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Too much simulation, too little interaction

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The so-called 4X games may not be my forté, but I can't see how MOO3 really fits into the category of "game". You need a great deal of patience and a desire to drop interactivity in exchange for thoroughness of simulation.

Oh, you can do everything in this game. You can terraform. You can conduct diplomacy, invade other planets, build ships and raise armies, conduct research, bomb another people into molecular components. But somehow, none of that is fun here. The graphical interface - what makes a game a game - is so minimal it just takes away the fun. There are too many options to set (tax rate, spending on various sectors, intent of AI governors) and too many discrete possibilities within them.

Consider Dark Reign 2, which is an RTS and not quite as grand as most 4X games. You can discretely set your units to scout, seek and destroy, or hold their ground. In MOO3, you have a continuum of 1 to 100. This invites ridiculous levels of fine tuning.

Combat is... about as exciting as playing my Atari 800.

To be fair, it's more expansive than Gal Civ I in terms of what one can do, but just not as enjoyable to play. Okay, I really didn't enjoy either that much, but Gal Civ at least makes you feel like you're not some bored intergalactic bureaucrat.

Best Half-Finished Game -- Great for Single Player Gaming

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Masters of Orion III is the best half-finished game ever produced. Some will tell you that MOO II was better, but that is only true for multiplayer gaming. As a single-player game, MOO II was a complete bore. MOO III, on the other hand, is a hugely interesting single player game.

Unfortunately, the project was too ambitious for its budget and MOO III was rushed into production only half finished. The result is a great gaming concept, hugely complex and endlessly mod-able, tied to a buggy and now unsupported implementation.

The gamer willing to mine the internet for fan-created fixes, mods and guides (the documentation is also lousy) will be rewarded with a turn-based 4x gaming experience still unsurpassed in 2008. MOO III was the first great "macro-management" game, and the world is still waiting for the second.

Warning: don't buy the Mac version. The Mac port is less buggy than the Windows release, but far too many of the player-created fixes are Windows-only.

I loved this game and played it for hundreds of hours. If a finished version were ever released, I'd buy it in a minute.

Master Of Orion 3....too technical to enjoy.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Master Of Orion 1 and 2 are both very good, but 3 became too involed with advancing technical studies. Also, visiting other planets were mapped out for you; little creative thinking involved. I meant to buy Imperium Galactica 2, which, when I bought that, I enjopyed very much. Maybe you will enjoy MOO 3 more that I did.

One of the Best 4X Games out

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have played this game non-stop for 3 years now and still cannot get enough of it. While the Orignal version and the patches fix a few problems what really has made this game so great is the community made fixes and mods found at The Master of Orion 3 Guardian web site( http://www.moo3.at/ ). If you dont own this game get it while it is cheap because in a few years this game is going to be hard to come by.

Still MoOing after 4+ yrs

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

1st off MoO3 is Not MoO2.5. Was never meant to be, just as MoO2 was not MoO 1.5. Get past that now. If you can you will find a deep deep game.

After 4+ years of play this game is still replayable. Do you want a game you play 3 months and then want another? If so this is Not the game for you so move on. BUT if you want a game that you can sink your Strategy Teeth into then MoO3 fits the bill.

Is it Graphics Candy you want? Then you'll be dissappointed, it's rather plain in that regard. Do you want a game that will give you countless hours of intensity and challenge? Then this IS a game that can do that. My 1st game after the 1.2.5 Official Patch lasted over 6 months. What other game out there can you play 1 continuous Single Player game for 6+ Months! This game was/is for the Serious TBS player. Space Combat is RTS but everything else is TBS.

And one extremely important part of this game is that the Developers made it easy to Mod.

The only reason I don't give it an Overall 5 rating is lack of Official Support. Unofficial/Fan support is outstanding.

JosEPh (Keeper of The Roll Call)

Sad Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Moo 2 was such a well done game, when this initally came out my buddies and I were extremely excited. I expected Moo 2 with my playable races better AI perhaps unique tech tree and overall better graphics. I was sadly disappointed, the graphics was the only thing going for this game the rest was a totally and utter failure.

They completely changed the dynamics of the game and ruined everything about it, MOO 2 is one of my all time favorites though after this title Masters of Orion will never have the same aura. The developer truly ruined one of the best strategy games ever made.

ALMOST hits the mark...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

All in all, a good effort at a follow-up to Master of Orion II (MOO II), with a few problems that, if addressed, would make it nearly perfect.

Rather than go into too much detail, let me say simply that while I like the game, the following are my main complaints:

* I miss the old turn-based combat--Perhaps an option between real-time and turn-based combat is in order, maybe even the ability to switch during combat. In automated combat, it would be good to have options like "all-out, with no retreat," and to have ships actively seek the enemy instead of just sitting on screen until combat time runs out if no enemy ships are immediately within view.

* More control over build ques without having to micro-manage is essential. There is some of this now, but it would be good to be able to assign things like, "build ships until I say stop," with alerts every ten or twenty turns to see if you want to switch. Micro-managing takes forever, while auto-build doesn't give quite enough control. There needs to be a happy medium.

* When another empire surrenders to yours in a war, you get nothing of importance except an end to the war. One should be able to require surrender of all or a portion of enemy planets to your empire's control. You should also be able to demand surrender through the diplomacy screen.

I hope (but doubt) that there will be a Master of Orion IV, in which these issues are addressed.

Time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: August 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It takes allot of time to play this game. If you select a large galaxy with many races expect up to or over 1000 turns easy.

Love it though.

An Honest Opinion

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: May 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well, most people who have reviewed this game has determined that it is not quite up to par to its predecessor Masters of Orion II however; after I played both of those games I must admit I like MOO III over MOO II and here's why. While MOO II is more beginner friendly and has a very good interface the game over all lacks the detail that MOO III has. Example as such is that in MOO II you can only have 6 variant of ships EVER! Where as in MOO III you can have as many variants of ships as you like as well as ground troops are organized in better ways a long with fleets. Diplomacy remains the same, but in MOO III there is more options in the galactic council. Trade remains similar but yet again MOO III has more detail than in MOO II. Now i have to agree with other people that there is an extraordinary amount of detail; which the instruction manual does a poor job explaining and you the player spend more time figuring out. MOO III does have a very annoying interface and it becomes rather impossible to manage a very large empire because the AI supposed to help you gets in the way of building the stuff you actually need. However, you can manually change your production as well as manually doing anything else in the game it just takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. I'd recommed this game to a gamer who has alot of time and patience to figure the mechanincs in the game. If you don't really like having to micromanage a million details this game is definitely not for you. Now if you like being able to control every detail in a galctic empire ranging from ship designs to government policies this is the game for you

A Wonderful Legacy of a Title That Fell Short

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: April 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

An excellent game idea. I played the first and fell in love with it way back when. This newest version though is a big disappointment. It doesn't have hardly any of the original style that made the first so fun and the interface on this one is *HORRIBLE*. There is no real hand-held manual for such a complicated game, only in-game and that is vague at best. Learning how to do something as eventually vital as build a fleet in order to defend or invade is hilariously ridiculous. At the time this series began, it was close to the only one like it and easily worth it, but it's clear they've lost the magic and the point with this one. Pass it by.

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