"And people wonder why men love war"

Introduction:
I am a man who loves strategy, cunning, and massive slaughter. However, I despise the RTS genre, as it is overly simple, and even the most braindead fool can muster up a victory. I had almost lost faith in games; I didn't think I'd get a chance to play a game where Tactical planning, formations, cunning, and downright chaos would be so dominant. Then, I got my hands on Rome: Total War. I am quite a happy man right now, and I hope this review makes you happy too.

Concept:
If you've played the other Total War games, then you know what to expect from this game. If you haven't, let me enlighten you. You play as one of the dominant armies throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, with the goal of conquering your foes and achieving world domination. The game takes place during the beginning of Rome's expansion, and you will work with (or against) the Senate and the other families of Rome to unite the provinces. This is achieved by tactical diplomatic negotiations, stealth tactics (such as spying and assassination), and of course, total war. It includes everything; ambushes in the forest, naval battles, city sieges, and even epic historical fights. This game is made for all you wannabe generals at home. Now to get on with the review.

Graphics:
I started off playing this game with a rather outdated graphics card (Geforce Mx420), and upgraded to an ATI X800. This game is stunning, simply magnificent, on the graphical spectrum. Hundreds and thousands of units on-screen at one time, all finely detailed. You can see the facial hair on your soldiers, the swinging of every sword in the battle field, every arrow that is fired. With max settings, you will truly be in for a treat. Watching 5,000 Romans fight 5,000 Barbarians at one time is truly an awe-inspiring site. Terrain looks and feels alive, and buildings look very accurate in regards to their historical designs. I can't describe the true beauty and splendor of this game's graphical engine.

The *only* downside I have seen to the graphics at all, is that during particularly massive battles, your soldiers will not actually carry out the action. In other words, they will be in combat with another unit, but you won't see their sword swinging, merely some idle clunkering. However, I know my system is not the optimum machine, so I won't say this applies to everyone. I gave this game a 9/10 for the graphical section.

Sound:
Extraordinarily well done. The music is unexplainably soothing; it's also so popular, that people have even begun to download it off the internet. It truly fits in with the time period, and even moreso with the types of entertainment that were available at this time. I personally have to be careful when I sit in the campaign mode...the soothing music can literally put you to sleep.

The sound effects are what really impress me though. Most games nowadays can hardly handle the sound effects of 5 or 6 weapons. Rome:Total War has realistic sounds. When I hear a sword hitting a shield, it sounds like a real battle, not like a tin can getting hit by a pebble. When cavalry charge into a line of spears, the impaling noise it makes is bloodcurdlingly satisfying. Bows actually can be heard stringing up, and when you can hear all of these weapons going off at the same time, it's truly remarkable. You will feel like you are in the battles. I gave this game a 10/10 for sound, because to this date, I have not had a single problem with it.

Gameplay:
The make-or-break section for most games. I'll divide it up into different categories.

***Diplomacy***
Diplomacy in this game is very simple, yet very complex. To engage in diplomatic negotiations, all you need to do is send a Diplomat unit to a foreign nation's city/unit. From here, a wide variety of options occur. You are able to bribe disloyal soldiers, make/break alliances, negotiate trade rights, and several other things as well. The fact that diplomacy plays a large part in this game also increases the difficulty. After all, if you're hurting for money, but an enemy army is marching on your capital, you have to make important, game-altering decisions. Do you bribe the army to go away, offer them a tribute to leave you alone, or create your own army, and attempt to defend your city? This sort of complexity is what makes the diplomacy feature a very enjoyable and useful part of the game.

However, there are some problems with the current system. In many instances, "allies" will choose to betray you for absolutely no reason. Many nations will completely ignore your requests, despite how large or powerful your civilization is. Also, certain aspects seem to be..."broken". For example, the attack faction option hardly ever seems to work, and even when it does, the A.I doesn't actually attack. For these minor flaws, I gave the Diplomacy an 8/10

***Battle***
This is where the game gets fun...and dull at the same time. Battles can be incredibly awesome; you will literally have battles where it comes down to the last dozen of your troops fighting off the last dozen of enemy troops. Tactical formations and pre-battle strategy are important. A successful ambush can completely change the tides of a battle, while an early charge can lead to a crushing defeat. You really have to be aware of what's going on with your surroundings. I can promise you, however, that you will fight at least one supremely memorable battle on your time in Rome: Total War, you have my guarantee. No other game to date has been able to have battles as big and massive as Rome: Total War. With up to 10,000 units on screen at a time, you're in for a treat.

The downside of battle can be the A.I. I have had battles where the A.I. is more concerned with walking in formation as an army than it is with using strategy. The A.I. *always* walks into traps, and does not ever seem to learn from it's mistakes. Another downside is the auto-calculate battle option. It's horribly unreliable; you can outnumber an enemy 10:1, and somehow you can still lose. The fact that the autocalculate battle system is so incredibly awful will cause many of you to manually fight every battle, which can understandably become tedious. For this reason, I gave the Battles a 7/10

***Multiplayer***
This definitely detracted from the overall score. While many, if not the majority of you have absolutely no desire to play online, the fact remains that it is a feature in the game. For some unknown reason, the multiplayer host for this game (Gamespy) has a 30 person limit. This means that no more than 30 people can be playing online at any given time. It's quite frustrating to wait several days for once chance to play multiplayer, only to be denied. As I have been unable to play multiplayer, I cannot give this score based on the experience itself, but on the fact that it is too difficult to get online. For this reason, multiplayer receives a 5/10

***Campaign***
Campaign mode is where you'll be spending most of your time. You will build up cities and armies, and conquer your foes. Through acts of diplomacy, subterfuge, and warfare, you will proceed in conquering Rome, and several other territories. Whether you choose to conquer alone, or with the aid of allies, be warned; you're going to spend a long time here. Will you make your cities paragons of trade, or perhaps military institutions dedicated to creating armies? The decision lies in your hands. It's a little slow at the start of the game, but once you get your most elite units, and can start assembling massive armies at the blink of an eye, the real fun begins. I didn't see any problems with the campaign, so I gave it a 9/10

***Glitches***
Sadly, this great game has some extremely noticeable glitches. For one, when you capture certain cities, you capture "Wonders" with them. These wonders are supposed to provide you with a passive bonus, so long as you control them. However, after 3-4 turns, the effects of the Wonders vanish, and never seem to come back. Another problem, which I personally have not experienced, seem to be a crash to desktop. I'm not certain of the exact details, but from what I understand, the game says something along the lines of "Rome: Total War has discovered a device malfunction and fixed the problem, please restart the program". I am uncertain of it's commonalities, so please ask around if you feel your computer might have difficulty running the game. A final glitch seems to be that, for no apparent reason, certain Spies/Assassins/Diplomats/Generals are "invincible". Simply put, if you try to spy on them, kill them, etc, you will always fail.

There is good news though! The developers of this game are working on a patch as we speak to correct these problems! Hopefully, you will not have to deal with these problems by the time you are reading this review. The programming is quite good, but there are still errors, so 7/10 I say!

***Custom Battles*
This is where you'll spend hours upon hours re-creating your most awesome battles. It's strictly for fun, and there are no problems at all with it that I have detected. The only possible complaint is braindead A.I. I gave it a 8/10 here.

Personal opinion:
Rome: Total War is a remarkable game. It's unique, it's challenging, it's fun, and it's damn nice to look at and listen to as well. I've had it since release, and I still find myself playing it at least an hour a night. This is, hands down, one of the best strategy games of all time. Whether you're a seasoned strategy veteran, or a newbie to the genre, you'll find something to do and enjoy in this game. The possibility of a map editor, blood mod, and several other such features are also up and coming! I believe this game will have you coming back for more months from now. My biggest hope is that multiplayer will be fixed soon; the replay value on this game will shoot up 10x.

Buy?
I have never suggested anyone buy a game before. I will suggest, highly, that you download the official demo of this game before you buy it. I feel that this game isn't for everyone; some people just don't like anything that requires a thought, or any sort of tact. However, for any of you strategy/war buffs, this game is a must-buy, unquestionably. It blows Civilization 3 (PC) out of the water, and makes Risk a fading memory.

Closing:
I hope you found this review informative. If you have any questions or comments about my review, post here on the Gamefaqs board, or contact me personally through email. If there's any way you feel I can improve this review, feel free to drop me some tips. Rome: Total War is a great game, and I hope you all can enjoy it even half as much as I do. Veni, vidi, vici!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/05/04