Age of Empires III looking great

3D graphics in strategy games goes to the next level

Published on April 17, 2005 By Draginol In PC Gaming

The latest Gamespot preview of Age of Empires III is most impressive. This year could be quite a good year for strategy gamers (now if we could just get a Total Annihilation 2) with Civilization IV and AoE 3 coming out (not to mention some of the others liek EE2 and such). I don't know about the rest of you, but 3D in ground-based strategy games have often had mixed results.  On the one hand, 3D engines provide so much flexibility but on the other hand, how do you keep the units from looking like polygons?  Total Annihilation got around this by having their units be robots.  But strategy games with actual people running around had it a bit tougher.  I think the first strategy game I played that had a 3D engine that really sold it was Rise of Nations.  But I think the buildings in that were still sprite based.  Clearly though, judging by the screenshots, Age of Empires III intends to raise the bar to a new level.

Comments

Mr_Frog

on Apr 17, 2005

Holy smokes. I want to make love to those screenshots. PC gaming...dead? I'll take 1600x1200 over NTSC any day.

-- B

stubbyfinger

on Apr 17, 2005

One of my all time favorite strategy games is Homeworld. I remember being back at the desktop after playing for a while, and having the urge to hold down the right mouse button and spin around to see what the other side of my desktop icons looked like. The way that the Homeworld interface allowed you to quickly move around in a large 3D environment was nothing short of revolutionary. It would be perfect for designing and positioning objects for gaming environments. The next strategy game I bought was Age of Empires ll. I had the same feeling of wanting to move in and around the battle scenes like in Homeworld. I figure Sierra must be holding quite a few patens on that interface but that would be a nice ability to have in AOE lll, even with only half a sphere to move around in.

Zoomba

on Apr 18, 2005

The biggest problem I have with 3D Engines in RTS games especially is how hard it is sometimes to get a good visual fix on anything. Units walking behind trees, behind buildings, not having the proper view angle and then unable to see the enemy sniper taking out all of my units etc... Some games do it better than others. The recent Act of War: Direct Action was a good example of a 3D engine that didn't obscure the action though fluff visuals. AoW also had great graphics for individual units, you didn't get the feeling of commanding polygons at all.

AOE3 has me a bit skeptical yet. Yes, the screenshots look amazing... but will those backdrops and buildings overshadow the units and the actual action? I almost prefer the days of true 2d strategy games as I never had to finagle the controls to be able to see where my units were.

Yarlen

on Apr 18, 2005

Well, visually I'm really impressed, though you can only tell so much from static images. I agree with Zoomba's point on units being obscured, so it'll be interesting to see how that's handled.

Zoomba

on Apr 18, 2005

The other concern I have for 3D games is the "bloom" effect. I can't access the screenshots linked in the gspot article right now, but I remember a lot of the previous shots having that glowy/radiant effect around the edges of buildings and such. It makes everything softer/brighter but for someone who already has slightly blurred vision, it often makes portions of the screen washed out for me. In most PC games that feature bloom, I can turn it off... but it's locked on in many console games. Jade Empire haqs that effect and it makes it hard for me to play at times.

EventHorizon

on Apr 18, 2005

I agree with Zoomba's point on units being obscured, so it'll be interesting to see how that's handled.

Units behind buildings will be visible as a colored outline, just as has been done in previous 'Age' games.

Stubby: 360 degree camera rotation was implemented in Age of Mythology, so I expect it to be in this as well...

Mike C

on Apr 18, 2005

Those graphics are amazing. Im not sure how much it will improve the game, every rts still feels like Warcraft 2/starcraft to me. Nothing really new. Empire Earth 2 has a cool feature that lets you plan attacks your ally (human or AI). I think that is a pretty big deal if done properly.

stubbyfinger

on Apr 18, 2005

Stubby: 360 degree camera rotation was implemented in Age of Mythology, so I expect it to be in this as well...

I remember it being very awkward to use especially during battles and your height was fixed. In HW double clicking on a unit zoomed in on that unit to a predefined distance that could then be adjusted with the mouse wheel. Holding the right mouse button let you rotate around at that distance. Hitting the space bar brought out far enough for an overview that could again be fine tuned with the mouse wheel. It made it very easy to manage multiple battles over a large area.

greywar

on Apr 19, 2005

Honestly I saw the title to this one and thought, "My God! TGN is publishing AOE 3?" Alas it was not to be....

Yarlen

on Apr 19, 2005

LOL, that would be sweet.

Zoomba

on Apr 19, 2005

Eh, I found the sillouette (sp?) highlighting on units behinds buildings difficult to see at larger resolutions. What I'd like to see is maybe a little bubble around the unit when it's behind a building. What I mean is if you have a solider behind a building, there is a circle around them, where you see straight through the building to the unit.

aeryck

on Apr 19, 2005

The boys were overjoyed to see this thread, they had me get all the graphic of it, it is one serious upgrade. That will be the end of life as we know it, always throught that GTA San Andreas would swallow them whole but this is detinitely got me. I just loved the first two and the Warcraft series, we still have the mmm somewhere, 'Job done'...sure, thanks for setting me free, I am really grateful.

mrboo

on Apr 21, 2005

I always felt PC games are much more interesting than the rest. Out of the games I definetely feel Empire Earth 2 the best.
It had the best story theme, more variety, best graphics, best 3d effect, more to say the fastest.

Apart from that I did like Warcraft III & Warcraft II.

European Wars Cossacks didnt fall apart either, Microsoft games like Age of Empires & Mythology always competed if not the best among the other listed.

Lets wait & see how far age of empires iii goes.

zeldafreek13

on Jun 09, 2005

ur gay

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