Master of Orion 3

There's a wide choice of races to choose from.

It's been a long time coming and many have fallen along the path, but Quicksilver Software have finally unleashed the galactic empire space-fest, that is Master of Orion 3, a hugely complex and deep real-time-strategy marathon, on to the general gaming public. They have promised an engrossing, detailed, and in-depth space-strategy sim. Now it's my job to find out whether the developers have produced a grand, good looking, database, or the brightest gaming gem of 2003

With the six-year long wait over with, let's take a trip into Centre One, the home of your future empire.

Alien Races

Centre One is a big, big, scary place.

From the moment you open the box, you realise that the game is going to be extremely information centric, the sheer size and detail of the manual is enough to put that thought into your mind. Possible playable races are sign posted into eight separate species, ranging from Humanoid to Cybernetic to Insectoid, each with several sub-races under each heading. For example, the Ichthytosian Species includes two sub-races, both looking quite similar to jellyfish found on earth, except looking more akin to a humanoid shape. This is where the high-level of detail really kicks in, as well as listing the obvious positives and negatives for each race, Quickersilver have made sure to produce a deep and varied history between all the involved races and Quicksilver have tried their best to balance the races.

However, this is where the game starts to let itself down. The races, in general, seem mundane and are certainly not very varied. Whilst the use of a strong history and each race having it's own stats. in each useful field (such as mining, economics, research, technology, military, etc) gives the player an insight into the race they choose, QuickSilver's eagerness to balance the races has left them all feeling virtually the same.

Playing Blind

Diplomacy could be your key to success!

Whilst not many games that take on the same guise as Master of Orion 3 incorporate a real story line, there is a sense that Quicksilver did want to add a more visible story to the actual game. Unfortunately, the story has been left to race backgrounds and a rather lengthy legend-based background story of the time before your arrival to lead the race of your choice to their glory. However, that is where the story essentially stops, and this leads to the feeling that Quicksilver really missed out on a chance to move the turn-based-strategy genre forward, by introducing a non-linear, storyline to the game, whilst still maintaining the huge amount of information and gameplay elements on show.

Building an Empire

Research and development: The source of all your military might.

Master of Orion 3 is all about management; from the management of how much of your budget is to be spent on research and design, to management of your spies and which rival's minister you wish to exterminate with espionage. All this means that Quicksilver's baby has a huge amount of information to get across to the player, and thus a well thought out and useful interface is needed for the player to be able to experience the game to it's fullest. And for the most part, Quicksilver have done just this and the game is certainly playable. However, the interface does not get across a lot of important and potentially game changing information. This can be very detrimental to your cause, when you are trying to control several parts of your growing empire and you can not get a grasp of what you're really doing, nor why you're ultimately doing it.

But that said it is a testament to Quicksilver's ability to be able to produce so much information and options for the player to be able to fiddle about with. Although the manual does claim that the game has a clean and direct link from each screen to corresponding screens with additional options, this is rarely the case, and they are not always clearly marked or explained.

Research and Development

The bulk of your planets can be viewed from a single screen.

A Master of Orion game wouldn't be complete if it didn't include a large section of research and development options for the budding Galactic Emperors to fiddle around with, to be able to make sure that your budding empire has the best technology to trade and destroy with. The player gets the chance to decide several factors of the research and development side of their regimes advancement, from the mount of the budget spent on technological advancement speed as a whole, to control over which specific area of development you wish to specialize in. These range from the economical, such as farming and mining advancements, to the normal military side of things.

Whilst this is an interesting and important part of the game, and essential to the development of your empire around you, Quicksilver haven't made it as easily to manipulate as it really should have been. For example, the immediate timeline of upcoming technologies is on clear show to the player at anytime they want, but there is no ability to choose which specific upgrade they want to create next, it's fixed on a certain track and the current researched technology isn't interchangeable with others.

Attack of the A.I

The latest information screen is invaluable to finding out what is going on.

Master of Orion 3 could have been an immensely playable game, but unfortunately a large bulk of gameplay is taken from you, almost as soon as you start playing the game, without even asking you if it's OK. This is mostly down to the autopilot that is called your Viceroy. Whilst this was probably thought to have been a useful feature whilst designing the game, it has flaws that ultimately take away the experience from you.

The Viceroy, once turned on will proceed to virtually run the whole game and it's mechanics for the player, which could be seen as pointless to many. Secondly, whilst you can turn off the Viceroy, it still chooses to fiddle with certain elements when the player is not looking. This can become very frustrating in certain situations. For example, the turned-off Viceroy still likes to fiddle with various economic functions, without the player’s permission.

Information Overload

Victory, every one's goal but oh-so hard to rearch.

You could be forgiven to thinking that the game is all bad, which simply isn't true. The game has a great premise behind it, and the idea of building your own galactic empire should be enough to stir the pants of any hardcore PC gamer worth their salt. Quicksilver made sure that the game appeals to the right people, and that is what counts when it comes to games that are so complex and deep as Master of Orion 3 and it's also what will make sure that the game is high in the charts for weeks to come.

However, if there is one element of the game that will keep potential players away is the huge amount of information that is thrown at the player and is essential for them to be able to process, for any sort of success in the game. It is simply information overload at some points, this is especially obvious when your empire is finally up and running in several solar systems

Ultimately, Mater of Orion 3 is a huge disappointment, Quicksilver really missed out on a chance to take back their, as many believe, rightful crown as the kinds of space turn-based strategy. Perhaps they will learn from the mistakes from this game, and make Master of Orion 4 a shining example to everyone else on how to make a real-time strategy galactic masterpiece.