I’m reviewing this for 1up, so you’ll have to wait a week or so before you get my final verdict on Creative Assembly’s new game.
But, boy, is this big. The battle maps seem to sprawl on forever. I’m partly astonished by the sheer size of the battles and partly discouraged by how distant everything looks at times. The campaign map is likewise a huge step up from the fairly localized maps of previous titles.
Not to mention the strain this will put on your computer.
I’m partially blocking out time away from family and friends, as usual, to play this new Total War game. I hope it lives up to my expectations.
I also hope the retail version loads quicker than the demo.
Reviewing already? Interesting. I’m due to hit a preview event for that on Monday. Perhaps review code will be distributed there…
I haven’t decided my excitement level yet on this. Every time I start a Total War game, I either get bored by the repetitive battles, or annoyed when I get gang-attacked by the AI.
From Sega:
If you have purchased Empire as a digital download…
You will be able to activate your digital copy and play Empire on Wednesday 4th March from 10:00 CET / 01:00 PST.
I don’t have much hope for the AI, but what little I’ve seen from the demo looks very impressive – it at least has the potential to be a great multiplayer experience. I forget – did they add multiplayer to the campaigns yet?
@ Michael A.
Yes, the campaign is now multiplayer.
Also, damn right the loading needs to be quicker. I thought it had fallen over the first time. Shocking.
Looking forward to the reviews. The campaign multiplayer has been a long time coming and may be what convinces me to actually get the game despite the AI weaknesses. It’s something I’ve really missed in these games. Troy has me worried with his talk of embiggening everything though… bigger is not better from a multiplayer point of view.
Is there campaign multiplay, though? I note K Gillen’s review says this is only to come in some future patch. What a downer.
Is installation of Steam required even if one does not play multiplayer?
After searching for some time, I finally found a direct answer to my question. Sorry to have raised it here, but even the official site never stated it directly.