Master Of Orion 3 (Mac)

Rating:
Summary: Not that good of a game
Review: I would not recommend this game to anyone. The battle sequence is nothing like MOO2. Just beacuse you change the style of space battle does not make it better. Ship customization is difficult. Don't even talk about troop deployment. The planetary AI is not developed enough, don't supply an AI option that you can't customize or at least point it toward the right direction. This might be a good game for a novice. I love these types of games and I was bored while playing this one!

Rating:
Summary: What is this ...?
Review: I have put up with many games long enough to beat them. I put up with Pikmin for god's sake. This game starts out great. You get to create your character from a choice of many sweet looking aliens. I thought to myself "wow, this should be a cool game." Was I wrong. AI is horrible. At times I wanted to fire a giant laser into my own team. Knock some sense into them by eliminating a few of their friends. But this didn't work. This game is so bad, I only played an hour, in which all I did was create characters. pPretty pathetic, yes? I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Booooring.
Review: I have been an avid fan of the Master of Orion series. Now, I'm going to seek other venues.

Master of Orion 3 is flat. It is boring beyond reason. It is a series of pointless clicking of turns and hoping the AI does the right thing.

Sure the graphics are neat, and the music is acceptable, but the interactive elements are weak. Playing the game is like driving a high performance sports car wearing oven mittens, ear muffs, and a maximum speed limit of 15 MPH.

If you have a long life expectancy, no friends or family, and the need to fill in vast amounts of vacant time then this is the game for you.

I am truly disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Master of Orion III - Redefining Space Strategy Games.
Review: Initially I wanted to pick up this game from the local Apple Store (Mayfair Mall - MKE), but weeks after it was released I gave up and ran out to CompUSA instead. My excitement was overwhelming and unmatched since the release of Warcraft III.

Both games represent a third generation of a best selling title, but where Warcraft improved their game, MOO attempted to Redefine it. This is no longer the beloved MOO we all were waiting for.

One of the reviewers remarked on the limited screen res (800x600), at first this didn't worry me - the past titles made good use of 640x480 and it sounded like an improvement...

Unfortunately they have increased type size to the point where you get MUCH LESS information on the screen - even at the new resolution. The planet tab can only show 4 planets at a time (expect over a hundred at the end of a small game). Star Names appear only when the Galactic Map is at MAX Zoom. You will be constantly scrolling around to find anything. The Sitrep (turn info) can display a max of 3 to 5 items per page. And the amount of info you must [peruse] is increased.

Basically the screen resolution becomes the Achilles' heel of this title, and plays a major roll in every thing you do, from reports skipped (i.e. read the first 10 pages - skip the last 30) to scout ships sitting idle because because you can't find them on the map. And when the computer starts attacking you... Your view of the map is so limited that it is impossible to see where your defenses are weak!

The documentation also leaves much to be desired. All those specials that you find on planets are mentioned nowhere in the book or the online help. You must first colonize the planet and look at the infrastructure panel to find out. The diplomacy is also better but not great. How many trade agreements do I need/want, are they just being renewed, or expanded as economies expand? How home I can have 2 "Open Border TA" for some races and only one for others? None of that is in the documentation and there will always be a good degree of confusion when playing - even after several victories under your belt.

It's no longer possible to upgrade ships, a major step backwards in a tech based game where your ships are obsolete before you can build them.

So what is good about the game? Planets can progress on their own, you don't need to keep putting things in their queue, they can also build things from multiple queues (Military, Planetary, and basic development). Mineral richness effects mining output, not industry. The computer can colonize for you (if you select it in the Empire Panel), just move your scouts on, and if there is anything good there it'll be colonized with the best planets first.

Conclusion:
At [the price] this game needs a lot of work, and is a big disappointment. If a patch comes out to increase the screen resolution then I would give it an extra star. If you could upgrade ships one more extra star, but the game as is should be avoided until it's in the ... bargain bin.

Pros:
Much improved AI, planets develop nicely, auto colonization, etc

Cons:
Screen Resolution!!!
Can't upgrade ships.
Spy Queue is only 4 slots - you must keep checking back every few turns as they retire/die.
Game is just not as fun as the past titles were.

Rating:
Summary: Too Big a Departure From MOO-II
Review: I'm a big fan of turn-based resource-management strategy games. I've loved the MOO (Masters of Orion) series up until MOO-III. My biggest complaint about MOO-III is the lack of control I have over the planets in my Empire and the forces I control (or really don't). This is primarily the result of a bad interface. However, the interface is so bad that I returned the game, because it was no fun to watch what horrible things the computer AI (Artificial Intelligence) would do for me since the interface prohibited me from controlling my own units.

In a nutshell, MOO-III is the successor to a popular series of turn-based resource-management strategy games. What made the MOO series more attractive than many of its' competitors was an easy-to-use interface, charming graphics (art), and a good storyline. For instance, in MOO-II, whenever galactic events occurred, a robotic news anchor would read the report (often with a little bit of humor) while background news music (the sounds of teleprompters) played. I loved it and it greatly added to the charm and feel of the game. Star ships were highly customizable and researching new technologies to get the latest gadgets was a lot of fun.

MOO-III lacks those fun news reports. Starship design is a droll affair conducted on a menu system that Apple Computers must have long ago rejected. Choices are limited and the auto-build function tends to do most of the work. Researching new technologies is now a bore since I don't do much more than allot money to each area of technology being researched and wait for the results. In addition, social unrest factors in my empire constantly delay new projects since the "people" are against orbital mines or some such. I tried out many different empires before realizing that this problem was game endemic rather than empire endemic.

The Galactic Council is one of the few game details that are improved from previous MOO games. There is a voting process similar to MOO-II and, of course, the powers-that-be (the New Orions) in this game have something like 1,134 votes to your 2 as a new player. Trying to get a diplomatic measure through the new council is near impossible as well (even after some 200 turns into the game). It seems as if only the New Orions can propose really cool new measures such as Galactic Space Port Tariffs. Unfortunately, the other empires tend all do have a chip on their shoulders (or alien parts I guess) so all that really happens is you get constantly condemned at the Galactic Council. It's sort of like a replay of the USA trying to get anything done at the UN. Never the less, this was one of the few aspects I liked on MOO-III.

The story line and game fluff are also outstanding. I enjoyed reading them very much. If only the game play was as well done as the story background.

Documentation was very weak. There is no graph that shows the strength and weaknesses of various government types. There is also no documentation for the various planetary specials (want to know what "ancient battle damage" means?) in the manual (By the way, "ancient battle damage" means that a planet is easier to terraform). Much of the games' necessary information is in an attached document that must be printed out using some 60+ pages of printer paper and ink. The Prima clue guide is a bygone necessity to even try to understand what's going on in the game and the Prima MOO-III clue guide didn't help much either.

What turned me off most to MOO-III is a poor game interface. The designers must have realized that they put an awful lot of detail in the game (can allot zones of development on a planet's surface) so rather than make it easy to control these aspects of the game they designed AIs to do it for you. You don't even get a choice of whether to turn these AIs off (as most people did in earlier titles in the MOO series). You can guide them slightly buy choosing policies that will direct the AIs, but they seem to do whatever they want to anyhow. I couldn't figure out how the AIs made the choices they did and neither could any of my friends. If I could understand how the AIs made decisions for my galactic empire then the game might have been playable. As it currently stands, in MOO-III, the player is more like a galactic CEO than a galactic leader. I make decisions, but I have no idea what's going to happen with them. Space combat is much the same with ships being very difficult to control and doing stupid things when under control (such as ships with long range weapons closing to short range).

I can't recommend MOO-III. Its' poor game interface and unwieldy AI makes the game more of a core to play than a pleasure. It's simply not too much fun. MOO-III minimizes its' fun parts with a poor interface. I only give it two stars for its' awesome story line (too bad I didn't get to see much of the story line since the game play was so bad!).

I recommend Space Empires IV Gold by Malfador Machinations instead of MOO-III.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

Rating:
Summary: waste of time and money
Review: This game is a comlete waste of time and money. After playing for some time I have come to the conclusion the designers and programers could have better spent thier time doing something else like installing software on a 286.
I'm going back to playing Master of Orion II!

Rating:
Summary: apallingly bad
Review: The makers of the game (not MacSoft) had some good ideas for how to expand this game beyond MOO2, BUT the implementation of those ideas was absolutely horrid. Win XP GUI programmers fired by Microsoft apparently built the user interface. It is the definition of ugly.
The game has the user running the mouse around all over the screen like a mad scientist in a bad 50's horror flick just to do simple things. It takes a minimum of 5 clicks strewn across the width and breadth of the screen just to get to where you can change what a planet is producing. In MOO2 it took 2. If I want to mouse like crazy, I'll play a first person shooter; it's much more gratifying.
This game reminds me of Pax Imperia in many regards (ship design, fleet movement, planetary development). Pax Imperia turned my stomach over a decade ago.
The game is not complex - it's cluttered and cumbersome.
The automation in the game is a godsend, except that by the time you get the clunky parts of the game automated to the point of not having to deal with them, all that remains is click the turn button again and again like a trained ape. Boring.
On the good side MacSoft did a great job of porting the game. Maybe that should be on the bad side - MacSoft could have improved it. The star chart looks nice as do the aliens, but those things aren't worth the asking price of this game. Don't buy this game. In fact, the makers should recall the game and us all our money back. Or maybe just tell everyone it was really a cruel April Fool's joke.

Rating:
Summary: Just what you'd expect
Review: This game is great, in my opinion, but it's obvious some people won't like it. But, you don't have to read much to know if you'd like it or not. Basically, if you think you'll like it, you will. Very complicated, very big.

Rating:
Summary: a waste of time and money
Review: ...P>The interface is desperatly slow and dumb, you'll find lots of bugs, and since you can't focus on everything, whenever you come near the end of the game, basically you don't control anything anymore...so where is the fun of being in charge if your role is reduced to clicking the "next turn" button ?
Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone but....
Review: First of all, you have a much better chance of enjoying this game if you've played MOO II. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT buy this game if:
a. You don't like to think (i.e. play FPSes all the time)
b. You don't have a lot of free time
c. You like to learn a game in 15 minutes and beat it the first day.
d. You dislike complex turn based strategy games (like Alpha Centauri)
e. You are looking for games with top-notch graphics

That being said, I think this is an awesome game. Some people complain that the AI does everything - well, it only does if you tell it to. I like to have control of everything, so I pretty much disabled all of my empire's AI. Whether you want to micromanage or not is irrelevant - MOO3 accomodates.

I won't lie - the graphics are not a selling point. In combat, ships are really tiny and so you can't see many details. The UI is okay in terms of looks.

The manual isn't very useful either. That's why someone made an exceedingly useful in-game Encyclopedia Mod. Pop that in and you can answer most of your questions in game.

The game isn't bug-lacking either. However, one patch is out and a second one should be arriving shortly.

This game has a massive learning curve (not too bad if you're MOO2 familiar). A lot of people played it for 30 minutes, then said "This game is horrid." It grows on you - I guarantee it. Once you understand the game it's a blast to play, and you don't need a high end computer either.

Unfortunately, because of this game, I have no life anymore. This is partially because I love it but mostly because it takes forever. I've never finished a game but spent about 3 hours getting to turn 100 and an average game can go 300 or more turns. You won't get the fun out of this game unless you have a lot of time for it.

So, overall, it's an acquired taste. You love it or hate it.