Strategy/Wargame
Caesar III
Genre: Strategy/Wargame
User Rating: 7.1/10 - 14 votes
Caesar 3 was a fantastic city-building strategy game from the folks at Sierra. Sierra were the kings of PC in the 90s and this game was released towards the tail end of the decade. It is a game that I feel for those that remember it is remembered with great fondness. Whereas there are tons of people who have not heard of this game or have forgotten completely about it!
The Rise of Rome
Caesar 3 is set during ancient Rome which is kind of obvious when you think about it. Even though this period of time has been done before in games and in all honesty with more depth and more personality. I still think that Sierra managed to capture the look and feel of ancient Rome very well, not that I have ever been there of course. However, the story of the game where you are trying to become the greatest Caesar of all time as you build your vision of Rome up to the grandest ever is really cool.
The Charming Roman's
The presentation of the game is pretty solid in my opinion. Now, you are not getting a Rome as you would get in a modern game. However, for an isometric viewpoint from 1998, I do feel that things are far more detailed than most people will probably expect. The different buildings and even many of the people have more little details that do help bring them to life. I am not saying the game holds up amazingly well, but for a 20 plus-year-old strategy game, Caesar 3 is not bad at all.
Speaking of not bad at all, the voice acting has aged better than many other games of this era. We were getting into the "Dreamcast" era here and I do not know what it was, but voice acting during this time went through a 2-4-year period where it was laugh out loud bad. Thankfully, while the voice lines do repeat a great deal they are of a decent quality. Also, the music is good and if quite fitting in every regard.
Sim Roman City
I have always enjoyed city building games and I probably always will. The main game mode sees you having to take over this great city and then build it from the ground up into something that is truly epic. You do this by taking on various missions that will result around you doing things like building a structure, ensuring your people are happy, and dealing with any barbarians who might want to take your city and kill your people. The game always keeps you on your toes and I do like how there is a nice variety to the different missions. It is far from easy, but that is something I like about it.
If you do not care for story in your city building game, you can play the game without any kind of story. I really did enjoy the story that the game told, but this mode feels more like a traditional city-building sim. I would say you are best taking on the story first and then jumping into this mode as if you start with this mode, you will probably not want to do the story.
I know that this may look "old" however, I had a great deal of fun playing Caesar 3 and I would probably class it as one of my favorites in the city-building genre. The game is a lot of fun and it provides you with a very hard challenge, but it never feels unfair. There may be a bit of trial and error, but everything you do in this game even when it goes wrong can be a learning experience. If you like city building games, you owe it to yourself to play this.
I thought the story they told was great
They try to be very authentic to the ancient Rome setting
They give you many different ways to build your city
You can play the game without a story if you want
The presentation holds up fairly well
I liked the voice acting, but it does say the same things over and over again
It is not as "in-depth" as what we have with many modern games in this genre
Caesar III Screenshots
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