@Violent_Gamer Shogun 2 #Review

 #TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Violent_Gamer

War is bloody and grim but Shogun is not. It fills you with the feeling of hope against a hopeless struggle. When the Shogunate, the government, declares war on you it makes or break you. You must fight and die or be crushed under the coming storm. The realm divides and you can only hope someone will be on your side. This is one of the few events of Shogun 2 Total War. Creative Assembly developed it and it is produced by Sega, the same as all recent Total War games.

(If you are familiar with RTS games ignore this next paragraph.)

If you are unfamiliar with the Total War series, it is a real time strategy series that involves a campaign map in which you run your cities, politics, families, finances and armies. Whenever you are involved in a fight, be it a siege, land battle or naval battle you then go into a detailed fight that allows you to control your army, unit by unit.

For all of you familiar with the Total War series, Shogun 2 does a lot to improve upon all previous attempts. I know I have outlined many of these in previews and articles on Shogun 2 already but there was much more to be explored. Here are some improvements over the more recent Total War games, like Empire Total War and Napoleon Total War.

Improvements

-Multiplayer

-Campaign Map

-Stability Issues at launch

-Clan uniqueness

-Sea battles

-Graphics/Effects

-Families

-Diplomacy

-Battle AI

-Campaign AI

Multiplayer Avatar Conquest is a lot of fun on its own as well. You have a avatar, who is your general, that you can customize in various ways and also unlock and level up. Through achievements you gain new pieces of armor for your general. You get to choose what your banner with be and all of your colors. On top of avatar customization there is also veteran units that you may earn. When a unit does particularly well in a battle the game often gives you the choose to make them a veteran unit. Veteran units are fantastic, they get their own skill tree to level up and they cost slightly more than a normal plain unit, you also may customize there colors. For instance I've fought one person whose army was a full array of colors, so it added insult to injury when I lost to a rainbow colored army. The only downside to veteran units is that they can be injured and must rest for a battle before being used again at full strength, you can use them at half strength or whatever they are at.

All in all this is a great game. I have not felt this kind of draw to a Total War game since Medieval 2 Total War. While the game may be smaller, in scale not in detail, it is very fun and addicting. I often find myself saying just one more turn and before I realize it a hour has gone by and that is a very rare thing these days. I recommend this greatly to anyone interested in strategy games and Japanese culture. The aforementioned bugs have mostly been fixed and are being fixed at a decent rate. Also I've made a video highlighting many battles, land/siege and naval, check it out.

Presentation- 9

*Bug's at retail release are the only thing holding this back

Graphics- 10

*Works on a array of different computer setups and looks gorgeous all around.

Sound- 10

*The soundtrack draws you into the Japanese environment and the battle sounds are fitting.

Gameplay-9

*Simple, yet diverse and exciting. Lot's of options. The flow of battle feels excellent. Bugs hurt it.

Length of Play-10

*There is a lot to do in this game and lots of reason to continually keep coming back.

Violent Score: 9.5



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