FINALLY - Master Of Orion 3 Goes Gold

[JBMoney]

Master of Orion III PC Game Goes Gold: Fans Get Ready for New Frontiers in the Building of Galactic Empires as Highly-Anticipated Sequel Ships - Infogrames, Inc. a leading global publisher of interactive entertainment software, announced today that the highly-anticipated and long-awaited sequel in the space epic Master of Orion® 3 has gone Gold and will ship to retail as early as February 25, 2003.

"Master of Orion 3 is the definitive game for building civilization in space," says Nancy MacIntyre, Vice President of Marketing for Infogrames, Inc.'s Beverly, MA studio. "This game offers a truly immersive experience into all of the science fiction mystery, intrigue and adventure fans have come to expect from the Master of Orion® franchise and we're sure that fans everywhere will find it worth the wait."

In Master of Orion 3, the sequel to one of the best-loved strategy games of all time, players assume the biggest role ever. No longer do players merely represent petty interplanetary dictators. Players become the controlling power behind an entire galactic civilization; the dictators, presidents, councils, and overlords that come and go are merely pawns in the player's arsenal. One must use these governments, their citizens, and their leaders to secure the destiny of their civilization, to manipulate policies of freedom and oppression in both foreign and domestic arenas. It is not enough to be an able economist or a great starship captain to succeed in Master of Orion 3; considerable political, administrative, research, and espionage skills must be applied to claim the title of Master of Orion.

Featuring a robust Single Player game and up to 8-player simultaneous turn-based Multiplayer, Master of Orion 3 is the definitive 5X Space Strategy game; Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate and now Experience grand strategy as you never have before.

Master of Orion 3 is being developed by veteran developer of classic strategy games Quicksilver Software, Inc and features a wide range of multi-player and solitaire play options, 16 highly-distinctive alien races, crisp graphics and an intuitive user interface. Master of Orion 3 is available for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP PCs.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030124/242237_1.html

[Wham Valdez]

That looks like an alien Mr. T

I'm going to create the Bressler Commonwealth of Planets and make various Bressler.org-ites my planetary dictators. Seems to me there are going to be a lot of intergalactic garbage dump planets...

[JBMoney]

Should hit the stores on early Wednesday.

Supposedly some stores actually have it, but there's some contractual issue with Walmart and nobody is legally allowed to sell it until the 26th.

[JBMoney]

I haven't bought this, but I've been checking out the reviews and message boards.

Opinion is very mixed.

Some people think it's very good but admit that you have to spend A LOT of time to get to know the game. BTW, the manual is somewhere around 150 pages.

Some people say they've taken too much away from the player. Almost as if the player's computer AI 'Viceroy' is running the show and the player is just an accessory. The first group says that's not so and you just have to learn more about how to play.

Some people say that it's just too damn tedious, with a complex web of management screens, etc.

Both sides would likely agree that the graphics are way behind what most of today's games offer. This was a known before the game even came out. MOO fanatics don't care all that much about graphics so it was never a real big issue.

A lot of folks say the multiplayer is real good.

There seem to be a lot of hardcore MOO folks that are disappointed.


I don't know, but that doesn't really sound all that fun to me. I don't mind a steep learning curve, and I LOVE micromanagement games, but a game should be fun 'out of the box'... even if you don't know what the hell you are doing.

I think I will wait a bit longer before getting this, or until the next rainy day when I'm really bored.

Also, I think this may be my ticket. I'm going to start watching this one because it looks like what I was hoping MOO3 would be:

http://www.galciv.com/

Due out on March 26th.

[Wham Valdez]

Hmm thas inneressin'.

I wonder if you can work your way up the ladder. Like start with one planet or two and expand your empire. Then you'd learn by doing and it wouldn't be in your face all at once. LIke in SIM City 4.

PS- I didn't have much fun with Sim City 4 and there were bugs and they lie about system requirements because you need a Cray to run a city over 50,000.

Lately I've been playing Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon - that's some fun micromanagement babee!!

[JBMoney]

I've gone back to playing MOO2.

I'm almost done with an impossible setting, huge galaxy game with 8 opponents.

I could take the Antarans anytime, but I'm trying to see if I can build my population high enough to win a Senate vote over my last remaining opponent.

[Wham Valdez]

OIC, so basically you're treating the Antareans the same way you treat Bressler.orgites.

But then again, games aren't like real live. I ruled the French for 5000 years in Civ3 and never lost a war. Then again, I backstabbed a lot of allies too...

[Ether_Elemental]

only until a few days ago did i ever heard mention of Master of Orion. much less there being a third one. i heard it being described as being damned awesome and i KNOW the store i work at will get it in as soon as it comes out if we don't have it already. anybody need a connection?

[JBMoney]

It's been out since last Wednesday, and is pretty much everywhere (even internationally) so you shouldn't have any trouble finding it.

Reviews mixed for #3.

[Ether_Elemental]

ahhh i c then. oh well i'll just have to wait until the day i actually see the game. not too interested, course how can one be when one doesn't know a thing about it heh

[JBMoney]

I broke down and bought this last night. I was getting something else anyway so what the heck.

I think it was my destiny to have it though. I was looking at the shelf and didn't see any, so I asked the guy, "Didn't you guys get Master of Orion 3 yet?".

He said he couldn't believe my timing. They completely sold out, but.... one of the employees had just found a single copy back in some stack of other non-game software boxes.

MEH!

Anyhow, I tried to resist, but I installed it and messed around for maybe an hour.

DAMN!!!

You need a freaking class to play this thing... but... I think I'm going to like it.

I think for every bit of micromanagement they took out, they added something to replace it. There's more buttons and doohickeys in this thing than I've ever seen.

For the life of me I could not figure out how to make a colony ship, how to keep the AI from changing all my spending allocations, and how to make enough food to keep from starving.

Anyhow, I'll figure it out sometime and report back.