Medieval II: Total War

"Annoying, beautiful, stupid... It overall adds up to great."

Medieval 2:Total War is a great game, combining war, diplomacy and setting into a near-perfect game worthy of song. Theoretically.
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GRAPHICS: 9/10
Every soldier, piece of siege equipment, and building is individually rendered. To those of you who don't know what that means, everything looks different. You no longer watch a massive army of clones march in on an enemy castle, but rather a bunch of little individuals get crushed by molten boulders. The only way this can look poor is if you have a poor graphics card, in which case you'll be looking at people hovering towards the enemy rather than riding horses.

A nice graphical feature is the new movies you see when an assassin or spy does something, someone gets married, a new pope is named, and more. They're all well done, but watching your assassin get killed is only fun for so long. There is an option to turn it off, however, so it's no worry.
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GAMEPLAY: 7/10
Perfect in theory, minor annoying flaws in execution. For starters, you can't change the faction heir as you could in Rome:Total War. This is understandable, as in medieval times the oldest son was always the heir, but really. You'll often find yourself with some wimp who couldn't hold his own against a bunch of peasants ruling your kingdom, rather than the guy with full command and a perfect combat record who actually deserves it. So very unfair.

The new emphasis on religion is both good and bad. The papacy will almost constantly be telling you to stop attacking some other catholic faction (often one that's been pulverizing you endlessly for a while) or else you'll be told to build some chapel rather than the militia barracks you obviously need. And, of course, ignoring all these requests will get you excommunicated from the church and then targeted by every other catholic faction in the game. Eventually, you just won't care anymore because you control every other catholic faction, but it's really annoying for a while.

The combat is still basically the same. You bring an army in, they have a defending army, and you battle it out. Only in this game, there are way more cavalry than usual and there are rarely enough ranged units to get the job done effectively. Luckily, there are also more units overall to choose from, ranging from measly peasants to Hospitaller Knights all the way up to noblemen. Gunpowder is also there, although that comes later in the game.

The biggest flaw in the gameplay is probably the agents. There are now a couple more agents to recruit, but the old ones have been toned down a bit. There will no longer be a 78% chance of assassinating an enemy captain. There will no longer be a lower level spy getting into the enemy's capital without a problem. No, there'll be a lot more wasted money going into assassins, spies, and merchants as they getting repeatedly killed by guards.

On the plus side ( and a bit on the bad side) diplomacy is more in depth than before. There is now a listing that shows the target's priorities, wealth, reputation, and a couple other trinkets that don't help overly much. The biggest problem with this is reputation. In Rome, you could betray every ally you have and still do business as usual. That's certainly changed. Betray one alliance, or cancel even one tribute, and you're screwed. Politics can't be done very easily (or cheaply) when you can't be trusted. On the other hand, it's a bit of a challenge to start with anyways.

I suppose talking about the two types of gameplay would help. If you've played a Total War game before, you know what to expect. There's the turn-based overworld part where all of the diplomacy and movement happens. This is the part you'll want to get familiar with the most, as it's the part you'll spend most of your time in. The battle mode is, of course, what you go into when you enter a battle. It's great for the first couple dozen times you go into it, but it'll get boring eventually. Believe me. Thank God for auto-resolve.

The AI is rather... uh... stupid. Sometimes you'll have broke nations repeatedly trying to bribe your best settlements, and sometimes giant armies will just sit around while undefended territories open up all around them. A four-year-old kid could sometimes do better. Luckily, these instances aren't exactly common and have been fixed in the latest patch.
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SOUND: 6/10
Overall, it's good. The accents are very annoying, however, and everyone speaks English. It's highly doubtful that everyone spoke English in those days. The French, the Egyptians, the Danish, everyone who shouldn't be speaking English is and has been given a funny accent that usually isn't accurate to go with it. The music is also a little on the poor side, but it's rarely noticeable enough to matter.
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STABILITY: 6/10
Minor bugs in a few areas where there shouldn't be, some lag when you first start or go into a big battle. The usual. The game has a tendency to just freeze after playing for a long period of time, so save frequently. Also, load times are fairly long for most parts of the game. Gives you time to read the quotes, but you'll be seeing them enough that you'll just wish it loaded faster.
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REPLAY VALUE: 9/10
21 different factions, 21 different ways to rule the world. Need I say more? Yes? Well, each faction starts in a different area. England occupies the southern portion of Britain, the Moors are in the south west corner, and the rebels fit in wherever you don't want them to. So with each times you play as a different faction, you find that there are not only different units but different lands, different enemies, and basically different approaches to the game. I think that about covers it.
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OVERALL: 7/10
It's a great game, but there are tons of flaws that just shouldn't be there. The amount of actual bugs is low, but even then there are enough to start annoying you. Buy if you have a good computer and like strategy games. And a fair amount of patience.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/07