Rome: Total War

"Rome: Total War - An engrossing and epic Strategy experience"

There have been quite many Real-Time strategy to hit the gaming community, and Rome: Total War is the newest addition. Games such as Warcraft and Rise of Nations are known to be the kings of Strategy games in their own respect, but RTW does it in a whole other way. Most strategy games give you control of units which you use to construct buildings and create an army, and RTW does the same, but with a different concept.

In Rome: Total War, there are basically two different game modes, the campaign map, and the real-time battles. Both are extremely fun and addictive, and can have you at your computer for hours on end. When you start RTW, you will end up doing the tutorial game first because of the fact that it unlocks the campaign. It will teach you how to play the game fairly well. There is a persons face on the top right of your screen and he/she talks to you and tells you what to do next. This is backed by voice audio, which gives you the option to not read and just listen to what they have to say. You will fairly soon be aching to play the campaign map, so all you have to do is quit the tutorial and choose the Imperial Campaign.

In the Imperial Campaign, you are greeted with the choice of a few things. First, and most importantly, you choose which Roman faction you want to play as. You can choose from the Brutii, Scipii and the Julii. All are very similar, besides the fact that they start in a slightly different portion of the map. You are also able to choose difficulty, arcade or non-arcade style battles, AI management and also the choice of a long or short campaign. The short campaign will basically just put you head to head with one or two other factions which whom you have to defeat. The long campaign lives up to it's name, and gives you the mission to expand and take over 50 settlements. In addition, the long campaign makes you have to be the leader of the senate by the end of the game.

You will find yourself taking over settlements, blocking the ports of enemies, the choice of building from a multitude of units, and the biggest attraction, battling. Battles in this game are unbelievably fun and enjoyable. You will find yourself commanding from just a small amount of units, to having so many units on your screen, that you can't even see the ground. Soldiers cheer when they are feeling that the battle is in their control, generals command the units to attack, siege units launch giant cannon at your enemies stone defense, and much more. This game immerses you into the battles and makes you feel like your not only watching a really cool war movie, but controlling it.

The gameplay is obviously great, but what is there to say about the graphics? Let me tell you this, you have the ability to make the units pretty much lifelike. The metal armor that your soldiers wear reflect sunlight and shine, horses actually look like horses and not lincoln logs, and you'll be afraid to touch your monitor when you see 1000 swords clashing against eachother. The graphics are arguably some of the best for any Real-Time Strategy game ever made. There is absolutely nothing to argue about them. You also have the ability to turn them down so that your computer can actually handle the game. Let me tell you, this game really does have a lot going on, so trust me, graphics are a not a problem.

Gameplay is good, graphics are beautiful ... what about the sound? All I have to say is that this game makes you feel like you really are there. Hearing 500 hastati, 300 velites, 100 equites and a general unit marching in synchronized motion is something you will only find in this game. Everything in this game has a realistic sound. When you fire your huge cannon balls out of your ballista and they hit the wooden walls of a barely fortified city, you will hear the crushing of everything in it's path. Not to mention that you can have your missile and siege units fire flaming ammo. Hearing your arch-enemies buildings burning to the ground while your units march is something that will give you goosebumps. The music track itself is remarkably good, and if you look on forums you will see people asking where they can find the music files so they can listen to them all day. It's an understatement to say that the audio in this game is good.

Some people don't like games unless they last a long time. I mean, who wants a game that you play for one weekend then say to yourself, "I should have just rented it". Listen when I tell you that the replay value of this game is, and believe me or not, unlimited. When you beat the campaign for your first time, you unlock almost all of the other factions. Granted, this gives you the opporotunity to use the historical phalanx with the Greeks, the phaoroh's archers with the Egyptians, the cold blooded barbaric britons, and many many more. Playing different factions isn't just like using a new character, it's like a whole new game. They have different buildings, different units, a completely different culture. Not to mention that you can also play historical battles, multiplayer and even custom battles. Historical battles in themself are enjoyable and very well directed. Multiplayer can be really fun and custom battles can give you the ability to fine tune your settings and try to see what it's like to put your armies on huge and see them go running by the thousands into your chosen enemy.

That leads me to the part that is really important to this review, the cons. Honestly, this game really doesn't have much wrong with it, but there are a couple. First off, I have got to say that the most noticable problem is the AI. You will find enemies just sitting there while you launch hundreds of arrows at them and they just slowly die while doing nothing. It really is sad to see such a great game have bad AI. It really doesn't harm the game in any serious way, though. The game also seems to not be polished. Only by trying the game will you notice that it seems like they didn't put those extra two or so weeks into the game. It is somewhat hard to explain but you will notice when you get into the game that it just is missing those little tidbits that would have made it a bit better. One more thing is that the multiplayer seems to be fairly poor. Connection problems are evident, options are limited, and it just really doesn't match up to be a good multiplayer game. They will probably fix this in the future.

All in all, this is a classic game. You will hear about this game and how great it is for years to come. Though it isn't like the average Starcraft game and is set in a much more historical time, this game has a spot in history of it's own. I recommend it not only to RTS players or TW fans, but to every single person that has a computer. You will be satisfied.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/08

Game Release: Rome: Total War (US, 09/22/04)