johng Blog

Very rarely do I go back to games after playing them to death, but after finishing KOTOR2 there are no new games out that are of interest to me. So last Sunday night I had BBC 2 on in the background whilst doing some cooking and Time Commanders came on. If you don’t know its a history/game show where contestants command armies in reenactments of historical battles. Its all lovingly recreated in the Rome: Total War game engine which was released late last year and was one of the top games of 2004. As soon as Richard “Top Gear” Hammond got them started on the first battle I was back in Total War mode again trying to out think the enemy and, more importantly, make better judgments than the feeble contestants were capable of. They came up with some interesting strategies for this battle (the battle of Hastings this episode) and I was keen to try them, so as soon as the show was over I reinstalled RTW and got going on a new campaign.

Now I am tearing through Europe on hard mode remembering what makes this game so great. Overcoming the odds when the enemy has superior numbers is so satisfying because you know the battle was won with pure strategy. Rome’s campaigns are different with every play and I am enjoying this second conquer fest more than my first. Now I am looking forward to what the mod teams put out, there are some big teams working on overhauling all the units to make them more realistic and enlarging the campaign map even more - another reason to pick the game up of you haven’t already. Creative Assembly have a great deal with the BBC, they provide a kick ass game, the BBC fully utilise it to educate and entertain their viewers and RTW gets more exposure - long may it continue.