The Video Game Revue

Rome: Total War

I've been on an unexpected RTS kick this week. First I've been playing a fair bit of Age of Empires III (which I suck at), and then last night I finally got my first taste of Rome: Total War. I've had some fun with the Total War series before--I have both Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War, although I never got to play either of them as much as I would have liked.

Age of Empires III reminds me a lot of Rise of Nations, although I guess that RoN would probably remind me of AoE II if I'd ever bothered to play AoE II. I'm really looking forward to Rise of Legends, by the way, and it's not often that I look forward to any kind of RTS game. In any case, the obvious common thread here is that AoE III and RoN are both Microsoft Studioes games, and although the themes of these games differ a bit (RoN covers the whole of human history--like Civilization--whereas AoE III centers around the colonization of the new world), the gameplay has a lot in common. I'm hard-pressed to say which of the two games is better, though; my taste in RTS games simply isn't sophisticated enough to have a trustworthy opinion.

As for Rome: Total War, I can scarcely believe that I waited roughly a year to finally break down and get it. The Total War series has a funny history in that the first one, Shogun: Total War, was published by EA Games, the second one, Medieval: Total War, was published by Activision, and now Rome: Total War is published by Sega. Each iteration of the series has been met with critical acclaim and increasing levels of public attention, and for good reason. While Shogun: TW was mostly a concept game--a brilliant idea with a functional but not technically impressive implementation--the follow-up, Medieval: TW, was significantly refined to both look and play better. Rome: TW continues this trend of incremental improvement to the point where it actually looks very good, and gameplay enhancements have made it the most user-friendly Total War game yet.

The only thing perhaps questionable about Rome: Total War is the value of the conquest strategy mode where you maneuver your armies to capture Roman provinces and build an empire with which to conquer the world. I've only just started playing the game, and the conquest mode seems alright, but the true forte of the Total War series are those gorgeous real-time battles. It seems to me that managing city-states and construction queues is just sort of a distraction from the real point of the game, although I might end up feeling differently after playing the game for a while.

I'm still making steady progress in Resident Evil DS. Every review I've seen on it either praises it for reviving such a classic gaming experience or pans it for being a plain rehash of an old game that doesn't hold up to modern gaming standards. Both sentiments are fairly accurate; if you love Resident Evil and want to be able to play the original RE game on Nintendo DS, then RE:DS will give you that ability. If you're expecting something more than what the original PlayStation Resident Evil game was, though, you're not going to find it--all of the DS-specific additions to the game, while amusing, are not a compelling reason to play the game.

posted by Parappa @ 10:13 AM