I want this game just for the graphics
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerAge of Empires III screenshot
I really wish that Microsoft would stop producing crappy operating systems and stick to what they are good at: peripherals and games. The first Age of Empires was an amazing game, which is not surprising given that they poached the authors of Civilization. It was the first popular real-time strategy game, and people were willing to order moronic peasants to go to a new forest when they'd finished chopping down the old trees, and ignore logistical anomalies like being able to march a legion from Rome to Egypt in an hour. Who cared about finicky details like that when you could make catapult triremes and watch them lob boulders onto your rivals' cities?
AoE II is a bit "Hmmm". I tried it a while back and gave up after getting frustrated by having to tell peasants what to do and and build things like granaries. This is the Middle Ages, and I don't want granaries, I want mangonels and trebuchets! I might give it another go, though, in the unlikely instance that I have game-playing time between now and AoE III hitting the streets (and by "streets" here, I mean the guys who sit on the street peddling pirated software).
AoE III is beautiful. I have to hand it to the developers, they really know how to make a renderer render. Reflections in water, smoke coming out of chimneys, even wind ferchrissakes. It's alll about colonising America, and you can play a variety of European powers, including the Ottomans (definitely my choice if I play this game). However, as far as I can tell, although native Americans feature heavily (if you play the French, you get a bonus for co-operating with them), you can't play them yourself. I hope they rectify this in the final version. One of my favourite "what if?" fantasies is going back to the mid-nineteenth century, finding a nice peaceful tribe like the Zuni or Hopi, and giving them a load of Gatling guns.
I really wish that Microsoft would stop producing crappy operating systems and stick to what they are good at: peripherals and games. The first Age of Empires was an amazing game, which is not surprising given that they poached the authors of Civilization. It was the first popular real-time strategy game, and people were willing to order moronic peasants to go to a new forest when they'd finished chopping down the old trees, and ignore logistical anomalies like being able to march a legion from Rome to Egypt in an hour. Who cared about finicky details like that when you could make catapult triremes and watch them lob boulders onto your rivals' cities?
AoE II is a bit "Hmmm". I tried it a while back and gave up after getting frustrated by having to tell peasants what to do and and build things like granaries. This is the Middle Ages, and I don't want granaries, I want mangonels and trebuchets! I might give it another go, though, in the unlikely instance that I have game-playing time between now and AoE III hitting the streets (and by "streets" here, I mean the guys who sit on the street peddling pirated software).
AoE III is beautiful. I have to hand it to the developers, they really know how to make a renderer render. Reflections in water, smoke coming out of chimneys, even wind ferchrissakes. It's alll about colonising America, and you can play a variety of European powers, including the Ottomans (definitely my choice if I play this game). However, as far as I can tell, although native Americans feature heavily (if you play the French, you get a bonus for co-operating with them), you can't play them yourself. I hope they rectify this in the final version. One of my favourite "what if?" fantasies is going back to the mid-nineteenth century, finding a nice peaceful tribe like the Zuni or Hopi, and giving them a load of Gatling guns.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-03 04:39 pm (UTC)One of my favourite "what if?" fantasies is going back to the mid-nineteenth century, finding a nice peaceful tribe like the Zuni or Hopi, and giving them a load of Gatling guns.
Same here. Except I would just give them AK-47s with 100 round clips with unprecedented glee as I was erased from existence. 8p
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Date: 2005-05-03 04:40 pm (UTC)