Age of Empires III

After a lengthy installation, say a little prayer that your machine can handle this demo, because the system requirements aren't listed anywhere in the download package. The Age of Empires III demo provides hours of fabulous real-time fun, but lack of documentation and instruction haunts the experience.

The ReadMe.rtf file includes a useful list of shortcut keys, but there's no introduction or explanation of the gameplay, so you'll have to find your own way. In two single-player scenarios (building trading posts along a railroad track and defending a fort) and two skirmish maps (Texas and New England), you'll be collecting resources, raising structures, creating units, and bombarding your enemies.

Gameplay is deep, involved, and addictive, though the one major addition--the ability to send special shipments from home cities--seems extraneous. Noticeable absences in the hot-keys list are the ability to select all of one unit type and to create custom unit groups. Such shortcuts might exist, but without detailed help, we couldn't tell. Also, we were slightly disappointed with the range of view and the graphics overall. The rag-doll physics make for fun combat scenes, but the graphics themselves are actually less impressive than last year's Rise of Nations.