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First of all, could you believe that in collaboration with Microsoft gameXstudios, a good game could be made? In our case, an one-of-a-kind RTS, that really stands-up for its name and price.

Secondly, Age of Empires III, found in numerous notations as AOE3, AO3 or even AOEIII, is a direct sequel to Age of Empires II, and the third title of the history-based real-time strategy "Age of Empires" computer game series. Released on October 18th, 2005, developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft gameXStudios, the game is mostly set in the "New World" also known as Americas, with some early single-player missions taking place in Malta.

The game, starting in Europe, covers the colonization of the "New World" between approximately 1500 and 1850 AD. Different ages of development in-game stand as proof of its historic roots and bondage to different technologies that evolved between these years.

It runs on the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, with the Mac OS X conversion to be released this month, September 2006. On Windows, only Windows XP is supported, although there is a workaround for Windows 2000, thing that really annoyed most of the fans of the game.

Age of Empires III requires 256 MB of RAM and more than 2 GB of hard drive space. Officially, the game requires a 64 MB graphics card supporting hardware transform and lighting, and a sound card. Multiplayer gaming supports both LAN and Internet play.

The game is very graphics-intensive at its higher quality settings, and higher-end graphics adapters are required for optimal performance. On machines with older graphics card, the game will look quite different from some screenshots. Like on my Radeon 9550, I couldn’t run a decent FPS number on high-end graphics, but that didn’t bother me to play. Sticking to my motto, "it’s not graphics that make a game, it’s gameplay".

Technical specifications say that Age of Empires III, builds on the engine of Age of Mythology, and goes beyond. One new feature is the inclusion of the Havok physics middleware engine, on the PC version, and of the PhysX engine on the Mac, that, bonded with some middle-quality graphics, make the game more than enjoyable.

Actually, translated, this means that random events, like falling trees, and not so random building destructions aren’t predefined animations that old-style RTS games used with abundance, but rather, these animations are calculated on the spot, with different factors generating different animations. By the way, falling trees shake the Earth a little, a random nice effect I really enjoyed feeling.