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Jesus, that’s a lot of units onscreen. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when you play Rome: Total War, the third game in the Total War series from British developers Creative Assembly. The game’s sense of battle reaches epic proportions making Rome: Total War one of the best strategy games I have played in years.
Although only part of the game, I suspect that many people will purchase Rome: Total War for its epic battles. It is truly a magnificent scene to see literally thousands of soldiers fight for their life in a battlefield. You can view the carnage from afar, getting a full view of the battle, or you can choose to get much intimate with the soldiers. You won’t always be able to participate in the huge battles you see plastered across marketing screenshots, but even the “small” battles in Rome: Total War include a multitude of units at any given time. The game’s maps are also very nice and full of detail and perfectly complement the units.
Completing the visuals is the game’s outstanding audio which adds to the game’s overall excellence. The background music in the game is very dramatic and fits the game’s epic scale. Additionally, many sound effects compliment the visuals, adding to the authenticity as you’ll actually hear thousands of soldiers clash swords, march to different locations and just about everything else.
If you want to try the battles out right away, you can do so in a number of ways. The first, of course, is multiplayer. Multiplayer allows you to get right into battle via a skirmish mode. You’ll also be able to enter more time-demanding and complicated, but still a great deal of fun, modes. If you don’t want to get online you can always participate in an offline skirmish mode or relive some classic battles.
In addition to the land battles, you’ll find quite a few naval scuffles. While nice in theory, these battles don’t add up to much more than winning because you have more units or conversely, losing because you have fewer units. The naval battles have to be auto-generated by the game, and thus lose some of the frantic excitement found in the land based battles.
And all of that is just the battle system. The game includes a full-fledged turn-based campaign mode, as well. In the campaign mode, you’ll have to control one of three Roman factions - the Bruti, the Julii or the Scipii – but you’ll also be able unlock other factions along the way like the Carthaginians and the Gauls. You’ll command one of these factions to expand their empire and lead them to success. The main Campaign in Rome: Total War will last quite a few days as it takes place through nearly three hundred years with turns occurring at six-month intervals. Be prepared to spend many hours in it, and that’s only if you skip some of the smaller battles. If you decide to play through them all in order to get the most “bang” for your buck, you’ll be playing for a long, long time. Creative Assembly added a smaller campaign mode for those who want to get the experience but don’t really want to invest the time.
In Rome: Total War, you’ll need to manage your cities by controlling the governor, which handles the resource management and maintain a steady supply of troops. As you expand and gain more cities, you’ll be faced with a limited supply of governors and though you can make a powerful general a governor, he won’t be best suited for the job. Thankfully, the game allows you to use an auto-pilot of sorts to manage the cities if you run out of governors or simply don’t want to be bothered with all the little details.
The game’s diplomacy system is very in-depth and proves to be very worthwhile. You’ll be able to form convince rival neighbors to become allies of Rome, and then you’ll be able to trade with them and even force them to protect Rome. You can also spy on the enemies or send assassins to keep them “in check” and make sure they aren’t up to anything that can be negative to you.
The game’s battles are led by generals, and you’ll notice that they have different abilities. A smaller army with a great general can overcome an army much bigger than it. The game’s generals are related and will continue down a family line. If you lose a great general in battle, he won’t be able to have children and as such, you’ll miss out on a new generation of generals.
Along with battles and expanding the empire, you’ll be able to partake in missions given to you by the Roman senate. These missions range from simply invading a new city to make sure everyone in a certain faction is eliminated. Completing these missions will give you influence in the senate and you’ll be rewarded with better abilities, more units and of course, economic rewards.
Rome: Total War is an ideal strategy game as it combines two rather different gameplay approaches into one very cohesive package. If you really care about all the small details in running an empire, the game allows you to live that out without having to step foot in battle. If all you want to do is battle, let the game manage the campaign details. Or simply recreate a classic battle or enter multiplayer. Rome: Total War provides many hours of enjoyable gameplay and is certainly one of the best strategy games to come along in a long time. This is a very large game and there is so much to write about that I needed to draw the line somewhere. The bottom line is that if you’re even remotely interested in strategy games, of both the turn-based and real-time nature, you should at least try Rome: Total War. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 8, 2004
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