Rezzed 2013: Rome 2 Total War Hands On

With Creative Assembly retreading old ground in the guise of Total War: Shogun 2 in 2011, strategy gamers were chomping at the bit months later, wondering what old heroes would be awoken from their slumber next. To the delight of many, including myself, we were bequeathed with the wondrous news that Rome 2 shall be forming a phalanx with us in September this year.

I shan’t tell fibs, I didn’t like Shogun 2 very much. It was partly due to the poor performance on release, but mostly because the AI pathing when trying to storm a fortress, was so infuriatingly bad, it made me want to kick puppies. There were plenty of other exasperating flaws, some trivial, some not. Point being, I didn’t enjoy it.

It would be entirely safe to say, that Creative Assembly had some completely humourless work to do. I went to Rezzed expecting a game with a few minor additions, some aggiornamenti insignificanti. The only question was, could CA prove my assumptions to be more of a mistake than me trying to use Google Translate?

The answer, is a resounding yes.

Before I delve in to exactly why, you should watch this video from Rezzed, courtesy of Eurogamer.

Unfortunately the hands on was pretty much what you saw. That may sound derogatory, but that’s simply because I wanted to be able to sample some more of the game. What I’ll do first though, is get my one gripe out of the way. The performance.

I didn’t manage to catch what hardware they were running on, but whatever it was, it was struggling. You can see it easily in the video, campaign map and battle map. However, seeing as it may very well be an old build, I will just let it pass. Despite CA’s slightly shaky past with performance in some of the incarnations of the series, I will just remain hopeful that it will be better optimised upon release.

For one thing, the system specs that were just released and delivered to us by the nice people at CVG, seem fairly modest.

Now the nitpicking is out the way, some things I liked…

Most head turningly of all (it’s a real phrase, stop laughing), was the subtle visual and audio variations on the campaign map. Shifting to different areas not only shows discrepancy in the terrain, but also in regards to the ambience. If you skip to around 19:00 in the video above, you will see what I mean.

Even more enjoyable was the affect your cities have on the surroundings, the Roman urban areas visually expand as the city grows. Resources around the immediate area are consumed, shanty towns emerge to grope at the municipal walls. These are small things, but as I am becoming fond of saying, it’s these little touches that make a big difference.

As boring as that sounds, I firmly believe it to be true, it’s always the small things I remember first about great games.

The presentation was full of these surprising little niceties. Animals that appear on landscape translate as units you may be able to purchase in the area. This actual impact you have on the map is a great step up in immersion for the series, and a welcome one. I haven’t felt fully invested in a Total War title since Medieval 2, and things like this go a long way to counteracting that.

The refinements on the political parts of the campaign map are looking great too. Again, adding more depth with “political capital”, allowing you to spend points earned through your administrative exploits.

The army recruitment has seen some changes as well, now being able to recruit from directly within your army, meaning, they won’t have to walk all the way across the map to join up with the bulk of your forces. There is also the tradition system, a new way for your units to level up. This allows you to mould your army, through the use of buffs, that will in turn fashion your units to fight the way you want them to, making them more defensive, or having them excel offensively at breaking city defences. From what I understood, there is quite a bit of depth in the system.

These added layers on the campaign map, are matched by what I played on the battle map. The most obvious one being the inclusion of land and sea battles simultaneously. As you can see from the video, it can make managing your battlefield a lot more hectic, with the possibility of troops disembarking from boats, you have to keep a very keen eye on your flanks. Not to mention the sea battles themselves will nee managing.

Something that I have always found off putting with the Total War series, has been the enemy AI. I have never found it to have much of a killer instinct, that’s possibly a bit of a sweeping statement, but in battles, I have always felt my opposition was just holding me at bay, rather than going for the throat. This is only my opinion of course, but it has vexed me enough to mention it.

So how did it play? Well, much like you would expect it to. Any of you Total War vets will instantly feel at home. The UI is unobtrusive and easy to use, units respond quickly and accurately to your commands. They way to order your troops in to formation remains unchanged (or at least from what I could see). As I’ve said before, I hadn’t really felt invested in any of the series for some time now, however, playing Rome 2 washed that feeling away immediately.

There is admittedly still a lot to be seen. How the sieges play out is something of utmost importance to me, I can’t play another game in the series with the AI being so incompetent, that entering or attacking any city becomes a chore. And as stated, the performance needs to be much better optimised than with Shogun 2 on release.

We have only a short time to wait, until we find out whether CA have truly brought the series back to where I firmly believe it needs to be. Back to being what the franchise name suggests it is. A polished and immersive, strategic battle simulation, a fully overhauled and innovative experience. A Total War.