Firing Squad has a great AO3 preview full of honest-to-goodness opinions! *gasp* It’s not a one of those heartless feature-lists that most gaming sites call ‘previews’ (Yeah Gamespot, I’m looking at you).

According to the hands-on report the game incorporates other recent RTS game play advances (such as the streamlined resource gathering of Rise of Nations) plus has a few cool innovations of its own. There’s a new 5-unit group queuing system that could prove interesting, and there’s the new Home City feature which is almost old news at this point. Firing Squad also reports the game attains an equivalent level of atmospheric polish that Blizzard can produce. That’s definitely saying something.

A blurb from the preview:

The way units organize themselves is noteworthy. No longer is the player fiddling with jumbles of anti-archer, anti-cavalry, anti-infantry and anti-anti-x units in various groups. Rather, the AI manages to arrange them all in a certain order if you group them. It won’t necessarily fight them against what they’re best matched against, but creating a super-group of multiple unit types arranges them in a logical fashion; cavalry up front, infantry in the middle and ranged units in the rear.

Age of Empires 3 is slated for an October release.