Reviews / previews
No, thats not hot NASA research youre looking atthose are screens of Master of Orion 3, the much anticipated (and much delayed) third installment in the long-running interstellar Civilization series. With its menu-intensive presentation and its plethora of production queues and charts, the beta build of MOO3 definitely didnt classify as an instantly accessible action rompthough anyone with the genes for cold, math-driven, science-fiction empire-building will probably be drawn in like photons to a singularity.
Master of Orion 3s beta interface could best be described as cold and uninviting (rather appropriate for a game about space), but the opportunities for micro-management didnt go quite as deep as youd expect. Diplomacy and trade played a bigger role than usual, and balancing relations between the strange races (robotic Cynoids specialize in money matters, each individual of the ethereal Eoladi essentially has its own religion) was a key path to victory. Most planetary tasks were handled by simply setting policies, while invisible viceroys managed all the details. While you could, in theory, tinker with a lot of the minutiae, it was quite obvious from the effort involved in doing so that the designers dont even want you to bother. When youre trying to rule the universe, there are bigger affinity-bonded squid-analog collectives to fry.-- 0 / GamePro
Aside from the cool alien portraits, the graphics pretty much suck. The sounds are very forgettable, and it takes about four days before the menus even begin to make sensebut Master of Orion 3 is about the closest youll ever come to being the President of an interstellar political regime.
This third installment of the landmark super-hardcore strategy series represents a philosophical shift in the way these games workMOO3 is all about delegation, and not at all about micromanagement. Move some sliders, click on some reports, and watch as your viceroys make almost all of your smaller decisions for you. Most of the game essentially involves you nodding yes after receiving a series of status reports, then clicking on the End Turn button, stepping off your pedestal-on-high only when a particular planet seems ready to rebel, or some interstellar disaster explodes in your face.
Not that theres a single thing wrong with that. In fact, the very different hands-off approach is part of what makes Master of Orion 3 so appealing. While the game lets you tweak everything down to the particular mining projects on a planets surface, the brilliant AI and utterly alien Star Trek: The Next Generation interface (forget everything you know about navigating menus) are built to seriously curb your desire to do soleaving you free to focus on the larger tasks at hand like watching war fronts and signing treaties with space jellyfish. Even space combat takes a more distant stanceyoure given top-level control of your fleets, but individual ship control is left to the AI. Youre also given the option to watch or just let the computer calculate the results for you without ever even loading up the battle screen.
Its a liberating, novel approach to turn-based strategy that takes some getting used to, but some people (including fans of classics like Star Control 2 or Starflight) may be turned off by the games laissez-faire approach. If youve got the patience to stick with it, theres a good chance youll be hooked.-- 0 / GamePro
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