Master of Orion 3

I think if this game had been released without the MoO branding, it might have done better. MoO 2 was such a fantastic game! When you have expectations like that, it's definitely hard to meet them. If you look at the game by itself, it's not completely terrible, it's just a tremendous let down as a sequel. That being said, if your idea of fun is managing 30 different 6 tab excel spreadsheets concurrently, you will LOVE this game. Hopefully, now that Atari has released the MoO franchise from it's clutches, we might see a proper sequel, but with the current owner being the makers of World of Tanks.... Well, we'll see.

This game is an incomplete alpha version released as a finished game. They tried to be much more ambitious with this game compared to previous games, but ran out of time and then tried to hide it. The game was supposed to have incredibly detailed systems with full automations at multiple tiers of granularity for you to personally decide: A. what you want to do. B. how much you want to micro. Unfortunately being released as an early However many of these features are simply incomplete, multiple systems are lacking automation while being overly micro intensive. Other systems are so overly complex that there is no meaningful micro to do and no way a human can keep up with it. Critical controls and features are missing. The game is an utter, and is also not even remotely fun.

This game is what happens when you fire your designer and put the Art Director in charge of game mechanics. Sploosh.

I bought the originam Master of Orion after reading a stelar review in a magazine I read at the time. It was simple but very adictive. I loved it. When Master of Orion 2 came out I bought it as soon as it came out, no reviews. I expected a great experience and it delivered more and then some. It was more complex and grander than MOO and even more fun and addicting. I spent countless days and nights on that game, even getting a few friends hooked on it. So when I heard about Master of Orion 3, I put money asside even before the game was out. I even went to stores to ask on the release date and when they would have it so I could buy it and play what could only be one of the best games ever, right? Well.... It wasn't. I usually read manuals before playing games, but I knew MOO, so I installed it and started a new game. I'm not going to lie and say it was the only time I played it, but I assure you I didn't get 5 games out of it. The mechanics were horrible. The flow of the game was clunky. Nothing was as before. While MOO2 was a more complex, more entertaining, grander version of MOO, MOO3 was an amazing mess. Whomever thought this thing was a good release is the Joel Schumacher of MOO. What a letdown. 1 star as I can't give it zero.....

I'm sorry, but if the developers push out an underwhelming broken mess that was eventually fixed by enthusiast modders I can't call the game good. The game as sold to consumers is notorious for A.I. issues, User interface problems, and a generally clunky feel. This is not an acceptable follow up to one of the most foundational 4X games in the genre. Especially in today's patch culture I don't forgive games, or grade them better, if eventually they were up to the standard expected at launch. This doubly applies if the fix is not even from the actual Devs.