game. 5/5
Story-Based Campaign: This is the meat of the game. Play through 3 different acts of the Black family legend as you fight the legendary circle of ossus. Story is well plotted and the missions are fun although the objectives may contain too many shortcuts. Final mission is too easy. This campaign is the only one. 3.5/5
Combat: Combat is realistic and demonstrates strengths and weaknesses well. 4.5/5
Historical accuracy: Quite accurate although different generals have little difference. Not enough emphasis on development of gunpowder warfare. i.e. pikeman are still used during the industrial age. 4/5
Gameplay time: Very limited. Only one campaign and two single player game modes. This is the real weak spot. 2/5

Overall: Although lacking in some areas, this game makes up for it with stunning graphics and a well put together story line. This game is a nice addition to your collection although it wont keep you occupied. 3.5/5

Too Much!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: December 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

What is the point of having a great game if it only runs on a few systems. I have a great less then a year old Toshiba laptop with a P-4 3.2 ghz, 512 ram, and a 64 meg video card that runs other big programs like Flight Sim 2004 great. But it won't run Ages 3. After 2-5 minutes every time my laptop just shuts off. It had never done that before and I keep it defragged and clean and it won't run Ages no matter how much I dummy down the graphics. My video card is not one of the ones listed as being a problem (but there are too many listed, a lot of people will run into that problem also.)
I have been through several levels of on line and live tech support and have had the laptop sent in to be checked for a hardware problem, but I am very dissapointed. I have had every version and was really lookinig forward to getting into the Americas, but I guess I will go back to Rome or try Civ 4.
From,
really dissapointed in Ohio

Two steps forward and three steps back.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: July 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It's a shame, really. Such beautiful graphics and interface, put to such phenomenally unimaginative use, and then some truly bad ideas thrown in.

Players wholly unfamiliar with Real Time Strategy games, and yet miraculously in possession of a top o' the line gaming system will probably love the game. Players who came to Jesus on RTS with AOE back-in-the-day, and were rightly blown away by its evolution in AOE2, will land somewhere between baffled and strangely pissed off by this latest

Age of Empires 3 pitches itself as a new generation of gaming and actually produced something closer to the New Coke of gaming. AOE3 was talked up for months preceding its release, with a heavy emphasis on lush graphics and realism. On the graphics end it's hard to argue, assuming you have a VERY good graphics system - and to be fair such systems are getting cheaper every day.

But as far as playing the game? The whole game feels weird from the get-go and never really becomes the comfort zone of infinite replayability that hallmarked the series to date.

The scope of the game is surprisingly limited, to North American pre-designed maps, and there is very little of the game that lends itself to the internal narrative that so characterized the first games. The Home City, a new interface aspect, is interesting, but proves confusing and unweildy in actual practice, and never really adds enough to the game to justify its presence.

If this game had come out as a reworking of Sid Meier's old "Colonialization" all the above critiques would be lessened, and the limited scope more applicable. As an AOE chapter, one never loses the sense that it represents a very beautiful step or two forward, and a few unfortunate steps back.

Wow

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: January 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutely amazing. I don't understand how people can't get great graphic settings. I have my graphic settings maxed out on an Athlon 64 3200+, 1 gig dual channel DDR RAM, and 256mb Radeon X800xl and it does not lag unless there is a huuuuuuuuge and i mean huuuuge battle going on between maybe 400 units. The gameplay is great, the graphics are great, mostly everything about the game is fantastic. ESO, the online servers, are still sorting out the bugs, but i highly recommend this game. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Mediocre at best

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've bought a lot of the Age of Empires products and have, for the most part, had a lot of fun with them. This version introduces a few new ideas (card decks, home cities, etc) that allow for some good replayability. It would be a good game, except...

* Choppy audio (ALL of the single-player stuff suffers from this)
* Weird bugs (occasionally you can create armies of instantly - a nice cheat if it isn't used against you)
* Water based fights are horrible (I spent time deliberately playing some of the water maps because of the advances made in that area, but they can lag up any machine).
* Nearly constant server outages

ho hum

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Very disappointed. I bought this game thinking "finally a new RTS with the latest and greatest technologies". Graphics are nice but the game play was sucky at best. The AI is non existent. the map sizes, even the large are really, really small. The support buildings are few, and pretty much unnecessary for strategy. There are only 3 resources food, coin, and wood. The newest concept "home city", basically a way to support and a method to customize your abilities as a culture or civilization, is very cool. It is the only reason I give it 2 stars, its a new concept. My opinion, go back to playing Empire Earth it is much more fun. I can't believe I fell for the hype.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions