Handarazuur
19th Jul 04, 4:38 AM
Year of Release: 2002
Development House: Activision
Publisher: The Creative Assembly
Website: Total War (http://www.totalwar.com)
Game Score: 94/100
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Concept: 5/5
Execution: 4/5
Controls: 4/5
Replayability: 5/5
Difficulty: 3/5
Learning Curve: 3/5
Patch Version: v1.1, v2.01 (for Viking expansion pack)
Bugs: 0/5
Modability/Community Support: 5/5
Review
This game has come damn close to being my favourite strategy game of all time. The story is simple enough; take over Europe. But where the task is simple, the ways to go about it are immensely different.
Virtually everything you can think of to make the perfect gaming experience is here. You can choose when in the Middle Ages you start off from (therefore changing your starting power, the technology available, and other powers' relations with you), the difficulty, and which of the 16 or so races you will be.
As you can probably tell from the title, a major part of this game is the big bloody fights you get to start up. With armies of nearly 2,000 soldiers, horses (or camels) and artillery, you can pound your enemies into submission on a scale that makes the Battle of Minas Tirith look like a scuffle in the backyard.
Even if you don't have an all-powerful army to crush your enemies with, the game goes beyond that. War, after all, isn't all swords and arrows. You can strike up alliances with your neighbours, get your princess hitched to a fine foreign knight, have one of your assassins "take care of" that pesky enemy general on your borders, and bribe whole armies into joining your cause.
Time progresses well in this game. Your monarchs will age and die, but new ones will mature and come into power. Your generals, through multiple victories, can increase in rank as they go along, adding the RPG element to the game. Even your monarch and princes can go into battle, but watch out; lose your king and all his heirs, and your empire will be gone faster than an electoral promise.
And beating the stuffing out of Europe isn't your only objective. Random events happen all the time (such as stopping the Mongols from invading, going on a crusade/jihad, etc.), and you can win by simply doing these things. That's the beauty of this game; there are so many ways to do everything, you can play it again and again and you get the idea.
There are only really a tiny handful of things which stop this game from getting a perfect score. The build queues can be very tedious, as can waiting for the AI to do things. Being an opportunistic king in this game isn't a bad thing at all. The fights, if you don't have the proper hardware, have a framerate of about six frames per minute. This can make controlling your armies near impossible outside the main screen. This takes a 5% chunk out of the score, simply because it was the primary reason for getting the game in the first place.
There is a huge community fanbase for this game. Follow the link above to find access to patches, mods, FAQs and other information. Amazingly, the game, unpatched, is virtually bug-free. I played it for four hours without a single lockup, crash or error.
I doubt there'll ever be a TBS game that gets better than this. At least, until its sequel arrives. Still, for under $10, it's a fine example of when game designers do the right thing in the right places.
Good stuff: One of the most engaging TBS games ever made. Look out for this one!
Bad stuff: If you don't have a killer graphics system or patience, don't bother getting it (yet!).
Reviewer System Specs
CPU: Intel Pentium III 501MhZ
RAM: 256MB
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440
Development House: Activision
Publisher: The Creative Assembly
Website: Total War (http://www.totalwar.com)
Game Score: 94/100
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Concept: 5/5
Execution: 4/5
Controls: 4/5
Replayability: 5/5
Difficulty: 3/5
Learning Curve: 3/5
Patch Version: v1.1, v2.01 (for Viking expansion pack)
Bugs: 0/5
Modability/Community Support: 5/5
Review
This game has come damn close to being my favourite strategy game of all time. The story is simple enough; take over Europe. But where the task is simple, the ways to go about it are immensely different.
Virtually everything you can think of to make the perfect gaming experience is here. You can choose when in the Middle Ages you start off from (therefore changing your starting power, the technology available, and other powers' relations with you), the difficulty, and which of the 16 or so races you will be.
As you can probably tell from the title, a major part of this game is the big bloody fights you get to start up. With armies of nearly 2,000 soldiers, horses (or camels) and artillery, you can pound your enemies into submission on a scale that makes the Battle of Minas Tirith look like a scuffle in the backyard.
Even if you don't have an all-powerful army to crush your enemies with, the game goes beyond that. War, after all, isn't all swords and arrows. You can strike up alliances with your neighbours, get your princess hitched to a fine foreign knight, have one of your assassins "take care of" that pesky enemy general on your borders, and bribe whole armies into joining your cause.
Time progresses well in this game. Your monarchs will age and die, but new ones will mature and come into power. Your generals, through multiple victories, can increase in rank as they go along, adding the RPG element to the game. Even your monarch and princes can go into battle, but watch out; lose your king and all his heirs, and your empire will be gone faster than an electoral promise.
And beating the stuffing out of Europe isn't your only objective. Random events happen all the time (such as stopping the Mongols from invading, going on a crusade/jihad, etc.), and you can win by simply doing these things. That's the beauty of this game; there are so many ways to do everything, you can play it again and again and you get the idea.
There are only really a tiny handful of things which stop this game from getting a perfect score. The build queues can be very tedious, as can waiting for the AI to do things. Being an opportunistic king in this game isn't a bad thing at all. The fights, if you don't have the proper hardware, have a framerate of about six frames per minute. This can make controlling your armies near impossible outside the main screen. This takes a 5% chunk out of the score, simply because it was the primary reason for getting the game in the first place.
There is a huge community fanbase for this game. Follow the link above to find access to patches, mods, FAQs and other information. Amazingly, the game, unpatched, is virtually bug-free. I played it for four hours without a single lockup, crash or error.
I doubt there'll ever be a TBS game that gets better than this. At least, until its sequel arrives. Still, for under $10, it's a fine example of when game designers do the right thing in the right places.
Good stuff: One of the most engaging TBS games ever made. Look out for this one!
Bad stuff: If you don't have a killer graphics system or patience, don't bother getting it (yet!).
Reviewer System Specs
CPU: Intel Pentium III 501MhZ
RAM: 256MB
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440