Rome: Total War (Gamer's Choice) previews

If you like conquer the world type games then this is ideal. Set in the times of caesar you form armies and conquer the known world. Its very addictive and hours may pass without you even realising. Recommeded 100%

Rome: Total War is singly responsible for my lack of sleep during the first month of playing it. For those who are familiar with the Total War series, this is the third in the series after Shogun and Medieval Total Wars. It's the first to venture into the 3D world of computer gaming and boy does it look good. There's still the two facets of the game: the turn based board game styled strategic map and the action battle map. There are just so many options available to achieve one objective: for example you want to take a settlement, how to go about it? Well, you could use the frontal approach and place the settlement under seige with one of your armies, or you could assassinate key figures in the settlement making it easier to fight their army, or you could send in a politician and bribe them to surrender… options are endless. The setting is just about all of Europe, Middle-East and N. Africa so there's plenty of variation is fighting conditions and thus fighting styles. The Romans might be good at defending a fort, but the heavy armour is not so flash in the hot deserts of N. Africa, chariots are good in the plains but not so good in the forests of Brittania.

The Good: Awesome setting, beautiful 3D with thousands of soldiers, lots of options, just one more turn syndrome

The Bad: no sleep