"Age of Empires III"

Developer: Ensemble
Publisher: Microsoft
2005

by Big Jim, IRTR

"Age of Empires 3" is the latest in a series of real time strategy games published by Microsoft. The goal in Age of Empires games is to destroy any Civilizations on a map besides the player's and his allies. Of course to defeat the enemy civilizations it's necessary to kill all of their civilians as well as destroy all of that countries' buildings (homes, docks, city centers, etc). The game play in the Age of Empires games is very simplistic: build a lot of civilians, build up a big economy, and obliterate your opponent through superior terrorism. Naturally, the series is a big hit in the U$A.

The previous games in the series were set in the ancient and feudal periods of history. The last campaign for "Age of Empires 2"'s expansion had the player take control of the Aztecs and attempt to resist Spanish invaders. That was the best aspect of the previous series, but the third game picks up right after that-- only this time the player plays as European Settlers and works to conquer the Americas.

There are two basic modes of play for this game. The first is a random map mode, where the player chooses a region and opponents and starts terrorizing them in the name of the European nation of his choice. There is also a campaign mode, where the player can play through the family history of some land stealing cracker. While the core game is certainly very violent and reactionary, the campaign takes the cake.

The campaign begins with a tutorial where the player takes on the role of a Knight and defends Malta from an Ottoman invasion. During the course of the invasion, the player discovers a plot by some sort of "occultist Cabal" to steal the waters of the fountain of youth. So the player has to go travel to the New World to stop them and in the New World, he must build bases, raise armies, and conquer land in order to stop this "cabal." Of course, the natives don't like this and resist and the player is compelled to slaughter them. "They must have mistaken us for Pirates," laments our hero as his men slaughter Carib natives.

The player is eventually successful at keeping this cabal from stealing the fountain of youth's waters by blowing up the fountain of youth. Of course, what the Seminoles thought about this isn't mentioned. After that section, you get to play the grandson of the Knight. While playing him, the player gets to fight this group again, while slaughtering some Cherokee and an army of Russians who come to invade the poor little English colonies at the behest of this occultist group. How this Russian army was going to get from the Rockies to Boston is never explained. Oh, he meets George Washington as well. Only it's during the French and Indian Wars and not the "revolutionary war."

Then we get to play his granddaughter. She spends her time running a railroad company. Her section is the highlight of the game, because briefly Simon Bolivar appears. However, in the game he's treated as somewhat inept and reliant on this Amerikkkan woman and her railroad company mercenaries to liberate Gran Colombia. At the end she finally stops this occult group and gets filthy rich. This is apparently a happy ending. The player's character doesn't even feel bad about all the dead people.

This game is a total white wash of history. The progressive moments in the history of the Americas went either totally unmentioned (American Revolution, Native Resistance to Colonization, Slave Revolts, etc) or had presentation as the result of White Amerikkkans' assisting their "inferiors" (Bolivar's revolution.) There is even a level where the Maltese knight has to save the Aztecs from Spain because they are too weak to defend themselves, what a step back from the Cuauhtémoc campaign in "Age of Empires 2." Additionally, Slavery isn't even mentioned. Instead, happy white people work on the player's "plantations" to provide wealth.

Unlike in "Age of Empire's 2," you can not play as any of the natives. Ensemble claimed this occurred because indigenous peoples who worked for Microsoft didn't like the idea of an Indian side being wiped out in game one. However, the player still can and has to slaughter several natives in the game and when they aren't being slaughtered they are treated as resources. It's hard to believe that indigenous peoples employed at Microsoft are okay with Natives only being in the game to be slaughtered or exploited.

On the plus side, the game is very beautiful to look at. Too bad this gorgeous engine was used for such a reactionary settler mythos worshiping game. That just makes the art even more reactionary. While in the previous game, one could play the Aztecs, there are no progressive sides to play in this game. There are some improvements to the game play over previous versions of the game, but this is just dressing on a steaming pile of reactionary bullshit.

Note: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-empires-iii/658725p1.html