Recent reviews by Crymson

After revisiting this game years later, and with one of those characteristic mods that make Total War games worthwhile, I've decided to revise this review.

All of my previous condemnations of this game and its developer still stand. Creative Assembly falsely advertised the features of this game, made demonstrably untrue claims about its state of readiness, and, as ever, cut corners wherever possible and went the extra mile nowhere. The game was horrifically incomplete upon release, indeed nearly unplayable in certain respects. Creative Assembly really ought to have learned from its likewise disastrous release of Empire: Total War only four years earlier, but this is a company that has throughout the years never learned nor improved upon past performances. In any event, I digress. It took years for the game to be properly fixed---DLC was, of course, released through all that time---and the end result was a title which is not particularly special in its own right.

The saving grace is, as ever, the modding community---in this case, a mod called Divide et Impera. The Total War series has had a fantastic community of modders going back more than 15 years to the original Rome: Total War. The developers of these mods have spent countless hours of their time improving the experience of Total War games from pedestrian (or worse) to special. It has been these mods that have kept me logging hours in Total War. In the original Rome: Total War, it was Rome: Total Realism and Roma Surrectum. In Medieval 2: Total War, it was Stainless Steel and Third Age. In Rome 2, it is Divide et Impera.

Divide et Impera is managed and developed by a dedicated and able group of fans who, more than seven years after the release of the game, continue to maintain and improve the mod. It makes Rome 2 not only worthwhile but legitimately enjoyable. If you buy Rome 2, buy it for this mod.

Turn-based strategy game with planes across a tiled map. Not particularly fun.

Mark of the Ninja is one of the better stealth games to come onto the market in recent memories, and it comes at a competitive price. It well justifies the excellent reviews it received upon release.

Recommended.

The King's Bounty series is, in every way, a clone of the Heroes of Might and Magic line. Expect the same sort of gameplay, though the King's Bounty series is somewhat mechanistically inferior. Frankly, you'd be better off just sticking with the Heroes Series.

Fun but dated and highly inferior to its sequel, Vice City isn't worth your money. With San Andreas on the market, Vice City is effectively obsolete; the former is light years ahead in terms of gameplay and content.

Unless you've not played San Andreas and are intent on playing the series in chronological order, you shouldn't bother with this game.

This game has become something of a cult classic. I personally find it nothing more than a silly, over-the-top, and mechanistically inferior version of the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games. And with the release of the two further games in the series, there's literally no reason to play this game anymore. Even worse is the fact that it suffers from serious issues on newer versions of Windows (7 onward), and was a very poor console port to begin with.

Not worth your time or your money.

Borderlands 2 couples an immersive, humorous, well-rendered environment with fun, innovative co-op gameplay spread across four (or six, if you've got the requisite DLC) distinct character classes. If you enjoy loot-hunting RPGs, you'll have a grand time with this title. If, like me, you're not a notable fan of that genre, Borderlands is still a good deal of addictive fun, and it's certainly worth picking up on sale.

Europa Universalis IV is the newest addition to Paradox Interactive's flagship series. It improves substantially upon its predecessor, making beneficial changes without excessively changing the general formula. Fans of the series, and of grand strategy titles in general, will find it an enjoyable experience, if an immensely time-consuming one.

Perhaps the best RTS I have ever played, Airland Battle combines realistic gameplay, a host of units, and an experience of great tactical depth. Too, the game is endered beautifully and in tremendous detail. More, the developer regularly releases balancing patches based on community feedback, and continues to release free(!!!) DLC.

Highly recommended!


Note: despite the deep intricacy of this game, it does not require a notably powerful computer. I play it on a five-year-old gaming computer, and though I cannot reasonably run the game on its highest graphical settings, the visuals come out gorgeous nonetheless.

Wings of Prey is a graphical upgrade over Il-2 Sturmovik (albeit neither a sequel to that game nor not made by the same developer), but lacks the breadth of content, realism, and general appeal of that definitive flight simulator. It is, in sum, a very average title. This is a true shame, as bonafide---as opposed to the smattering of $10 titles out there---World War II flight simulators are rare. It's sad to see a major title fall by the wayside like this.

Buy it on sale if you're a flight sim junkie, but don't expect to be wowed by it.

(Note: I have not actually played 100+ hours of this. For some odd reason, Steam several times considered the game to still be open for a long while after I had exited it.)