Interesting and creative mechanics. Near pointless campaign. Underdeveloped but entertaining multiplayer w/ friends.
As a long time fan of the books, I was excited but cautious when this title was announced and later released. Turns out this level of anticipation was wise.
The Core:
The game mechanics are by far the greatest achievement of this game. A unique and surprisingly well thought-out (surprising when held up to the rest of the game) approach to the political machinations, conspiracies and end-game goals brings a certain quality to this game that makes it... well, at all playable.
The game is complex. It take a great deal of learning and practice until you can even begin to stay on top of everything. This immense level of micro-management relies on skill, luck and a keen-eye, and while this does make for a challenging game, it suffers from the lack of management options and UI elements.
Persevering through the flaws, the mechanics allow for a variety of different play-styles to be successfully plied against your enemies. An emphasis on stealth, trickery and diplomacy over all out war is refreshing and a pleasure so far as the concept goes. The execution falls just short of doing the idea justice in the overall game as in the majority of games played war becomes the ultimate decider. This is most likely due to the simple AI enemies that seem to have little interest in delaying the declaration of war. Until this point however, or against intelligent players, the mechanics make for a truly interesting and enjoyable experience (if less than what they could be).
Singleplayer:
The campaign is awful. I can think of a single redeeming feature in that it is for the most part faithful to the history of the books. That isn't hard, however, as it offers only a fraction of playable story. The choice to cover key events throughout history had potential. These events will be familiar to fans of the series, and I would genuinely be thrilled to be able to play out these epic scenes. Instead I was able to spend 30 minutes playing the standard game encased in two halves of the story told through error-riddled text and lacklustre voice acting. Any variation to this was mostly long, tedious and unfulfilling.
The rest of the single player mode is short lived. The limited set of pre-made maps may present recognisable locations, resulting in another level of faith to the series, but do not make for a great game experience. After completely these maps a few times (which is necessary to learn the complex game), there is little variety to be found. A simple feature such as being able to change the houses present or the starting locations in each map would do wonders for the game on its own.
The end of a game is often very anti-climactic. The prestige points make a great deal of sense for the type of game that it is trying to be, but when coming to the end of the game, especially via war (which is almost guaranteed by the end), it can feel very unsatisfying. Having said that, this is experience is quite different when racing towards the final point in a close multiplayer game. The patched feature of adjustable prestige point targets also addresses some issues with game length and feel in both single and multiplayer.
Multiplayer:
The multiplayer is limited to the same set of maps and has no more customisation is available. You will be hard-pressed to find fellow Genesis players available to play with.
Having said that, if you bring a friend or two along to play with you, you can reach the pinnacle of entertainment available in this game. Playing with my friends has actually sated my frustrations and near-outrage at having paid money for this game.
Playing with real humans results in a more faithfully conniving political game, rife with treachery and subterfuge and a tremendously satisfying potential for infuriating/devastating your closest friends. Unlike the AI, humans are infinitely more capable of delaying war, resulting in the extension of the more enjoyable section of the game.
A variety of viable play-styles make for much greater longevity and more enjoyable games. When in the hands of real opponents secret alliances, betrayals and the many underhanded abilities available will challenge even the most adept player, and will result in many outbursts of "WTF!?" and fits of maniacal laughter on opposing ends of the game. This, for me, was made even more enjoyable when playing with friends over Skype - adding even more depth to underhanded tactics and additional joy upon hearing reactions to discovered secret alliances and the like.
The Rest:
Story: All but missing in the actual gameplay. Very disappointing considering the source content. The developer's concern for staying faithful ultimately went too far and resulted in a very sparse scattering of references. I would gladly tolerate a few mild and inconsequential inaccuracies in favour of much more involving gameplay.
Graphics: Less than stellar, but appropriate in style and artistically pleasing. Animation is severely lacking, especially in combat where the units tend to just viciously stand at each other.
Sound: Poor. The voice acting and writing is poor. The game sounds are mostly fine in quality, but limited in quantity and can often be repetitive.
Controls: Simple. Too simple for such a complex game. An all-inclusive array of hotkeys should be a must for a game such as this.
Interface: Limited and unexplained. I have accidentally stumbled across several features, and some I couldn't tell you how to find again.
Performance: Even skimming over the Genesis forums reveals a vast array of issues, but I can honestly say that I have had little more issues than a rare crash or two and some laggy games or connection issues in multiplayer.
Support: A couple of patches resolving bugs and a single feature patch show that they haven't just left the game dead in the water, but my hope for future major improvements is likely against the odds.
Ultimately, a game that fell far short of what it could (and should) have been. It feels incomplete in many aspects, and most likely would have been a much, much higher quality game with just a little more work across the board. Despite the very mediocre wrapping, the core mechanics almost make for a decent game.
Without my personal experiences in the multiplayer games (which would be very hard to achieve within the current community), I am certain I would consider this a much worse game, because it really would be. The fact that it was able to facilitate these experiences, however, means I feel that such potential and ambition was not wholly unrealised.
I wanted to give this game a 6, but the guideline for 5.0-5.5 stating "enough major weaknesses to considerably outweigh their strengths" edged my decision down into this range. I would perhaps argue against the weaknesses _considerably_ outweighing the strengths, but I also feel that my experiences with this game have been significantly better than most would find.