Master of Orion 3

I am probably one of the biggest fans of the Master Of Orion series. This title was a disgrace to the genre. They totally reworked the game mechanics, changed the story. Even if this game was not part of the Master Of Orion series, and was a stand alone sci fi game... it still reeks of horribleness that will stain your soul and keep you from entering heaven. If you like disappointment, go ahead and purchase this abomination of programming. It is not even made by the same people who brought you the first two Master of Orion games. The original games were made by Microprose. Hasbro bought the company and gutted it, and infrogames designed this third one. The game itself is extremely buggy, the AI is shifty at best. your better off purchasing the first two MOO's and forgetting this one ever existed.

Master of Orion 2 was the best turn-based space strategy I ever played. It might even be the best of all strategy games I played. Considering this I was very happy when the sequel, MoO3, came out. The fact they did not include my favorite race(anyone else is up for the cliche and thinks that matriarchal space elves are in fact quite cool?) made me a bit sad but couldn't spoil my enthusiasm. The story I found in the manual and on the net was great. When I installed the game I started playing I was quite enthralled by the graphic and the race selection and creation system was nice step forward as it included even more racial traits and abilities as well as many interesting pre-created civilizations. Problems started when I got into the actual gema interface. It sucked. Even with all its nice graphic and plain charming design it seemed like interface used in text games - I have never seen something so user-unfriendly. The race and planet simulation was quite nice, but research screens were too complex for the very little features they offered. The same could be said about the galaxy map. The combination of somewhere simplified game math and choices and complexified interface made this game into what I dare call the worst strategy game I ever played.

I still remember this as the last computer game I was able to return to the store. It was that bad. The return policy even changed at the store in the 7 days between when I bought it and when I had enough. Thankfully the receipt still had the old return policy. My reason for returning it? They managed to take the idea of Master or Orion and remove all of the fun. Was there something in Master of Orion 1 or 2 that you remember being fun? It's gone from this game.

This game is not worthy of the name master of Orion. It is an insult to two of the best strategy titles ever made. It does not even rate 1 star. I bought this game at full price. I still have the ding in my wall where I threw it in disgust after just 4 hours of play on the night I bought it. To add insult to injury I was forced to keep it. I could not throw it away because you are not allowed to dump toxic waste into landfills. I couldn’t give it away because I just didn’t hate anyone that much. I am ashamed to admit I did try paying the neighborhood bully $10 to take it but he ran away screaming for his mommy. Smart little snot. On the positive side this piece of crap taught me two valuable lessons. 1) Never buy into the pre game hype. Always wait for the reviews before buying a title. 2) The words real-time and strategy should never, ever be used to describe the same game. If you need specifics: This is not a strategy game. You don’t control the tech tree and you don’t control the build queues either. If you set the build queue the planetary governor overrides you and puts some useless local defense fighter in front of the capital ship you desperately need. Sure it has lot of screens giving you lots of stats and information about the empire but you don’t really control the empire so none of it matters. The way this thing plays you might as well rest something heavy on the return key and go watch TV. Come back in 2 hours and see if you won.

Today, on the 4th March 2012. After all the years, and seeing the EXTENSIVE mods available from the community, I figured it might have gotten better. Moo2 was never complex enough for my taste. But I was WRONG. This game sucks. I even made the mistake of buying it on a different website, don't know why I forgot looking here first. Installing a fan patch is not compatible with the download, it regularly crashes, it is frustrating beyond belief with it's senseless complexity; Why would you, as a Designer, go through the effort of creating an immensely accurate Planet control simulation unseen back then, if you extect the player to automate it so much that you don't actually give the option to do it themselves? There's literally technologies you can't NOT research, unlocking buildings that you can't choose not to build, even if you shut off all Automation AI..... wtf? I'm just sad I didn't buy it on GoG, I will never find out if the mods would work here, but I just can't justify to myself buying it twice when the first time I already expected to regret, and was proven right for once. Crap, this game sucks.