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Preview of: Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery | By: Justin Fenico |
28 Aug-2005 |
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The past week of mine has been spent with Microsoft’s latest preview build of Age of Empires III. Developed by Ensemble Studios, AOE III begins where Age of Kings left off, right at the age of discovery. With so much of the world left to discover, your European nation heads to the new lands of the west for conquest and glory. |
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This very extensive preview build features a good portion of the single player campaign as well as detailed graphics, sounds, and all sorts of gameplay elements. One of the newest features is keeping in contact with your home city during your travels. The home city serves as a great asset by sending you troops, resources, and overall improvements to your colony. While you fight off troops and explore the terrain you’ll gain experience. Each level you gain from experience allows your home city to send you more shipments. Using these shipments can come in handy when you find yourself low on food, settlers, infantry, or even a brand new, nicely loaded cannon. After scenarios you’ll also be able to update the rewards (in the form of cards) you can use. For instance, a level one card might allow your home city to send 3 settlers, while the second level will send 4 settlers at a time. Or perhaps you would rather upgrade the type of soldiers or mortars you would like shipped? Obviously the type of upgrades you choose heavily depends on the type of style you play. Those worried about resources will want settlers and food, while the gamer who wants to command a large army will apt for troops and mortars.
Since RTS games are probably my least experienced genre of game, I must say that even though AOE III doesn’t seem to offer a whole lot of genuine ideas for an RTS (at least to my ignorant eye), it still offers some of the most stunning graphics I’ve seen in awhile. No matter what type of genre you’re in to, AOE III is looking good. The animation, lighting, and shadows are all top notch. The physics engine allows for some spectacular battle scenes which are ever so apparent when my cannons roar across the battlefield sending infantry flying into the air knocking over trees and collapsing buildings all over the place. The new world looks great, from snowy terrains to lust Caribbean jungles. For a game that’s all about conquest and war, AOE III comes off as strangely peaceful and beautiful to gaze upon even amidst all the chaos and bloodshed.
As I mentioned before, AOE III doesn’t seem to be breaking any major grounds in the RTS department so jumping into a game and getting familiar with the different types of buildings and units didn’t prove to be too difficult. The one interesting feature I did find was that settlers who are collecting wood, food (which comes in a variety of animals such as bison, deer, caribou, oxen, or bears) or gold don’t need to walk back and forth to deposit their stock. Instead they’ll continue to chop down trees, mine for gold, and skin animals as your total in goods climbs. It might not seem like a huge deal, but for someone like myself, it makes playing an RTS a little less complicated and easier to focus on other strategies.
Finally, the single player campaign seems to be coming along quite well as you play the part of Morgan Black, an honorable knight who only wishes to serve his order to the best of his ability. As he chases down Spaniards, Turks, and pirates you’ll witness some very nice battle scenes with plenty of buildings to destroy, boats to sink, and infantry to kill. The sights and sounds of the battlefield are crisp, clear, and extremely movie-like. Ensemble has done a great job of blending plenty of RTS elements into AOE III and it looks like they’re doing their best to win the hearts of RTS fans everywhere. With what I’ve seen so far, they might do just that.
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