- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (Two single-player missions, two skirmish maps with two empires); $49.99 to buy
- Operating system: Windows 2000/XP
- Date added: September 08, 2005
- Total Downloads: 784,715
- Downloads last week: 1,929
- See full specifications
A newer version of Age of Empires III demo is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 106 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
After a lengthy installation, say a little prayer that your machine can handle this demo, because the system requirements aren't listed anywhere in the download package. The Age of Empires III demo provides hours of fabulous real-time fun, but lack of documentation and instruction haunts the experience.
The ReadMe.rtf file includes a useful list of shortcut keys. However, there's no introduction or explanation of the gameplay, so you'll have to find your own way. In two single-player scenarios (building trading posts along a railroad track and defending a fort) and two skirmish maps (Texas and New England), you'll be collecting resources, raising structures, creating units, and bombarding your enemies.
Gameplay is deep, involved, and addictive, though the one major addition--the ability to send special shipments from home cities--seems extraneous. Noticeable absences in the hot-keys list are the ability to select all of one unit type and to create custom unit groups. Such shortcuts might exist, but without detailed help, we couldn't tell. Also, we were slightly disappointed with the range of view and the graphics overall. The rag-doll physics make for fun combat scenes, but the graphics themselves are actually less impressive than last year's Rise of Nations.
Publisher's description
From Microsoft Game Studios :In this action-adventure tale of historical fiction, players take on the role of Morgan Black and his family, struggling against the hostile wilderness and a mysterious cult from Europe. In 24 scenarios, Morgan Black and his descendants help the Aztecs resist conquest by Spanish conquistadors, pit the French against the British, and help Simon Bolivar lead revolutions in South America.
For multiplayer action, contend against opponents with persistent Home Cities that gain power and strategic options the more games you play, compete for a spot on dozens of ladders, help organize your clan, or chat after a game.
This demo for Age of Empires III includes two missions from the single-player campaign. The demo also includes a single-player skirmish mode where you can play as the British or Spanish empires in the New England and Texas maps.
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User reviews of Age of Empires III demo
- Average user rating: 4.1 stars out of 106 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 20 user reviewsSee all 20 user reviews
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13 out of 15 people found this review helpful
Version: Age of Empires III demo
"Great Graphics and Sounds. Much Improved Gameplay."
Pros: The graphics are just awesome! I don't just mean the kind of graphics you take screen shots out of. I'm talking about the animations as well. Buildings start to fall apart as your men attack them, and when they die, the buildings will fall down beautifully. I also love how the game shows how the artillery is deployed and undeployed. It really shows the discipline and efficiency of the times back then. Oh yeah and the trains and ships are just marvelous.
The sounds are also a wonderful part of the game. The rifle and cannon sounds really make you feel the power of the weapons. The chaotic screamings that occur when you are attacking a town center also adds action to the game, but I wish that these sounds occur in other places besides town centers.
The music in the game are also very beautiful.
The gameplay has been muched improved. People who have played the previous Age of Empire games would immediately notice the improvements. No more need to wait for your workers to carry the resources back to a building before they show up on your stock of resources. Resources in the new game accumulates while the worker is working. This also eliminates the need to constantly build buildings like Lumber Camps or Mining Camps. Trade Units (such as Stagecoaches and Trains) come in and out of the map, while resources and units from your home city arrive from time after time. These two features keep you from feeling "alone" as the previous Age of Empire games tend to do. One big bonus is the easiness of moving from place to place, even with artillery units. And another Big, Big, Big bonus is you can que 5 military units and all 5 will come out at a time once the production is finished, therefore - more killing!
It's an awesome game. I highly recommend it especially if you've played previous Age of Empires or if you have a high-end graphics card and are dying to see some of the best graphics ever!
Cons: Better graphics mean you need a better graphics card to run it. With my GeForce 6600 GT 128mb, I can run the game at 1024x786 with High Shaders and High Shadows. If I set the game on either Highest Shaders or Highest shadows, I would face a serious visual response-lag issue (not FPS lag). There is a big difference in quality as well as performance between High and Highest shaders, so watch out.
Some players may be disappointed by the gameplay. No more massing castles for defense or offense. No more gigantic fleets of ships. No more "pikemen are the only thing that stands against cavalry." Less effectiveness of combat micro-management (alot harder to dodge siege weapons). Harder to mass workers (each one costs 100 food). No more Converting from religious units! Priests and Missionaries can only heal and attack.
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Age of Empires III demo
Pros: Awesome graphics, and it's the Age of Empires what can possibly be wrong with it?
Cons: None against AOE, but when you filter the downloads to Windows 2000 AOE III shows up. If you download it, it will tell you that it can't run on windows 2000.... c'mon cnet, get it right.
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3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: Age of Empires III demo
Pros: Great combate, sweet navy units, Shows you enough of the game that u no if u want to buy it in stores or not. Microsoft made alot of sweet additions on this one from the earlier AOE's
Cons: -Some glitches and bugs that hopfully will b fixed when the real game comes out
- no tutorial
-need a decent computer
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3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: Age of Empires III demo
Pros: No problems installing
Good looking backgrounds
Cons: Gameplay is same old AOE thing,with a "rise of nation" feel.
Looks the same as age of mythology but different sprite characters, and not half as fun.
Round maps? Cards? Micro management?
Sound cues are very annoying with no volume control.
Against the comp AI its a race of who clicks faster.
$70.00 to buy?Only if you've played out the older games and are desperate.
PS for a faster than 50kB FREE download of the Demo, go to the AOE3 website and download there.
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Version: Age of Empires III demo
"I'm a big fan of the AOE series and this is a huge dissapointment"
Pros: Not a lot, honestly.
Cons: I really loved the ancient battles in Europe theme. Even though it has moved to a yankee-doodle-head-west-flag-waing theme I thought it would still be an advancement of the series.
I was wrong.
Not only the theme, but the whole gameplay has taken a dive. They have added a role playing aspect like in Warcraft, which was one of the features I didn't like about Warcraft. I do enjoy role playing games, but not while I'm strategy gaming. So, while you are building up your civilisation and your armies (which is slower than previously to compensate for the role playing) you run Colonel Sanders, or whoever your hero is, around searching for treasures and exploring the map.
Appart from that, it is just simply lacking features that previously made the series great. Unless I'm missing something, you can't put your troopes into formations or command them to patrol or anything like that. The demo is also very buggy. It crashed a couple of times, I managed to get my main character on to a point on the map where it got completely stuck and sites for trading posts could be positioned where it wasn't actually possible to build a trading post. The sound cut out for a bit then came back on a bit later.
For all that, there isn't a marked improvement in the graphics either. Certainly, this is a much heavier game, with all sorts of special effects and what appears to be physics simulations of the buildings being destroyed (missiles will rip through the buildings spewing debris out the other side). However, you still just see it all from the same isometric-like viewpoint as before.
Big disappointment! For most franchises I like I will shell out for the latest installment event if it isn't very good. In this case, the gameplay has skewed badly and is no longer fun. It looks like Cossacks (which was more fun than this) and plays a bit like Warcraft (which I'm not a huge fan of).
It looks like Ensemble may lose thier positon in the RTS genre with this lemon.
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