Master of Orion is a combination of Cviliation meets Starcraft, and a most forgettable one at that.
+ The alien leaders look ultra cool.
+ Strong micomanagement aspects keep things mildly amusing.
+ Every alien race has a forebidding theme song.
- Poor, chunky combat.
- Graphics are generally unimpressive.
- Steep learning curve for micormanagement and combat.
- Long loading screens.
- An overrall disapointment compared to its previous titles.
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What would we have when we combined StarCraft and Civilation together to make a sci-fi stragegy game? To anwser "a generally disapointing Starcraft/Civilation mutation of a game" would be a good enough postulation. But its primarliy longing that Master of Orion is most disapointing any way you slab it side-to-side with its far better previous titles. So if you are checking this review to see if you should buy, the answer is probably no. Get its counterpart: Master of Orion 1, 2, or Civilation. If you are actually wondering why it is so daunting, read on.
Anybody who hasn't played any of the MOO series, MOO3 won't let you know much about what is happening in the story. From the title of the game to numerous screenshots on the web, you may decipher it has to do with aliens in a space race. Deep in the Orion depths (get this, its called orbit), all our favorite classic MOO aliens, big and small, emit themselves into a senate contest for (get this again) all of Orion. Whatever the test, either econemy or combat stats, each of the alien races must forfill the senate's contest before they can get the crown and rule all of space. Its a forebidding plot when you think about it, but none of this is stated in the game whatsoever. In fact, nothing in the game is really stated clearly, making Master of Orion 3 easily a game with the steepest learning curve in a long, long time. The 17" thick instruction booklet asserts most of this thankfully; I advise to read through it during the annoyingly long loading times in the game.
Like it was in Civilation, much of your experience is based on the actual race you play as. Orion lets you pick at least 30 alien races (including the so-popular humans) that all have there own skills and noteable talents (you can also adjust these stats to your own custom balance, which is a nice feature). Then you gotta tell the game how you want it to torture. You can select micromanagement, combat, or a freaky combination of the 2. Other options let you choose difficulty of your foes, the number of them, and other general game customation options. Master of Orion 3 is one of the many stragegy games to let you customize your gameplay entirely, and it receives little to no additional value for it given the actual gameplay is very little lacking in the "utter boring" half.
Master of Orion 3 is all based on timing. All a matter of timing, and of course, brains topping it. It is a turned-based stragegy game, meaning you have to make your move and let the computer do the same after you. Its much like playing a game of chess; besides the orbital view like Starcraft, MOO3 takes on the overhead view with the standard TBS hud and radar. Regardless of your gameplay options predetermined at the title screen, Master of Orion 3 is no different than any other TBS game you've played; you always must focus on the management of your empire. You're job is to make sure you're people don't hate you and want to burn down the cities you make (except, since this is in space, we will say 'irradiate the nano-corn crops or something). Master of Orion 3 is based on taking little ships and using them to build additional coloineies on planets to expand your empire, rake in more resources, and just boot up your overall power.
Combat and diplomacy, like some fun tasks where you must talk to other alien leaders or go to war with them, pad this ever goal, but the game tries to get you to look at mico management growth more than anything. Fourtunetly, automation keeps many researches and ecomnomic structures in good shape, so handling 50 different planets under your rule isn't supposed to be much of a problem. Supposed to be easy, right? Not at all, as MOO3 also reknowns itself as the most fusterating and glitchy game of its time. Traveling to a planet using a spaceship that is about 5 mm away takes aproximatly 255 turns. That's clicking on the "End Turn" button 255 times. Imagine the pain. Those end turn loading times also cost a rambuntionous 7 seconds before the end; could you imagine waiting an hour to get to one planet in a lousy game? Building new ships cost 25 turns. Researching different technolegies costs 50 turns. Even after waiting for so long, sometimes your newly created units simply run out of fuel or just disapear suddenly. You will need Clayton Forrester's amount of patience to play the game right without smacking your head againest a brick wall.
Combat was never a great concept of this genre but in Master of Orion 3, it really flounders. When coming across 2 different sides of 50 lightships with lightening guns attached, you'd expect a bloodbath. But get into the actual battle which is called "Battlemode" and you'll think otherwise. On the battle feild, your ultra cool spaceships turn into lame, green dots on the screen while their opponnents are surcumbed to less-cool pink dots. To say that watching pick and green dots flying around the screen would resemble an action-packed Star Wars battle is a major understatment. Furthermore, you have absoulutly no control over your ships for whatever reason, so unless you like seeing pick and green dots flying all over the screen, there is no reason to fight somebody in the game. You can see how unbalanced the game is and that's only getting started; you can be playing the game fine and suddenly, the screen will turn black and your entire race will die for no good reason. This, of course, ends your game, and its sad that it happens all the time.
Ok, to put it in a dudespeak nutshell, learn to forgive the series and forget this. Move on to a better TBS. I mean, the exit button in the title screen sometimes doesn't even work! No biggie, as you can simple alt-tab out of it and totally crush it with the holy power of the task manager, but it doesn't do any petting.