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Rome: Total War Gold Edition Review (continued)
More User Submitted Rome: Total War Gold Edition Reviews
Date: 2008-10-18
Total excitement, Total Immersion, Total War!
Four years hasn't dulled the majesty of this game.
My graphics card recently bit the dust, and I'm stuck with a weak chipset. So, while waiting for my new card, I was looking for an older game my system could handle.
I'm a big fan of MEDIEVAL II: TOTAL WAR, so I decided to give its older brother a spin. Good choice.
Although the graphics are starting to date. (Though they're still impressive.) The game play hasn't. Like M2, this is a game you can play over and over again and only scratch the surface. It's both edge-of-you-seat exciting and intellectually deep. A combination rarely found in today's games.
And its forgiving system specs make it a good choice for an aging system, or a laptop.
This is one of those games you'll play for hours upon hours, and remember for years. Buy with confidence. This is a top gaming experience.
Date: 2008-10-01
Incredible Games
As a 61 year old gamer and historian who started with Avalon Hill games as a teen, I find RTW and Barbarian Invasion to be supremely satisfying. You haven't lived yet until you have fought three separate Hun armies between turns and win with just your one Roman army. Especially intriguing when two of their armies attack simultaneously and you have to defeat one quickly and wheel your army about to face the second coming from your rear. Yes, horses were terrified at the sight and smell of elephants as attested to by the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, the late 4th Century Roman chronicler and soldier who fought against Persian elephants.
Date: 2008-08-25
Battles Are a Thing of Beauty
The battlemaps in this game are truly a thing of beauty, from the interesting scenery, to the pageantry of the colorful massed formations, to the riveting, brutal action of the hand-to-hand engagements when viewed from close up. I confess to mostly having played Barbarian Invasion, as I find that period of history most interesting. The campaign play has a lot of compromises to allow for playability, but I enjoy especially keeping track of my 'family', and its additions and tragedies along the way. It would be nice if there were more detail to go with this feature, and a way to keep track of individual character's accomplishments (and failures) that is easily accessible, but overall, my complaints are far outweighed by the enjoyment this game has provided.
If I could make one more suggestion, it would be immensely fun if players could be members of the same faction, allowing for some interesting intrigue in seeking favor and the throne.
Date: 2008-08-06
Rome Total War delivers one of the deepest, most addicting stradegy games of all time!
I fell in love with Rome: Total War the first minute I heard about. Four years later I still play and enjoy the game.
Rome Total War - I would have to say this ranks among the top PC games of all time. When you start the game you are given the choice of one of the three Roman Factions. As you play the game and conquer factons, you unlock those factions to be played in campaign mode. I would have to say that the campaign mode is extremely deep, and may cause you many sleepless nights. As you play with your Roman faction, you are assigned missions by the Senate to go and conquer certain territories or blockade certain ports. Of course you are given discretion in the ability to conquer other territories or if you just don't want to listen to the Senate at all. Whenever you fight a battle you enter the battle map. This is what separates the Total War series from Civilization. Rome: Total War itself looks great with incredible graphics and beatiful settings. My favorite part of the battles is that the maps are accurate of your location on the campaign map. If you are by the sea, you will see the body of water in the same direction relative to your army as it was on the campaign map. The combination of the battle map and the campaign map (a civilization style map) is what hooks you to the game. You're able to control what happens in battles. In other games, if your army is smaller, you lose. What's great about Rome Total War is that you may use stradegy in the most bleak situtations to come out victorious. I played battles where my army was outnumbered 5:1 as I defended a city where I was able to drive the enemy away. Eventually you will reach the peak of the mountain as you conquer Rome and lead all the factions. What's great is that once you finish a campaign (which will take a long time to begin with), you can play again with a different Roman Faction or another faction which you conquered. I have only a couple criticisms of the game. My first is that all that all the soldiers within each unit look exactly alike. Thankfully, there are many different soldier types to adress this issue. Secondly, in the battles, your soldiers repeat a couple motions over and over. It becomes repetitive. Thankfully this issue was resolved in medieval total war. My last complaint was that you had no control over naval battles. When the odds in a battle were close to 1:1, it was simply a flip of the coin who won. All in all, Rome: Total War will give you hours and hours of gameplay, which you will probably never get bored of.
Barbarian Invasion - I'll make this one short and sweet. Barbarian Invasion was a good expansion, but a little disappointing. The game shifts to the period towards the end of the Roman Empire, as it is divided between the East and West. This time you are given the ablity to play as one of the two Roman factions (Eastern and Western) or several other barbarian factions such as the Franks or Safavids. When I got the expansion, I decided to try something new and play with a barbarian faction. Simply to say, it soon became a frustrating experience as many of my settlements revolted and my money was going down the drain. Barbarian Invasions is much more diffucult than the original game, with an added complication in religion. The new night battles are cool, but they aren't enough to overcome the frustration on the campaign map. Chances are you'll probably be taking this disc out and putting in the original Rome: Total War.
To simply put it I gave this game five stars mostly because of the original game. The expansion set will provide a nice little diversion but is not nearly as addicting as the original. I also highly recommend Medieval II: Total War.
Date: 2008-07-17
This game rocks!
This game keeps me playing. I can play as different factions during the time that Rome was gaining power through the world. I enjoy the game because it has everything I want to do such as building & destroying cities and learning and applying new strategies. I am currently playing and enjoying the game right now.
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