According to Bluesnews the Ensemble Studios developed, Microsoft published epic Age of Empires III has gone gold and will begin shipping to retail stores on October 18th.

The game will ship in two versions, the Standard edition and Collector's edition. The game uses a fully 3-D engine to render the action, which is a first in the series. New features such as the persistent Home City, 24 different scenerios divided into three seperate acts and of course the lush new graphics make Age of Empires III a great addition to the franchise. The previous two Age of Empire games have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

You can also download the recently released demo for Age of Empires III to get a taste of the game.

The minimum system requirements for the game are:

1.4 Ghz processor

2 GB of hard drive space

256 mb of RAM

At least a 64 mb video card that supports hardware transform and lighting

Windows XP

At least a 56K modem for online play

Age of Empires III goes gold

25 September 2005, 09:55

MICROSOFT Game Studios has announced that the much anticipated and gorgeous looking real-time strategy game Age of Empires III has gone gold and will be making its debut on the PC on October 18th.

The game will be released in two flavours, standard edition – box, game, manual – and a special collector’s edition which we reported on in August.

The INQ

can't wait... should be great!

Looks wicked.

cant wait for this game...

will this game have ladders and AMM similar to warcraft 3 and battle.net?

can't wait... should be great!

I played it for a few minutes at E3 and it looked pretty awesome to me

Jason

looking forward to this game

Patch v1.01 for retail:

Client Fixes 1.01

• Fixed a bug in the command manager that caused slow performance when CPAIs were in the game
  
• Fixed a bug that caused sound effects (and sometimes music) to stop playing
  
• Fixed a problem where unplayed dialogue lines made the Campaign scenarios stop working
  
• Fixed a bug on the Postgame screen that allowed players' names to be edited
  
• Fixed a bug where all players would hear the selection sound for HC cards played
  
• Fixed a bug that kept the ESO connection problem dialog box from closing
  
• Fixed a bug in the Portuguese tech TEAM Early Dragoons that kept some civilizations from training their anti-cavalry units until the Industrial age
  
• Fixed a bug that made abundant resources available in the single-player Campaign
  
• Fixed a bug that did not let the host launch the game once the number of players was reduced below the number that had clicked ready
  
• Tweaked movement code to improve the responsiveness of units
  
• Changed formations so that unit types keep their setting even when grouped with different types
  

Network and Eso Fixes 1.01

• Fixed a bug in the Unresponsive Player dialog box so that it closes once consensus is reached
  

Source: 3DGamers

Download: Age of Empires III 1.01 Patch

Oh no, first safe money for a new PC

I love the AOE series, for once I can say well done microsoft!