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Total War: Shogun 2 - Limited Edition (PC)
by evyarad
I have been a fan of the Total War series since the first Medieval game (I missed out on the original Shogun). There's something about the mix of micromanagement strategic planning and fast paced battles that appeals to me. With this in mind I bought this game soon after it was released.
It immediately became apparent that the ... studio had worked hard on improving the graphics since the (already beautiful) last outing. The in-battle weather and individual soldier models in particular are fantastic. The strategic difficulty also seems to have increased, becoming a serious challenge to play on the top difficulty when previously I found myself breezing through the campaign.
The aim of the game is to take your chosen clan to dominance in 16th century Japan, by fighting, negotiating and back stabbing your rivals. You can also buy expansions set at the start of the Shogun era and at it's fall in the 19th century. I found that I didn't really engage with the campaign, not really caring what territories I was fighting over, who died in the last battle o et also on. Perhaps this was due to my relative ignorance or lack of interest in this era, in other total war games I have been thrilled to firefight Agincourt, crush barbarians beneath the boots of my Roman legionnaries or to thwart the plans of Napoleon but there was nothing to hook me in this time. Just another battle against similar opponents on some vaguely familiar part of Japan.
The 19th century campaign was a little better with new innovations for the series such as ironclad ships, coastal bombardments and railways workingwell. However on the whole I just couldn't get over my apathy and really into this game, which is a shame considering its outstanding attributes on paper and the high regard in which I hold its predecessors.
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Football Manager 2012 (PC)
by Steve87
First of all I'd like to begin by stating that I was always a FIFA player up until about 2010 which is when I got bored of repetition and was pointed towards a more Managerial role.
What I have found with the FM series is that the database never fails to blow me away by being so vast and extensive, player, club and country ... knowledge shown by the developers is absolutely second to none, to me, this is half of the appeal, I find with games like this the attention to detail shown to create not only an individual feel to the game play but put you right in the seat of being manager of a football team is of vital importance and I believe that in this instance they have got it spot on.
Tactics and match preparation is half the battle when it comes to creating a winning, consistent team and there are endless ways to create every style of team you can think of, however, the lack of option to create set runs for your wide men or put your holding midfielder in a particular role/mindset before the game lets it down slightly, I'm sure I'm not the only one that will think that this needs to be addressed in any forthcoming installments.
Pre-match and post-match team talks are relatively detailed with the ability to choose what tone of voice you would like to project onto your players, this ultimately provokes some sort of reaction, or not, which in turn affects the way they play and the way they feel about you and the match.
Press conferences are something that will also affect your players with them taking notice of every word you say, this will provoke certain reactions from them also with them sometimes wanting to prove you wrong and trying much harder if you criticize their latest performances.
I often hear a lot of people complaining about the realism of the 3d match, I very much agree that it seems to be rather blocky and jumpy and considering the advances in technology in the last 10 years, along with their budget, I'm sure Sega have the opportunity to make this a lot more realistic and provide a much better match atmosphere in future FM games., but we can only hope.
I find that scouting is sensational, every last detail about a player you're keeping an eye on will be relayed to you by either a certain person on your backroom staff, or a pool of your scouts, your choice. Which leads me to the point of meetings you hold with your staff with them suggesting formations, player roles, coaching additions and other things you may overlook/forget about, this option is very helpful to keep you on top of things and not feel swamped with things to do as they help you manage your work efficiently.
All in all I must say that I absolutely love this game, I have spent countless hours on it so far and every time I get a spare hour or so I'll whack it on and get lost in a fully immersive footballing world.
Definitely recommended to people that are fans of games like this. You'll never look back.
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Total War: Shogun 2 - Limited Edition (PC)
by teamshepherd
Total War fans will rejoice at the long awaited revision of Shogun, the first ever game in Total War series.
When Total War developers Creative Assembly decided that the next project they would invest their money and time into would be a remake of the game that put them on the map and started a franchise, Shogun :Total War, it must ... have been like a homecoming. Since the 2001 release of Shogun, Creative Assembly went on to produce five additional Total War games, all of which received critical success and cemented the series as one of the best franchises in the real time strategy genre.
Could Total War: Shogun 2 live up to it's predecessor?
No. Simply put, it couldn't. Undoubtedly the graphics took a huge leap and the options available to the player are far more vast but unfortunately Shogun 2 seemed stale from the get go. Shogun 2 decided to play it safe and failed to capture the imagination. The options available to the player were not all that dissimilar from other recent incarnations produced by Creative Assembly. So instead of feeling like you were playing a fantastic retelling of the original game, it felt like you were playing Empire: Total War, or another recent game, just with a graphical enhancement that took your soldiers from Europe and into Japan.
There was a reason Shogun hadn't be remade until now. It was too polarizing for the huge American and European audiences the franchise appealed to. Put Europeans in Europe and they will enjoy conquering places they know and playing the role of historical legends of their region. Put a European in Japan and everything seems to lose context unless your an expert on Japanese history.
Also take into account that it seemed that the franchise was going in a totally different route. From the Medieval era we progressed hundreds of years to the 1700's in Empire: Total War. A game that revolutionized how you played a Total War game due to the inclusion of muskets. And then from there we further progressed to Napoleon: Total War, further solidifying the constant move forward in eras and technology. Then before you knew what hit you, you were smack dab right back in the middle of feudal Japan. Your musket was gone and replaced with the sword once more. The timing couldn't have been any worse.
Shogun 2 failed to impress because it did nothing new. It had nothing new to bring to the table and ended up being a game that we've all seen before when it comes to opportunities for the player. Of course that's not to imply Shogun 2 was merely Shogun 1 with better graphics, but to say that Empire, Napoleon and even Medieval have all given us the same level of freedom. Until now almost every Total War game in the franchise has had something new to bring to the table, unfortunately Shogun 2 just wasn't up to par.
2 out of 5.
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