Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Master of All Games
I should start off by saying that I have not played Master of Orion 3. I'm only a fan who's spent far too many hours playing other Master of Orion games and has been reading the forum at the official website: Moo3. However, since Amazon hasn't yet put up any official information about the game, let me tell you about it.In my opinion, the original Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2 are two of the few games that can be played over and over again for literally years on end. Master of Orion 3 looks like it will live up to the original's charm. You are the emperor of one of up to 32 star empires of any of any of 16 different alien species. You can colonize and conquer other planets, and use those planets to build up your military and economic strength. Hence, the tone of the game is much more like the turned based Civilization than a real time game like Age of Empires. One the other hand, space combat is real time now, so it should be quite exciting. The plot of the game is that Antarans are back in power. They oversee a galaxy that contains several smaller empires, including yours. You must guide your people and try to rule the universe through military or diplomatic means. You can do anything you want, but you can't do *everything*. You can only do so many things each turn, so you must delegate authority to your leaders and pick which events are important enough for you to participate in personally. Moo3 was designed to play like a science fiction novel, so it should have far more plot than most games. It was also designed from the beginning to be multiplayer, so it has far better multiplayer support than other games in the series. The tech tree will change between games and the species are customizable, so the replay value should be quite high. Requirements:
300 Mhz Pentium II or better
Windows 95/98/ME
64 MB Ram
8x CD ROM Drive
250 MB HD space available
Direct X 8.0 Compatible Video Card (800x600x16-bit)
Direct X 8.0 Compatible Sound Card
Mouse/Keyboard
Quicktime 5.0 or higher 8-Player Network Play via TCP/IP (LAN or internet)
Rating: - Beta Tester PRE - Review
I've had the pleasure to beta test this game and I can say with first hand experience that this game is shaping up to be the best MOO game ever. This game is a galactic empire strategy game which has a hardcore strategy side but the game is easily understood and playable by any strategy fan casual or hardcore. You can let the AI hadle almost all your galactic empires operations and just go around and fight battles with massive fleets or you can personally run almost every detail of your empire. The races are all unique and have interesting characteristics and backgrounds. There is also a great backstory to the game that explains why everything is the way it is in the MOO3 universe. For MOO series fans and and anyone interested in scifi games this game is a must buy.
Rating: - Three is average I think
Beta testing is a wonderful thing, not only does it allow the software designer to iron the bugs out of their software, but (if the NDA's aren't too strict) it also allows the testerrs to release some information about the game and generate a certain amount of pre-release 'buzz' that you can't get without a Beta. Talking out your posterior and rating a game that you haven't seen, let alone played yourself is the height of arrogance. This game is a bit better than MOO2 (much better graphically) in terms of game-play. I didn't think that MOO2 left all that much room for improvement (aside from eliminating the required micro-managing), but the space left for improvement was all used up in this title.
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