A worthy follow-up to one of the best strategy games ever made.

User Rating: 9.3 | Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion PC
Before I begin, I'd like say that I'm a little disappointed with Gamespot's review. First, it comes 2 weeks late. Then the reviewer rates it an 8.2 and doesn't really clearly explain why.

But whatever. Onto my review. Barbarian Invasion continues the tradtion of outstanding Total War expansions. There's so much new content packed into this one CD that it almost feels like a new game. You get 20 new factions, several new gameplay features, improved graphics (especially shadows; you'll notice a distinct improvement while playing in a forest or city), a vastly improved AI, and new campaign with the potential to last you months.

In case you haven't heard, Barbarian Invasion is hard. Very hard. Especially as the Western Roman Empire; it's by far the hardest campaign I've ever played, and I've played some pretty hard mods. I didn't understand how hard until I played it; as the Western Roman Empire bankruptcy and rebellions across half the Empire is a very real possibility, and very few cities start out with public order above 75% (Hell, not even Rome does.) It will take all of your managerial skills to pull the Roman empire out of its death spiral and muster a force strong enough to simply quell rebellions (which WILL flare up, no matter how hard you try) and defeat a small barbarian faction that threatens you at the start of the game. But this isn't nescessarily a bad thing; indeed, I've never played a more fun campaign.

The AI has also changed for the better. The list of improvements is far too long for me to say here, but let me just say, the difference is fairly substantial, and the game only improves because of it. Overall, the patch that is shipped out with the expansion is very good; certainly well above average.

The quality of the graphics, while marginally improved have not changed much; but that's not something you'd expect from an expansion anyway. The sound however, has barely changed at all whatsoever, and while the original game's soundtrack was both excellent and immersive it will leave people who bought the game a while ago wanting something more.

And, if you're into this kind of thing, there are tons of cool mods being released for the expansion, including an Asian fantasy mod (reserve your judgement until you see the absolutely orgasmic screenshots; the mod's name is Blue Lotus), a Medieval mod that should be released in a month or two, and a Lord of the Rings mod. So even if you get sick of playing Legionaire there is still plenty of content out there to keep you busy.

Overall, Barbarian Invasion is an excellent game and an great use of $30 bucks, and also a great reason to pick up the original game if you haven't yet.