Cossacks 3 Review (It's not slander if it's written)
In 1999, I was a child. A child who loved video games. A child who played Age of Empires 2. A child who went on to play Empire Earth. A child whose father purchased Cossacks.
Cossacks 3 is Cossacks. It's the same game. Nothing meaningful has changed, except for the key fact the game now runs on modern systems. Does it run well? It runs.
There are new factions, sure. These new factions don't matter. There are functionally three categories that every civilization falls into one of.
1: We cease existing in the 18th century, and must end the game before then Or Else.
2: We pray nobody finds us until the 18th century, by which point it's too late for our enemies.
3: We pretend to be a balance of the two.
Several civilizations have identical tech trees and bonuses to others, and their differences are functionally aesthetic and nothing else. This is disappointing.
But it IS Cossacks. It's the game I played as a child, and loved. Which I still love.
Do you want ongoing support? You receive none. Do you want a game that runs stable? No. Autosave or live in regret. Do you want an RTS where you throw a thousand units at another thousand units in one huge glorious mess you built towards for 50 minutes, while you frantically dot the landscape with cannon-armed towers and pray it'll be enough to forestall death? Do you want to make 4,000 villagers and reach resource numbers in the hundred thousands so that you can sufficiently fund the monstrosity your army is swiftly becoming?
You will have this, but not more. This game is 'mostly positive' for good reason. It does not pretend to be more than it is, other than calling it Cossacks 3. It's just Cossacks. It's just a remake with a few new civilizations. Is that enough? Only you can answer that for yourself.
It is enough for me, on sale.
Perhaps a real sequel will come, one day. I don't know what that would entail. Honestly, what would this game benefit from having added to it? It is what it is. Massive RTS battles. More guns than any other RTS I know of. Complex formations whose effectiveness far outstrips a disorganized firing line, and will beat such a thing every time. Merciless AI that wants you dead and crying.
Steam refunds allow a refund of any game you've played less than 2 hours of. Give it one match, and see what you think. I played hundreds of hours of Cossacks in my youth. You could, too.