Age of Empires 3 Demo is OUT!

[Kr0z]

it is a demo, not a full version so bugs are still there.

586494133[/snapback]

Maybe if Microsoft had given this game to beta testers to play with first, it would have not been so dissapointing.

[HoochieMamma]

Runs great on my GeForce 2 Mx 400 64MB RAM with EVERTHING that can go on max on max. I love the effects of the connon balls on the houses/buildings.

[Long]

I wrote a short review here: http://istartedsomething.blogspot.com/2005...3-demo-out.html

Here's a snippet

However, the most unimpressive part of the game is its menu system. When I was first introduced to the game, without a tutorial that is, I was basically frustrated by not knowing what is going on. All the graphical commands and buttons are so vague that I would have not guessed the functions of half of them without looking at the tooltip. I admit it will be familiarised in the long run, but I've seen other games do a much better job of providing an easier to understand menu system.

[sk11vengeance]

has anyone came up with a fix for the bluescreen at startup yet? mines like this: once i click the accept for the lisence agreement it starts to load where it says AOE III and then the screen just turns blue, no stop error or nothing. i checked the log file but its empty. to those wondering where this is its in my documents/my games

im running latest ati/nforce2/soundblaster x-fi drivers/everything else. my cpu isnt 64 bit so i dont think this is a 64 bit only problem. the only thing i was running when i tried to start it was MS antispyware, maybe that has something to do with it, did anyone else have this running at the time of crashing?

[Matrix XII]

damn its blue screening :( (no debug output)

amd64 3000+

512mb ram

x800 bravo 256mb

no other games blue screen

586492701[/snapback]

same thing happening to me.

[Qarth]

Age of Mythologies is where it's at.

[dray_04]

WoW! I was highly anticipating this game...

but reading through 3 pages of "Im-downloading-it-at-300kb/s" and 4 pages of "man-it-sucks"...

has really put me off

[Smit]

For those asking the minimum specs:

1.4Ghz CPU

256MB RAM

64MB HW T&L Graphics Card (Which is a Geforce 2 or above isn't it?)

I'll try it on my girlfriends PC a bit later (has the exact specs of above) and see if it works that low.

[a_witko]

OH MY GOODNESS... what a friggin dissappointment. i was waiting for this for AGES (npi). and now it comes out and its just busted my coconuts. i think the gameplay SUCKS. the graphics were also so-o hyped up and selective screenshots given, but it sucks... maybe its just my 6600GT, but i bet NOT.

(EDIT)

I AM USING LARGE TEXT TO GET YOUR ATTENTION: THIS GAME SUCKS... COMPARABLE TO AOM

Edited September 8, 2005 by a_witko

[Kr0z]

I agree also!

I want my 400MB of bandwidth back Mr Microsoft.

If it were April 1st I'd laugh.

[TranceSphere]

After it resets my computer, i get this in the log file:

PreGame 5641: nvCPL is unavailable.

[_tux_]

(havnt read all the pages but...)

to fix blue screens on ati cards. go to the 3d tab in display properties and TURN OFF CUSTOM SETTINGS. set d3d (i set opengl as well) to balanced, no more blue screens :)

[Matrix XII]

good tip man (Y)

although I deleted it already and I'm not downloading it again haha

[Borbus]

I find it all almost unplayable becasue of the poor scrolling. In command and conquer games including generals you could scroll by holding down the right mouse button and moving it but I can't find any option in this demo to do that. The only way to scroll is put the mouse to the edge of the screen and I just can't control it. It hesitates for a moments when I put my mouse there and then goes really fast and I just cant move the view to where I want it to be. Put in a command and conquer style scroll and i'll be able to play it.

[munashii]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm really enjoying the demo.

[King RasBert]

Unfortunately you are not able to save the game during play, which made me unsitall it instantly. I'm pretty dissapointed about that. I don't know why they have omitted a savegame feature in the demo; maby you will get to much of the game if you were able to save, which make me think that the game is NOT very big. I was looking forward to this game, but now with that omission, i will most likely not be buying it unfortunately.

[_tux_]

i quite like the demo, managing a big army is clumsy though (im probably doing it wrong)

[Shibby]

graphics for me are not that bad but the scrolling really peed the hell out of me. Makes it much harder to control.

Will have to have another go later

[snowlan]

I have to agree with many who have posted here. Unit control is not easy, instead of being individual units they could have been grouped together or something. The first thing that struck me was the huge GUI, I got used to it after some time but it really could have been a lot smaller. On the other hand as people have pointed out, building destruction was cool, as were the sound effects and graphics - but these are only superficial things in my opinion.

Unfortunately the demo did not make me think positively of this game. :(

[Groovedude]

ok i get like no textures even in game... how nice :|

Ati 9800pro 5.8cats *tried with 5.4 as well*

Pentuim 4 2.8ghz

768mb DDR ram

[Titan Crane]

I'm shocked how my crappy mx400 32mb played this fine and a lot of you guys with high end cards can't even get it to run :D The irony :D

[Groovedude]

I'm shocked how my crappy mx400 32mb played this fine and a lot of you guys with high end cards can't even get it to run :D  The irony :D

586495784[/snapback]

just goes to show new isnt always good :p

[Hurmoth]

I'm shocked how my crappy mx400 32mb played this fine and a lot of you guys with high end cards can't even get it to run :D  The irony :D

586495784[/snapback]

Very sad :cry:

But instead of getting mad I'll just laugh at the fact that I paid $500 for the latest, greatest video card that doesn't work :pinch: :laugh:

[fahmi_r]

i played it and it wasnt bad at all. good job!

but 1 thing is that whenever i played the texas map, my computer will crash :angry: :angry:

[Sn4k36]

i got a kick out this demo version when i loaded it up. it said my graphics "64mb intel extreme graphics" card wasn't support, but when i clicked on run anyways. it loaded up fine and everything. the game even played pretty good. So i can't really wait for the final version of it to come out because i think it'll be alot better then what it is now.