Aauurgh! Help, someone!!! I can’t stop playing this game, it’s taking over my life!!! ….

Overview

Er… right. Now that I’ve managed to drag myself away from the game for a minute, I’ll actually write the review…

Based in medieval Japan, Shogun: Total War – Warlords Edition is a strategy game where you play the leader of a clan, trying to become the Shogun, or absolute ruler of Japan. Under your control are not only your armies, but also the economy, technological development, and the happiness of the people living in your lands. Also, each individual battle can be controlled personally by yourself.

First Impressions

Wow. Everything about this game oozes class. From the slick interface to rendered movie clips, this game just impresses in each detail. The game is quite hard to master at first, even on easy level, but that’s because of challenge rather than frustration. At first I kept thinking my army units were ignoring me until I understood a bit more about how the game worked, but then it made sense.

Interface

The interface is quite in-depth since there are many levels of complexity to this game, but the tutorial explains them well and is even (shock horror probe) quite fun to go through. (I normally find tutorials to be extremely tedious!) You control the building, research, and production in each province under your control, as well as army units, spies, emissaries, and ninjas. (You can assign your ninja’s assassination missions, and a little video clip comes up showing the mission and its outcome.) As your various generals, army units, etc gain more victories, they are assigned Honour Points, which increases their future effectiveness. There are keyboard short-cuts for everything, and despite the amazing depth of the game, most controls become intuitive very quickly.

Difficulty

Oh it’s hard, but for all the right reasons. You seem to learn from each battle, each mistake. Even when opposing rulers are completely defeated, after a while there might be an ancestor appear who attempts to reform the clan as a major power. This can be really annoying, but certainly keeps things interesting! There are several difficulty levels, and at the beginning of the main game you choose a clan, each of which starts in a different position, has different strengths and weaknesses, and can produce different army units at the beginning. There are also several historical campaigns and battles, again with varying difficulty levels (in addition to the overall difficulty level).

Oh and by the way, just when you unite Japan under your rule, you have to fend of the invasion of Kublai Khan and his pesky Mongols…

Aesthetics

The sound FX are impressive, and the music is pretty good, though often sounds more Indian than Japanese to me! The graphics are very impressive, from the trails of dust that can be seen after your army has moved, to the detailed terrains (you can just occasionally see the “join points” of the terrain but it’s really not a problem), to the tiny animated soldiers, each distinct and surprisingly detailed considering that a thousand can be on screen at the same time! (And all this with no noticeable slow-down – not on my GeForce4, anyway). The scenes of carnage following a battle are amazing, like a miniaturised version of the opening battle scene in Gladiator. (Okay I know that was Roman armies, but the principle is the same…)

Will You Still Be Playing it in 6 Months’ Time?

Most definitely. With the difficulty levels, different clans you can be, historical battles and campaigns, the only real danger is that you forget to live your normal life in the meantime…

Is it Worth the Money?

Without any doubt. This is the most impressive strategy game I’ve ever seen on any system. Even better than the excellent Civilisation 3: Call To Power, IMHO.

Oh, and one other thing – this review doesn’t even touch on the multiplayer options, as I haven’t looked at them yet!

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Final Ratings

Graphics: - 95% - the detail in these little critters is amazing considering how many of them are on screen at the same time!

Sound: - 88% - in the main, excellent, though the music has a distinctly “un-Japanese” feel at times… not that I know much about Japanese music…

Playability: - 94% - considering how complex the gameplay is, the intuitive nature of the gameplay is a real marvel.

Longevity: - 99% - if you complete everything the game has to throw at you in under 5 years of solid playing, I’ll eat my hat. Or if not, I’ll eat your hat.

Replay Value: - 90% - sometimes the battles etc can get a bit repetitive, but due to the number of different units etc available, that’s not very often.

Value For Money: - 100% - this game will last you forever. And I got it for less than a fiver…

Overall Rating: - 95% - could a strategy game be any more perfect than this? I think not.

System Requirements (Minimum):

Pentium II 266 4X D-Rom Drive 64Mb RAM 4Mb DirectX 8.0a compatible 3D card DirectX 8.0a compatible sound card For multiplayer – 56Kbps modem / TCP/IP LAN

Can’t remember for the minimum install, but for the full install you need 1.6Gb (yup – 2 CD’s packed to capacity) free HD space.

This review originally posted on Epinions by CaptainD of Darscom