Not as Good as #2

Everyone who plays strategy games on their PC knows about the AOE series. One of the most prestigious and innovative series out there, but it has fallen off a bi with this game. AOE 3 does not have the addictive nature of it's father and grandfather AOE games. And for a few reasons. The graphics on AOE three are beautiful. The enviroments come to life in front of your eyes and engross you in life like battles. The ships and boats in this game are sized accordingly and look great, but the graphics have sort of forced the gameplay to be shaky. AOE's gameplay is mediocre at best and definately not as smooth as the Age of Kings was.The second game and it's expansion pack, The Conquerers, had great gameplay which allowed you to move around quickly, move units smoothly, and have fun. The third installment doesn't seem to have that dimension. Another thing that bothered me was the units that are avaliable to play with. They just aren't as creative and fascinating as the units in previous AOE games, and they don't make for good battle scenes. This is because of faulty graphics during battle scenes between foot soldiers. It's just not as fun as previous games or any other strategy games for that matter. Sure the graphics give you a lot to look at, but that's the only really strong part in the game. This game deserved it's ranking of mediocre because you just can't sit and play it all day like you can with other strategy games. The campaign is also pretty bad, because the characters and storyling just don't get you into the game. AOE 3 tried to have success with a campaign system that Microsoft's other development, Age of Mythology, pulled off. Age of Mythology did it well, but Microsoft could not manage to have the same system done twice.