PC Gamer gives top honours to Creative Assembly's "strategy masterwork"
PC Gamer UK has published an exciting, gushing review of The Creative Assembly's latest RTS, Empire: Total War.
According to PCG the new instalment is "astonishing. A strategy masterwork." Well worth the 94% and rare 'Must Buy' badge they've dished out, then.
"This is the grandest, most spectacular work of strategy gaming on the PC," the mag gushes. "If you've not tackled a Total War game before, or assume that they're not for you, I challenge you to play Empire and not be impressed, or even fundamentally changed by the experience.As if RTS nuts weren't excited enough already. And by the sounds of this, non-RTS fans should be too.
"There had been rumblings about Total War being simplified for the US market, especially with its introductory mini-campaign 'The Road to Independence'," the review continues. But "The Creative Assembly do not seem to have shirked their responsibility, or ever stepped back from including more features, or more detail," it says. "Empire is the opposite of dumbed down.
"While it feels familiar, Empire manages to deliver more nuance on the campaign map than ever before. What's most immediately obvious is the effect of international trade.
"The sheer weight of ideas produced by the Creative Assembly team is in evidence. The battlefields are vastly more detailed than ever before, especially around towns, with the smaller scale details now coming into effect in the form of battlefield defences, use of buildings by troops, and accurate cover. Battles play out more convincingly than in previous games. There's still some errant unit activity, but I've seen little evidence of units sitting around waiting to be killed, or getting lost entirely. Not perfect, perhaps, but certainly more robust.
Total War is out next Friday, March 4. Full review in PC Gamer, on sale NOW!
Source: CVG