Pros: Large galaxies, multiple races and complex ship design pique the interest, but…
Cons: Too massive for effective control, takes forever to make headway, gets BORING!!!
The Bottom Line: This game will appeal to a few people who have unusual levels of patience and a love of complexity. I personally can't handle playing 8 hours to make any headway.
Ralleia's Full Review: Master Of Orion 3 for Windows
As a long-term addict of the first two Masters of Orion games, I had high hopes for MOO3. When my new game came in, I eagerly ripped the box open and installed the disks. I immediately went to the web and downloaded the v1.02 patch. I use a standard method of learning a new game of play/experiment some, read the manual some. I feel it's the easiest and most natural method of getting into a new game.
I experienced the "DirectX surface not available" error and crash a lot initially; that went away when I went to the Microsoft web site and downloaded DirectX 9. The learning curve on the game was pretty massive. Prior knowledge of MOO 1 and 2 don't get you very far; the entire interface is different and the game has taken on an entirely new level of complexity. I'll describe the game in comparison to the previous versions where it makes sense.
First off, players have 16 different races to choose from, which is a far wider variety than in MOO2. Each race has a hard-coded preference for planet habitability (unlike MOO2 where everyone seems to prefer the same type of planet.) I found the Etherean-type races (who like gas-giants) generally easier to manage and less likely to experience competition with other races in preferred planets.
The game drew me in at first. The greater variety of planets and the more realistic look of stellar objects piqued my interest, as did the greater complexity of building up planet infrastructure. (MOO3 has multiple "zones" on each planet with slightly different characteristics, some areas barren, some rich in minerals, some lush with life, etc.) The planet specials that you find are also more various--data caches, erratic weather, rare aphrodesiac, pollution, hostile animals, etc., which are interesting, but since the manual doesn't bother to tell you what each means, you have to colonize the planet and select that special before you really know how that will impact your colony. But once you get over the initial curiosity and wonderment, frustration begins to set in.
One of the first things that'll irritate you is that it takes forever for your ships to get anywhere. Even as you begin to research faster and faster engines, you must travel via the pre-set "star lanes" to get to your destination. Colonization is going to take a while, and heaven help you if you need to get a task force of ships from one of your developed planets to the frontier in a hurry to protect one of your fledgling colonies.
The learning curve will be the next series of frustrations. The manual does a really crappy job of telling you how to run the game. Besides the fact that it mixes historical dribble every couple pages with how to run the interface, there's no index, and the manual is incomplete (doesn't detail planet specials, doesn't describe what all the development policies under development plans mean--a MAJOR shortcoming, doesn't go deep enough into the espionage and diplomacy, etc.) You'll have to rely on the tips posted on the internet by gamers before you or on your own ingeniuty at reverse engineering to figure out how the game treats these things. In the meantime, it'll be challenging figuring out how to colonize a planet, how to create your first "task force," how to create task forces from further forward locations (you'll need a mobilization center), and how to create and fling your ground troops toward those planets you wish to take from your enemies. The learning curve is steep, but manageable.
Then comes the next host of frustrations. You'll think you have the front lines sealed off by posting long range attack forces at all the choke points on your front line, and then your enemy will sneak in and plant a colony right in the middle of the territory you control through a wormhole you didn't see. Enemy spies will run rampant destroying your buildings, killing your valuable leaders, and stealing your hard-won technologies, even though you've been training your spies from the first turn of the game. When you rachet the oppressometer up to attempt to catch the enemy spies, unrest becomes widespread, and now your own citizenry is rioting and destroying the buildings. The AI interface takes a while to get used to. You no longer directly control build queues, as in MOO 2. The game is so massive you must rely on your planetary viceroys to develop your colonies, which you loosely control by setting Empire development plans and policies (without much help from the manual) and designating old ship designs as obsolete. Even when you thought you had things under control, the planetary viceroys will still often churn out tons of obsolete military units, even when you tried to purge the build queues.
It takes a while to start to get the hang of controlling all this stuff. After about a week, I finally did, and when I won my first game by Senate election, I took the disk out and decided I never wanted to play the game again. When I tried to list it on eBay however, I was chagrined to find a glut of MOO 3's out there. Apparently I'm not the only one who quickly tired of this game. I'll keep it for a while, and I've tried to play it once or twice since, but I lose interest long before making much headway.
This game compares the earlier versions of MOO like like writing a term paper compares to watching an episode of your favorite TV show. It takes a lot of commitment, time, and cerebral energy to get through one game. That's not what most of us are looking for when they fire up a computer game after a long week of work.
In Master of Orion 3, the sequel to one of the best-loved strategy games of all time, you assume the biggest role ever. No longer do you represent mer...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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