Master of Orion 3

I have not seen so many reviews on a game that was just recently released through GOG. Almost every single one is negative and for good reason. I actually paid $9.99 for it during a thanksgiving day sale the year it was released. It thought it was a bargain and that it couldn't be as bad as all the reviews mentioned, however, it was no bargain and it was even rejected by bargain bins. Even paying that little, I felt robbed. Listen to this and every other review here... Don't get this or you will not be happy. Get MOO2 or anything else (Master of Magic is a great classic)

I know there is a lot of hate for this game due to it not being like Moo2 and being a broken mess when released and even after patching, but... Get the patches that fix the bugs (bhuics) there is also the vanilla/strawberry and tropical patches. For it to work in window mode I had to change my computer to 16 bit colour (if it runs in a weird shaped window and purple colours, you will need to do this too). It is one of the games I will return too and mess around with from time to time. It is also easy to mod. If you do mod, do not make a race too economically strong, you may still run into the bankruptcy bug if you go too crazy modding the economy.

This is possibly the only game on the site that makes me wish it was possible to give the game a negative star rating. Even 1 star is too good for it. If you liked the first two games, don't bother with this game. Nothing you liked in the previous two games are present in this one, at all. The fact that this abomination costs $9.99 while Master of Orion 1 + 2 cost $5.99 TOGETHER makes it even worse. This is possibly the worst 10 dollars you'll ever spend if you buy it. I see some people say the game gets "better" if you apply a truckload of fan patches and mods, and I can't say whether or not that will make it worth playing, but as the game is sold from this site, it's not even worth 1 star, and certainly not $9.99 Hyperbole? There are a several mediocre, maybe outright bad games here on GOG. You'd be hard pressed to find a game rated lower and having received a worse reception than this game did.

MOO1 rocked. MOO2 was even better. MOO3 was a big disappointment. I remember watching the development comments from the developers and was very excited to see MOO3. They had a lot of great ideas, extending the depth of the game with a larger, more complex universe. Combat was to be taken to another level with strategic planning of planet conquering. More races and the senate. I was jacked! My fav game was getting an upgrade. Then I bought it. All the great promises were mostly left aside and what was left was a shell of complexity with fuzzy control. Fuzzy? One could somewhat point the direction of actions but actual control was far from concise. The first comment that the game plays itself is far too accurate. Gone is the actual control of combat, yet another casualty of the 'we must go 3d to be good' era. Yes, it is 3d but lacks the enjoyment of specifically targeting a particularly problematic ship (death spores comes to mind). I have also tried a few times to play MOO3 but each time have ended up simply plowing it from my HD, only to look back thinking of all the promises made but not delivered. MOO2 still rocks. MOO3 never did.

I can only guess that being forced to sell *this* game was the price of being allowed to sell Master of Magic and MOO 1 and 2. This game was awful, and easily one of the worst "big budget" titles ever. It was designed by a team that didn't like anything about the original games. The interface goes out of its way to be unhelpful and unintuitive. The AI controlled Governors will fight you for every single thing you want to accomplish. And the designers killed off most of the original races, in some cases for no better reason than one of the team leads "hated furries." GOG has many good, classic, or overlooked games. If you must get a strategy game, I suggest you look at Master of Orion 1 and 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3, Disciples 2, Master of Magic, or really *any* other strategy game. Yes, if you apply a lot of patches and mods, it's probably possible to turn this game into something that isn't completely horrible. But really, that's like claiming that dying of a massive heart attack is better then being eaten by a barrel-full of rabid shrews. Either way, it's an experience to be avoided.