The Operational Art of War III Page 4

By SimHQ on September 5, 2006 in _land2, hide

Overall Opinions and Recommendations

For those of us that played the first Operational Art of War, OPARTIII is like a comfortable old glove. There is little that you need to relearn in this new version of the venerable title. It is also very nice that all the scenarios in the first two versions are available in the game as well as many of the custom scenarios that were found at The Wargamer. This makes for some nice, one stop shopping.

It is also nice the Opart is now Windows XP friendly. I know others have gotten it to run under XP but I have never been able to install it on my modern machine. For those of us that loved to play the game but have had to give up on running on a modern box then this is a well appreciated version.

In addition, the game now runs well, especially larger scenarios, on a common computer. One of the biggest problems with the game back in 1997 was that anything large would literally crawl on all but the most powerful computers; even then battles like Barbarous would kill any computer then buyable by the general public. This isn’t the case anymore. Even my laptop runs the game well. This is a game that basically needed technology to catch up with it.

So the big question remains, is this game worth the cost of $39.95? The graphics look better (it is possible to install the original graphics in the game for that nice ‘retro’ look) and the game certainly runs more smoothly, but some people will question paying full price for what is essentially a Windows XP compatible version of the game. There is some validity to this argument. The game is essentially the same game as the Century of Warfare edition with some patches and upgrades.

To me, someone who hasn’t been able to get any version of the game to run under XP, the game is worth 39.95. Not only does the game install and run without any major changes to my operating system, it runs solidly with no crashes and no funny actions on my box. A lot of people have shelved their old versions of the game. This game is still as fun as it was during the Clinton administration. While some games tend to lose their fun factor as their graphics age or as gameplay becomes more complex, the Operational Art of War still has the power to waste hours of your time.

So, ultimately I think the game is worth the money a wargamer would spend on it. In reality you are buying more of a platinum version of the first two games combined as opposed to a completely new version of the game. This isn’t bad, this new version fixes several problems found in the first versions of the game and it is compatible with new versions of windows. I am thankful that Matrix devoted the time and energy to update and bring the game to us.

Reviewer’s System Specs