This week I rushed out at bought AoE3 the day it hit stores (I called 4-5 stores, and one of them I even called 4 times in a day to see if it was in yet).
The graphics are nice and AoE3 has some nice features. Gunpowder units, trade, etc. Yet after playing through the first 8 campaign scenarios, I must admit I'm disappointed. Disappointed enough that it is tough for me to even be motivated to keep slogging through the SP campaign, and about ready to shelve AoE3 and wait until CivIV comes out until next week.
The old AoE scenarios had some basis in reality -- real nations, real history, real battles. Slightly dramatized, sure. But still with some reality behind them. There would have been a lot of opportunities to make good AoE campaigns as well. European wars, Napoleonic wars, colonial wars, the age of discovery, revolutionary war, civil war, you name it. It's a great period with so many cool historic battles -- some of the top ones for gaming. But what did they do? They passed up all the good stuff and came up with an AoE3 campaign that is completely made-up crap!!! I won't spoil it but it is quite a bunch of bizarre nonsense. The people that wrote that campaign, in my opinion, should not be on the crew of an illustrious franchise such as AoE. The plot really doesn't work and is not even believable. It is tough to get attached or to want to plod through the sheer nonsense piled on nonsense of the campaign. The campaign has exceeded my quotient of tolerable stupidity and I just can't endure plodding through the pain any more.
This disastrously sucky campaign, which belongs in a third-rate fantasy dime-store novel and not in AoE3, is made immensely worse because it is the ONLY campaign. That's right. No more picking a civ, no more picking a historical campaign, no more picking interesting historical battles -- if you don't like the campaign that ships with the game, you're out of luck, 'cuz there ain't no more.
I've never been a MP fan, but it seems that's the real attraction of AoE3 since SP is so bad. Judging from the board here, it seems that MP is the only thing that keeps many or most people going. I'm made about spending $53 for a game that is an utter flop compared to the earlier AoE series, and have much more fun with AoK:TC -- even with its old technology and graphics -- than with AOE3.
I don't think AoE3 will even hold me over a few days until Civ4 comes out. Maybe I will send it to my brother to keep it from being a total loss.
How did this mega-flop happen? I had high expectations from the reviews and the franchise record. Or is this just my problem? Are there others here who have fallen madly in love with AoE3 campaign and SP skirmish?
[This message has been edited by Falconhurst (edited 10-21-2005 @ 10:19 PM).]