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152 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
When Portugal Attacks, November 18, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
When I first got this installed and running on my middle-of-the-road system I was expecting it to be a chugging, slow mess. I was happily surprised to find that except for battles against larger cities or against thousands of foes, it runs just fine. I have yet to have a crash, something which in this day and age of "shove it out the door broken and patch it later" game releases is to be commended.
The graphics are beautiful but are not the amazing leap forward like occurred from Medieval 1 to Rome. Think of it more as putting an extra coat of shiny polish on your car. The effects of firing flaming arrows and the pageantry of heraldric colors on the knights and other troops are beautiful to watch. The little movies showing events like weddings and your assassins' antics are often genuinely hilarious (until you've seen them all 100 times). But all that is also just eye candy, there's very little NEW here that wasn't in Rome. Also, the medieval setting has now been done to death in this game's predecessor and other games in the last few years and I'm praying that the next title WON'T be a remake of the original Shogun but will move the series squarely into the gunpowder age, culminating with Napoleon. Enough with the primitive and medieval weapons and tactics.
The AI has been improved marginally, but I am still attacked for ridiculously random reasons no matter the difficulty level I play on. As England I had developed into one of the largest powers on the map and Portugal inexplicably attacked me without provocation despite our neutral relations (not "poor" or "abysmal", mind you) and trade rights. Needless to say they were immediately squashed, but why would they even bother? This is not intelligent AI, it's just annoying AI. Alliances seem to be equally meaningless when they are made with the human and are difficult to achieve unless the AI brings it to you. I have yet to ever form one when I initiate the offer even when it would be a massive advantage to the comp.
Battle AI is more clever at using its archers as harassment and has no hesitation in squashing yours if you leave them unguarded. When outnumbered it does tend to sit there passively as one other reviewer wrote. I have nearly obliterated an entire force with archers while they just sat there in the corner before the general turned tail and withdrew.
Overall, it's a small step forward and the Rome engine is certainly beautiful to watch in action. The Total War series still is unparalleled in strategic enjoyment on both levels but the next offering in the series needs to be groundbreaking in both time period and AI complexity.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rome: TW with a Medieval twist, November 18, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Medieval 2 is a good game, but considering the last big technological break through already happend with Rome: TW and the fact that its been years since it came out means to me that the makers of Medieval 2 should have been striving a little harder to make the game more than what it is. There are some great new features, just as IGN's review explains, but I think IGN gave the game a little too much credit. I've been waiting for this game to come out for some time now and I am happy I purchased it, but for those of you who already have Rome: TW, expect pretty much the same thing with better graphics and slightly different interface. However, the strategy map is absolutely identical, no time put into that. Taking turns between the different factions will be just as tedious and mind-numbing as it was in all the other Total war games, something they really need to address before the next release.
Game itself comes with some nice features, like an audio CD including all the music from the game and several DVD's from the History Channel's "Crusades" series on TV. Enough to get you pumped to play? Yes. But not an excuse for some of the hangovers from Rome: TW to still exist. Over all good buy, just getting into my second day of play, ain't bored yet but not exactly stunned either.
8.5 - Presentation
Good classic Total War presentation, what else is there to say? Oh a few bugs do exist but nothing a quick patch won't fix.
9.0 - Graphics
Deffinately an improvment over the last Total War game, however I did experience a performance issue while running high anti-aliasing and Ansotropic settings with a NVidia 7800 BFG (256mb) card.
8.5 - Sound
Classic Total War game sound and music, however not my favorite soundtrack out of the series.
7.5 - Gameplay
Gameplay falls short of what it should be. While Med 2 builds on some key principles, I just didn't have that "wow" factor there was when Rome first came out. More of a Rome: TW with a Medieval mod.
8.0 - Lasting Appeal
Second day of play and still interested. Although I can see myself on to something else within the next few weeks. Questionable if its worth $50 for those of you who already have Rome.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Medieval 1 vs. Medieval 2, November 22, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
I'm going to rate the game by comparing Medieval 1 to Medieval 2. In Medieval 2, the number of starting factions you can play as has been drastically reduced. Apparently you can unlock other starting faction when you first win the game. The starting options have been changed, for instance the starting time period is fixed. The strategic map is beefed up in Medieval 2 with a 3D look and feel. The option to not watch AI movement speeds up the time waiting between rounds. There are options for AI assistance in managing cities and castles as well as assisting with units in battle.
The strategic game in Medieval 2 is quite a bit more complex, but in many ways less tedious than Medieval 1. For one thing, you will find that your units fit withing castles and cities regardless of how developed they are. You will rarely have military units scattered all over the place, they will normally be clustered in cities or castles. Cities and castles have been seperated. Generally, cities are for money production and castles are for military production, but there is overlap with both. Aside from the princesses, diplomats, and priests, there are also merchant units that can move to resources scattered on the map and produce income from them. The diplomatic options are greatly expanded and can be an additional source of income by trading things like information or trade rights with other factions for money. Spies play a valuable role and the Pope can cause all sorts of headaches in Medieval 2 that were not part of Medieval 1.
The tactical game has also changed dramatically. First of all you will fight far fewer battles. Second, you will fight even less in the open, most of your bigger fights will be sieges. In Medieval 1 you could usually avoid siege fights because your force of 2000 men would overwhelm a castle that was only able to hold a few hundred enemies. You could simply automatically resolve most sieges with very little fear. In Medieval 2, this has changed. You will need a spy to tell you what is inside a city, and a spy may also open the gates for you when the battle comes if you get lucky. If you don't know what is inside a city and you go to attack it, you may find that you have seriously underestimated and be forced to wait for reinforcments or even withdraw. Conducting sieges is a major part of the game that was possible with Medieval 1 but practically unnecessary.
Other things that have been incorporated into Medieval 2 are missions or tasks from the Pope or a "counsel" of nobles. Ultimately you can ignore the missions but there can be consequences and lost rewards. The rewards can be very valuable. Sometimes the missions are too demanding because they will require doing something that is tough to accomplish at the time you receive it. The addition of the missions is welcome and will sometimes end up taking you in a direction where you might not have been sure what to do next.
At this point the game is not without flaws. Sometimes your units will not respond properly during a battle. For that matter sometimes the AI units don't respond properly either, or so it would appear. I've seen units go back and forth or run at an angles towards an enemy formation and right past them, when they were ordered to attack. Cavalry units are particularly adept and speeding right past an enemy formation that is on the run, completely missing it. Enemy units will sometimes take a horrible pounding from missiles without moving, running, or charging. In one battle I had 3 or 4 archer units expend all arrows from hilltop safety on enemy missile and infantry forces. They just sat there and got reduced by half their strength over 5 minutes. There have also been a few crashes to the desktop here and there, usually right after a battle starts. Hopefully a patch will fix these relatively minor issues.
The computer requirements have been stated by many as being too demanding. However, if you turn down the settings, the game will play pretty smoothly on 2 year old hardware at 1280x1024 resolution. I've got a large amount of RAM (2.5GB) which may help. But my video card is only an ATi X800 AGP and I have an old AMD XP 3200 processor. The game runs fine with the settings turned down.
Overall, I give the game 4 of 5 stars. It is a worthy successor and contains far more depth than Medieval 1. It's not flawless, but definately worth playing.
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