Total War reincarnated without a soul.
User Rating: 6.5 | Empire: Total War PC
Napoleon is out and has gotten good reviews, so maybe you are tempted to pick up Empire on the cheap. Well, outside of a good campaign map, it has very little going for it. The naval battles were difficult for me to control and I soon just put them on auto. They were also so slooooow. Regular battles too...your army starts off 50 miles from the enemy and you have to put it in super fast motion for 5 minutes just to fire the first shot. Herein lies the greatest flaw of all: the combat is boring. In a Total War game, this is unacceptable. Gone is the thrill of watching legions crushed under elephants or collapsing from a charge. Instead you see guys loading muskets forever and then one or two guys falling down. BORING! So disappointing.
I did like the North American addition to the European map. This added some interest. I found the Indian map superfluous. What was the point of it really? You already Had the entire North American continent to colonize/conquer (along with islands and parts of South America). There are some other good additions too, but ultimately they too become boring. Worth playing once perhaps, but why bother when an improved version has already been released? Pass this one by.
