Pure Evil - Age of Empires III

[Evil Avatar]

Good Morning! (And if I don't see you: Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Goodnight!)

What an amazing day. As many readers guessed yesterday, I'm in Dallas, TX, the home of famed strategy game developers Ensemble Studios (http://www.ensemblestudios.com/) for a tour of the facility, a chance to meet the staff and get some quality "hands-on" time with their upcoming title, Age of Empires III.

I got to meet Bruce Shelley, Sandy Peterson (a personal hero of mine) and a ton of other staff members. Everyone was just fantastic, they made us feel right at home. I had so much fun I wish I was working there and not just touring the place for a day.

After our tour, a big group of webmasters for "Age of..." fan pages (and myself) got to spend several hours playing Age of Empires III against each other and against the Ensemble staff members.

The game is just great. The graphics are another whole level above Age of Mythology and the new gameplay elements are fun and compelling. I'll write up a better preview soon, but if you are a fan of the series you will want to add this title to your "Must Have" list.

We head back tomorrow for another day of playtesting and then it will be back to Phoenix for me!

[Everlost_MI]

It sounds like that was/is a great time.

/jealous mode on :D

[MFAC]

/jealous mode on here too.....
/me hates evil avatar's............... j/k ^_^

[jwbxx]

Lucky bastard, sneak out the alpha, ok?

Oh and how do the Native Americans play? Can they stand up to rifles and do they used rifles also? Or just bow and arrows?

[wirefire]

envy...thats all i have to say

[fndarkone]

i expect to see this on the bittorrent sites by tomorrow afternoon evil!

[amusedtoe]

I'd hate you too, but then the only EA we'd have is that giany conglomerate planet consuming one.

[kwillhan]

i expect to see this on the bittorrent sites by tomorrow afternoon evil!

hah

kel

[Morratut]

Drool.

AOE III may just bring me back to the RTS fold :)

[MrMeatshake]

sweet, i wasn't gonna get excited about this, but damn you if i can't feel my excitedness-gland pumping out excitedules now you've said it'll be good. gah!

[dojoteef]

Yeah Sandy Petersen is a nice laid back guy. He's also the king of what he terms "paper" games (boardgames, card games, pen and paper, etc). Did you by any chance get to play any with him?

[Conner Dain]

Sandy Peterson! I always wondered where he ended up. He always seemed to be the fifth wheel when he worked at id software.

[Zawath]

http://zen.heavengames.com/hg/aoe3/eso2.jpg

I hope you owned.