Even two MOO 1.5's dont make a MOO3

[QuackQululu]

I am 37 years old, have played just about every game that came out since the 70's and got old enough to be become selective as to choosing between drivel and decent games....That being said, here is the point. It is completely soulless.

This game is MOO 1.5. The ancient powder blue DOS screen interface straight from the 1970's, the clotted counter-intuitive screens that remind you of how it was BEFORE web-designers started streamlining interfaces, and to top it off INFOGRAMMES...yes folks, you have seen their games before, the ones in that bargain bin at your favorite software store. You know, the ones that sell "ALL their best" for 3.99 and you get 200 fun-filled games all on one cd!!! Remember..Ultra-Mah Jong...Super Pinball and all those winners? I bought one of those once (we all have) and I am painfully reminded of them...not Quicksilver, who has put out some top-notch content.

Am I going to have anything nice to say? Yes..there are some very solid things in the game. Kudos to the A.I. designers..you all did an excellent job in killing micromanagement. Autobuilding ships using the A.I. is VERY close to what you would actually build on your own, which is one of the first A.I.'s that I can say that about. The solid diplomatic agreements that no longer change on a whim are refreshing also. Trade, etc... are also well done. That was the nice part.

Now for the baseball bat... All I can say is.. "WHERE'S THE BEEF!?" Looking at this game is like looking at a hamburger with a very big bun and a tiny infinitesmally small burger inside. Yes..my! my! my! what a very big bun...but, where is the beef? It is huge, monstrous, of epic proportions, yet, if you asked if it was a challenge? Maybe to a C.P.A. or H&R block. I have played the game several times..whipped it in 342 turns, and was aked by my brother "what do you think? " My reply, "It is a step down from MOO II." For instance: The race pick screen in MOO2 was sleek, intellectually smart, very functional, and all laid out on one page. You can customize in MOO3 also...ahem..anyone know a good web page designer out there who can straighten out this mess? Oops, I mean one that also is not using solid 1970's solid colors and has heard of translucent sleek-looking interfaces that might be in keeping with a game that is ultra-futuristic. If you haven't tried it, compare the two games. The ship building screen, ack! what a mess! (Actually it is a mixed bag and has a few nice choices that were good moves.) Popup heaven... I think that they did not stoop so low as to using a CGA pallette of 16 colors..no they pulled out all the stops and must be using the whole EGA spectrum at least 64 colors with those fancy flat postage stamp pictures that are pasted all over whatever interface you look at to see a representation of something in the game. Go to MOO2 and look at the fantastic rotoscoping holograms of ANY research advance you look at. Want to see some really retroactive art? Go look at a Marine in the ground troops of MOO3. Listen folks, if I wanted to see some 1960's astronaut in a big clunky suit bouncing around on the moon, I'll have NASA send me a flick from the archives. What hapened to the "futuristic" game? Why is it more poorly designed than MOOII as to interface? Try right clicking on something you do not understand in MOOII. Probably the best help interface I EVER saw in any game I ever played. It will tell you about ANYTHING you do not understand. Try right clicking in MOO 3. Dead, great....a one button interface. I'll just have 2 or 3 of my staff look it up for me in the semi-useful manual provided. Unintuitive? Yes.

Conclusion: Is it all bad? No..I can play the game. Is it bigger? yes. Is it better? Truly..I am sorry and apologize if it hurts the feelings of the designers and beta-testers, but I cannot budge, nor can any other person I have spoken with. It is empty. I am not saying the A.I. is not a great leap,... it is. I am not saying that it is the absolute worst. Heck, I played it several times. It lacks adventure and substance. It tastes like it is watered-down. Yes, there is more of it, but the substance is not as rich as it once was. Piles of meaningless tech advances deluging you as you near the last 1/2 of the game. Reminisce about how wonderful it was to get that neutronium armor in the old MOO's? Now you were the MAN! Like the U.S. getting the atom bomb when no one else had it.
Somehow, the feeling is lost in MOO3. Neat and clinically antiseptic. Honestly..if I were to grab several developers, take MOOII and upgrade its limited A.I., add 3-D to the space battles, upgrade ground troop invasions and flesh out the diplomacy screens with more options and cutting edge graphics, I would have a product that would be superior to MOOIII in many ways.
Ending refrain.. "If you liked MOO3 folks you are just gonna love MOO2.5 Battle at Antares!"

[Oddible]

Well said Quack. Funny thing is that I had an ill premonition while watching the movie at the beginning of the game. Go back and check it out again... There are NO segues. Each clip cuts directly to the next without even the slightest fade. It just seemed so harsh on first viewing. Now, after playing many many hours of this game, and enjoying some of my breakthroughs very much, I am getting this same lack of segue feeling.

Nothing flows. You get your grid of events after every turn (a very handy interface to view the turns events, I must say). Thrust into battles (why is there no evade if you have longer range sensors?). And propositioned for trade or embargo often on the FIRST TURN!!!

By the time I get a fleet of ships to a distant star, they're all obsolete!?! The science moves WAY fast.

Hmm, well, I'm reading a lot of gripe threads and inserting my 2c pretty often - I haven't written this game off yet, but doesn't seem like its going to be a keeper.

[Oddible]

and to top it off INFOGRAMMES...yes folks, you have seen their games before

Infrogrames isn't a developer, they're a distributor. They also distrubite Civ III by Firaxis, one of the best in a long series of the best empire strategy games ever (Sid Meier RULEZ!).

[vmxa1]

I am glad you like the event list. I would say they owe some royalties to Aaron Hall of Space Emires.
They had the event log and a goto function.
The first thing I noticed when I looked a making a colony ship was the components were the ones in SE ships, LIfe/Crew/Bridge, not saying Aaron did not get them elsewhere......
Oh at least you could upgrade ships in SE.

[QuackQululu]

Yes, I agree, not a real keeper. You can see from the fervor and passion in the forums that the fans really wanted this one to work. A near miss.
Btw..I appreciate the correction on Infogrames, yet, aside from Sid's work, early on there seemed to be a consistent distribution of loser games. . BTW.. I played alot of Sid's stuff..solid.
You ever dream of just walking in and taking over project management of a game? Granted, you cannot please everyone, but some of these matters are glaring errors that children could pick out.

But, honestly I do feel sorry for the mass flaming that only a few people like these guys get simply from the sheer number of fans there are. Facing it squarely, MOO players are not just your average easily satisfied game player. They are a cut above and want the game to keep the faith.

[Trystan]

I think the direction they went with macromanagement was what did the game in. I'm not bashing macromanagement. But on this game it is too much. It takes you away from the command decisions which make a game fun. Research is too abstract. I really don't care at all about it. Even out all the sliders and ignore it for the rest of the game. Doesn't really matter. You get a crap load of techs that you can't do anything with anyhow. The AI takes care of it. There's no connection there.

Back to their macromanagement. It still leaves much to be desired. You still have the micromanagement there, but you got to work at it and fight the AI at the same time. How many times did you have to go into a build que? How about when the AI decides to colonize a Red 2 world (auto-colonize set off)? Then decides that it wants to do industry before anything else. You end up with such a maintenence fee that you end up not being able to build anything on it.

I really do feel that the macromanagement is what takes the fun out of the game. There's no connection between you and your planets. Isn't planets what makes an empire? Military, research, and diplomancy do have a role but they have their problems too. Military doesn't give you enough feed back as to what direction to go, research is just there (no real interaction), and AI diplomancy is whacked. Empires declaring war even though they can't reach me. Giving treaties then breaking them, then offering them again. I think I even got rejected by the AI from a trade agreement that it offered.