9 / 10
12 May 2006 at 10:55
Review by: Sleipner
Rome:Total War is spellblinding at best and fabulous at worse. Read on for the full review and prepare to have a strange desire to rush to a store and buy the game, for it is superb.
The idea of the game;
You take control of the military, political and econmonical developments of a Roman faction in the largest and grandest strategy game ever created. A mix of real-time combat and turn-based strategic map planning is blended into one package - Rome: Total War!
Gameplay;
A sequel to Shogun and Medieval: Total War, Rome pits you on a campaign to expand the roman empire. Set around 280 B.C you must develop your kingdom the way you wish and ensure it is your family faction that sits on the throne of Rome.
You have the choice of several historical battles, a short campaign or the full campaign (plus single mulitplayer battles) From the start you can only choose one of the three roman factions but later you unlock other sides - such as the Gauls, Brittons and the Greeks.
Once you enter the full campaign that is where the fun begins -
Strategy Phrase;
This is the section whereby you have an overall view of your kingdom on a risk style board. The map streches throughout europe with cities as in 280 B.C. You start off with only a couple of cities and a few units. With these you must organise armies, city garrisons and plan campaigns into foreign territory. Improvements on previous total war games include controllable populations affecting city level, wider variety of buildings and much more realistic behaviour.
Each army/spy/diplomat has a certain movement which is allowed. You are free to decide where your parties go and can decide the best course of action from the many choices of options available. There are plenty of options to choose from though this can be a bit too much mircomangement for some - to ease this there is a function that allows the a.i to manage your cities if you wish. With plenty of menus and stats it is evident this is a game for those who love strategy and have plenty of time to savour all the game has to offer.
The Battles!;
or tactical phase. Once armies engage on the campaign map it is time for you units to rout the enemy. Each battle starts with a nice little speech from your commander and then enters the deployment stage. You can either start or wait until different weather or you can position your troops and begin the battle.
Once the battles begin the real fun begins! The battle engine is the same from the t.v show - Decisive Battles in U.S and Time Commanders in U.K. If you have ever wacthed the shows you will know what to expect. You get complete control over all your units every action. It is entirely up to the player to think of strategies and gain whatever advantage they can from the well detailed landscapes. A very good minor touch is how the battlefields are actually the exact area where the armies meet on the campaign map.
Every unit acts according to how they would have reacted in the situation in real history. Damage is accurately portrayed with cavalry charges particulary strengthed from the previous total war games. The depth of units is very good with a wide variety - these include roman legion, war elephants, chariots and 4 types of seige weapons.
And that comes to the best part of the game - a full seige on a heavy castle. With 4 types of seige weapons ranging from ladders to seige towers to rams (not including normal ballista's and catapults!) and a few thousand troops all shown on screen it makes great action sequences as well as a good challenge to lower losses.
I cannot in words do justice to the freedom the game allows in terms of strategy - nor can i overstate the realistic manner in which the units behave for they act just like their real life counterparts all those many years ago.
Overall - Did i mention the lifespan of this game? It is HUGE to say the least. With so many different ways to play the game and many factions and new units to try out it will last for a very long time.
Great graphics coupled with awesome gameplay and the best battles in any RTS game - this is easily a classic! Highly recommended for strategy fans but may be too big for casual fans.
Better then - Any other RTS game on the P.C
Worse then - Warcraft 3 and Age of Mythology together for the same price
Review score - 9/10, would have got a 10/10 but no game is perfect.
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