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Genius is sometimes misunderstood

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: December 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game well after it was made available despite being a MOO & MOO2 addict. Why? The reviews for this game were horrendous. I bought it only because I saw it on sale for $10.
It turned out to be the best game I ever played. I started thinking to myself why did I love it so much, and think it was going to be as great as it should've been when hardly anyone else did?
1) The aliens aren't the same as they are in MOO or MOO2. While they have the same names, appearances and abilities are only vaguely similar.
2) The interface is very different than MOO & MOO2 though it does have some elements of each.
3) I had already been told this game was bad, and it was hard to learn so I was prepared the reality that this wasn't just going to be MOO2 with better graphics and sound.
4) Everything, I mean everything you could've wanted to control can be controlled which also has frustrated many. It takes quite a long time to learn how to play this game the way it was meant to be played. I spent at least 2 whole days behind the computer to figure it out, and I'm still learning. I bet a year from now, even after dedicated playing will I still learn some things. The first day wasn't fun at all. By the 2nd day I started to figure it out. By the 3rd day I was playing to the point where it was 6am and I still hadn't gone to sleep yet.
I think the immensity of the game is the biggest reason why people have been frustrated. A rough analogy is comparing this game to a fine wine. While the previous games were like soda. Wine requires dedication and years of drinking to fully appreciate. Everyone will love soda, which tastes good immediately. Few will like a fine dry wine. That's not to say the MOO3 haters are wrong. This game is not for the shoot em' uppers or those wanting immediate gratification.
Further, the game while having many similarities in "mathetmatics" (research points, credits, food, etc), the interface is very very different than that of MOO2. I think this turned off devouted MOO2 fans because they had to learn to "walk" again.
But therein also lies its strength. Its going to be the biggest, most sophisticated game you've played. The gloves are off people. Sometimes you got to take 1 step back to take 3 steps forward. Although the basics are the same the interface is very different and you got to figure it out. It was frustrating hitting the turn button while not fully understanding it, but at the same time the AI does the micromanaging for you.
With time you will be able to micromanage actually quite quickly, but in the beginning you will be forced to have the AI do it because you won't fully understand how to play the game.
If you have this game or are planning on getting it, I suggest you give yourself at least a few days and goto the MOO3 boards to learn how to play it. Also download the latest patches. Unfortunately the manual won't teach you what you need to fully know.
While I love this game, to some degree the harsh complaints are warranted because the manual doesn't properly teach you how to play the game. Goto some MOO3 boards and ask around. The graphics too are somewhat mediocre, though the strategy and gameplay are 2nd to none, and that's the most important thing. There are some things that I feel need some polishing up, but considering this is the only game I know of that utilizes this level of complexity, far more than the previous MOO's and over similar games like Civilization, its still breathtaking to play this game at its full potential.
I always wanted a MOO for the big braniacs who wanted to control everything on a level of complexity that blows the others out of the water. I think this is it people, but I also think this is the same reason why many were turned off by it.

Pure Garbage

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

One of the worst games I've ever played, and I've played a lot of them. Master of Orion 2 is a better game and that was made years ago, by a different developer.

I played it for about a week when it first came out, and the bottom line is that it is just not FUN!!!

I even gave it another chance when the patch was released, and it still just wasn't fun.

Entertainment is the point of playing a game like this. The problem is that the guys who developed Master of Orion 3, created a game that is too much work for too little entertainment value!

The graphics have all the charm of an excel spreadsheet, and the interface (while not impossible to get used to) is needlessly complex.

Save your money...just do your taxes, it's pretty much the same thing!

If there is to be a Master of Orion 4, it's development needs to be taken away from Quicksilver...they don't know what fun is.

Play MOO 2, this isn't worth the time it takes to learn

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: July 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is cumbersome, difficult and, well, boring. I played at least 20 hours of this, and I really wish I could have those hours back. I guess I kept expecting to stumble across something I had missed that made all the ridiculous interfaces useful.

The space combat just plain stinks, there is no reason to even attempt to control it. The ground combat is completely unintelligible. I never could manage to figure out how to bombard a planet, it just wouldn't ask me if I wanted to although it is listed in the 200 page manual as an option. My spies continually died long before they ever did anything useful. Threatening representatives of other races resulting in nothing (playing politics was the thing I was most looking forward to in this update).

I tried really hard to like this game, the graphics are good, and the 3-D map is cool. But the MOO series is about being able to control worlds and manage empires, and frankly, I felt like I was just along for the ride. MOO 2 is a much better game and I still highly recommend it.

Warning - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: June 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I pre-ordered this game, I played it for more than 40 hours, you see I thought any game with lots of complexity must become fun at some point, it doesn't. The game is much like "playing" an Excel spreadsheet. The interface is a unique combination of unintuitive, counterintuitive, and downright irritating. If your idea of fun is hunting amongst many menus for information, which you will do a lot of as the game ships with one of the worst manuals ever put on paper, then there is an outside chance you won't begin cursing at the screen. It has been described as a macro-strategy game, a better term would be a game that is primarily designed to play itself with the only neccessary human action being clicking the turn button. As of this review thay are working on a BETA patch, You can expect lousy customer support from Ataris and Quicksilver. I reiterate, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Save your money.

Stay clear...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: March 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

...this 'game' is a joke on every thinkable level. It takes more micromanagement to prevent the moronic AI from doing things you don't want it to, than if everything had just been left to you in the first place. The latest patch fixes a few glitches, but you cannot repair a poorly designed and coded game with a patch. Do you know it is actually possible to win this game at the hardest setting, without doing anything after the first round? Some call this title strategy. I call it silly. Get Space Empires IV: Gold Edition, or Galactic Civilizations instead. I noticed that Infogrames has changed their name after this title was released. Perhaps, after the other great title they messed up, Grand Prix 4, they saw the writing on the wall...

Micromanagement Hell

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: February 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I tried the demo and found this to be a truely awful game. The question you would normally ask at this point is "Why did you buy it?"

Because we are using it to investigate products with awful user interfaces as part of a class project. By comparing this game with the two prior Master of Orion games, we can understand what happened and how the problems can be avoided. As a case study in bad design, it's excellent. As a playable game, it's awful.

A specific example: It's a space conquest game, so you would expect to need to create ships. Many ships, many times, on a lot of planets. You must go through at least 5 levels of menus to build a ship, on every planet where you wish to build a ship.

The rest of the operations you would normally perform as a would-be space ruler are equally difficult. I wish they had spent less time on the flashy graphics and more time testing how users would use the game.

Appalling Game! DO NOT BUY

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

So much hope based on Moo2. Ugh

* The AI cannot win, does not attack, has no idea of strategy

* You find yourself only being a spectator, your only role as "emperor" is clicking end turn

* Graphics are appalling, it looks like Microsoft Excel with an Ugly Skin

* Its no fun what so ever, lacks any soul.

* The tech tree is full of useless techs. IE One there are a handful of techs that "HFOGx.099" umm ok..wut!?

* Manual doesn't explain anything, its just a story updating us from Moo2

* No tutorial in game.

* Many of the Ship types are bugged and do not work.

* The missile ship is way over powered, you need build nothing but these babies to win.

* The AI only seems to build Troop Transports, no actual fighting ships.

* Despite the 100's of troop transports they make, they NEVER invade your planets, hence you can never actually lose a game

* The User Interface is appalling. To change a unit your planet it building, it takes 4 double clicks, multiply this by 40 planets. Can you say RSI!

CHECK OUT THE GAME REVIEW B 4 BUYING!!this is one of the lowest rated games ever! And this is merely combing the reviews from across the net, the Average score is about 49%!

I cannot recommend this game for the Mac, despite out limited choice, this is one game that I cant believe they had the guts to release in this state. The Moo3 homepage forum is full of unhappy fans, pages upon pages of Bugs, complaints, demands for money back

apallingly bad

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

Typing this review if more fun than the game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I tried to play this game untill I got to a fun point. I really did. But it was for naught. The game just plain ...

1- "real time space combat" in this game = watching little dots on your screen shoot at eachother for awhile. The space combat graphics look like they are from 1990. Their is very little in way of stradegy to it at all.

2- 4+ levels of menues you have to navigate through just to manage a planet. Each planet you go requires that you click through menu after menu to get anywhere.

3- The Tech tree is basicly an AI controlled monstrosity that you can't really understand or control. Your scientists study multipule sciences at the same time and go on to the next automaticly. The whole thing is very confusing. There is no sence of "I need to get this tech so I can get 'x' ability".

4- The enemy AI is [horrible]. Completely stupid. I often found enemy races declaring war one turn, making peace the next, then declaring war again the turn after... over and over for round after round.

Take this for what it's worth from someone who put a lot of initial time into the game. I won't be playing it again. Total rip off.

This game lacks the MOO feel.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: July 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is just a huge disapointment to me. So many changes from the first two MOO games it just doesnt feel like a MOO game at all. A new game should expand on the past ones and make improvements, i feel MOO3 was a huge step back not forward.

Its also hard to take the developers in a serious manner when they tell you time after time that something is not possible and can never work with the engine....yet the patch comes out and look how many things in there were "impossible" before hand, names colors gui etc etc etc..

Overall MOO3 and the development of it have been a huge dissapointment. Some love it but i'm not one of them.

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