Shogun 2 – Total War

The Total War series has been going for a good few years now, 11 to be precise. In that time, The Creative Assembly have given gamers an insight into historical periods of war, from the 12th to 18th Century, even Roman times. For me, no other series of games have done this more effectively than the Total War series, and this time they’ve gone full loop and released a sequel to the first release, Shogun Total War, with Shogun 2 Total War.

If I said I was a true fan of the series, then I would be to some degree lying. This is because I never played Napoleon Total War, nor Empire Total War. Neither did I play the spin off, Spartan Total Warrior. I did however play the others extensively. Rome Total War introduced new graphics and animation, albeit it was incredibly difficult, Medieval 2 Total War was the first to sequel a previous release and was, in my opinion, the best of the series. But now, we have Shogun 2 Total War.

The first thing you will notice is that the game looks as good as the rest of the series, if not better. Also, the gameplay has not changed – you have the turn based campaign map which allows you to deploy units, build your bases and perform diplomacy with other factions. A new feature has been introduced here – Master of the Arts, allowing you to develop your faction as a whole, from building better units faster, reducing the cost of buildings and troops, to performing diplomacy with other factions in a more effective way. Taxes on settlements are dealt with faction-wide, rather than individual settlements, making it far easier to manage the taxation of your population.

The Battle Interface has not evolved a great deal – deploying and issuing commands are still the same. The scenery is, as ever, looking great. But the most important element that has not been lost is the feeling you get when two huge armies collide on the battlefield, the battle cries, the clashing of swords, the whooshing of arrows as they fly through the air. It’s all there, and it’s as good as ever.

Besieging a settlement is not so anal this time round either – you don’t have to sit around waiting to build siege equipment, you either burn the gates down or climb the walls. This also means you can waltz on in and take a settlement first move round. Unfortunately, this also means the enemy can do this to you too, which can sometimes take you by complete surprise.

The one thing I do not get in this game at the moment is the Multiplayer. Now, perhaps I should spend a bit more time trying to figure it out before writing about it, but first impressions tell me that it could be great, but it’s not entirely clear from the outset what you have to do, or indeed, what you can do.

What Total War have done with this game is what they do with every release – they make minor changes to the gameplay while sticking with what they know works. On top of that, they improve on everything else. This is what makes the series popular, and this is what makes their games incredible every time round.

Overall verdict – once again another great addition to the Total War series. Buy it, very quickly.

Prediction? Rome 2 Total War is the next one.