Recent reviews by Falsey

Creative Assembly looked over at their biggest competitor, Paradox, and tried their hand at designing a character-driven grand campaign in the style of Crusader Kings. The result is possibly their magnum opus: a campaign dripping in personal drama and atmosphere.

Any complaints I have are little post-1000 hours nitpicks. It's hard to return to other TW entries now, after enjoying the dynamic AI of this games factions. Honestly, seeing an honourable but cowardly liege die and be replaced by his cunning and aggressive son, and seeing how that AI faction changes behaviour accordingly, imbues the game with a sense of realism that is hard to find elsewhere in the genre.

It's a shame they've cut support, but hopefully the continuation of this IP will validate that decision in hindsight.

Increadibly weary of my once favourite franchise after Rome 2, some of Atilla's few but noticable issues, the business practises of CA (or the forced money-making schemes forced on them by Sega, more accurately) and the general lack of any real significant progress in game-design since Shogun 2, I deliberately delayed buying this game.

Approaching it with a relatively open mind, yet with the experience of playing every Total War since the first Rome, I can safely recommend this game to both Total War fans, no matter how disgruntled, and Warhammer Fantasy fans alike.

There are, in the base game, four playable faction, each a particular race. This may sound far too few, but each race is so unique in both aesthetic, management and style that I can completely understand the modest launch booster. In fact, I realised playing this game just how stale the previous TW entries have been, even ones I was very fond off. The differences between playing as Hojo and Takeda, or the Wester Roman Empire and the Picts, seem almost nonexistent compared, for example, playing the Vampire Counts and Dwarfs. The VCs field meatshield expendable zombies in the early game that can be allowed to decimate, only to raise more after each battle with their unique faction ability (the size and scope of the battle affects how many units and the types) and slowly spreading "Vampiric Corruption" into neighbouring Provinces before a midgame explosion where, with an economy and unit recruitment system that sees a weak early game but powerful midgame, you take one human province after enough, the ground and sky growing dark and corrupted across more and more of the surrounding map, and you FEEL like some cancerous force of undeath spreading uncontrollably. No more cheap zombie and skeletons units; now you have monstrous winged undead beasts able to challenge 200 men singlehandidly and your Black Knights slaughtering their back lines en masse.

Then, the Dwarfs, who force you to turtle in their mountain regions and build your defenses against the constant hordes of Greenskins and their WAAAAGHs (basically free full army stacks), maybe taking one or few provinces until finally your economy has hit a strong enough point to give you access to devastating cannons, flamethrower and bomb dropping 'Gyrocopters' to reclaim the Southenlands from the Orks and Goblins who've you've been fending off since the start.

But then Chaos, the 'final boss' factions appears, and you discover that the North barely exists anymore; a half barren wasteland, destroyed settlement hosting Chaos Towers that spread the taint further towards your own lands. As previous enemies begin to parly due to a new affinity which is essentially a "we don't want to see the world destroyed" common interest, you march your troops into lands you never even imagined treading on in a heroic effort to stop Chaos before the Horde's of Archeon have swelled too large.

Every new feature, for the most part, is a change for the better. A better game, a different game. Worried about how Factions can only take settlements belonging to their own or 'cousin' faction (dwarf/orks, human/VC)? Well, now you have the added game feature of a far more tactiful campaign of actually having to truly plan your expansion on a level that Atilla and Shogun 2 often ended as simply "there's no REAL reason why i shouldn't just take this province x100". Confederations, which is the only feature I'm still not certain how I feel about, does at least also add more addition fun gameplay:

"Ok, I can't really declare war on Zhufbar to my North, as their currently the only force preventing a full Undead outbreak due to their threat they pose to the Vampire capital. But perhaps, if I send an army to help harrase the forces of the Vampire Counts and also unite with them against the Beastmen Tribe, while also expanding my power until I finally eclipse their's, my relationship with them may get to the point where they're willing to fulling join with my empire."

In-regars to the Chaos Warriors DLC; hmm. It IS a reasonable price, all things considered, but it is dubious that you have to pay additional money to play as a faction that already exists in the game, let alone ACTS as the final boss. However, their unique style of play, although essentially the system used for the Huns in Atilla (which existed in the base game), is worth £5.

Not sure where I stand on the issue of that particular DLC, or its quality. But I can say safely that the modular launches apparently planned that will (apparently, again) add a new map (that can be connected and played with the base map) hosting currently missing factions will be something I am happy about the prospect of buying.

I'm also suprised by how unfazed I was playing the vanilla game, compared to Rome 2. While there are plenty of mods that really do enhance the game to an amazing extent (the modding community of this game deserves HUGE credit), there's nothing added that I feel is an essential that the base game previously lacked. The only manner in which the mods, to me, reveal shortcomings in the basegame are firstly inregards to balancing (Radious etc) which help give the game a far more strategic edge (and an AI that isn't too stupid or overpowered) and ones that give the Chaos faction more playability.

Overrall, I am very happy with this game, and even more happy about the potential future of TW it teases. Colorful, immersive and increadibly enjoyable, be your interest be in the turn based campaign or the real time battles, I feel like this game is a true return to form, taking all the successful ideas in Atilla and Rome 2 (mostly the former, tho) while remedying the weak points of both.

The vanilla game, for me, is a solid 8/10. Remember; that's without adding to the score the utterly fantastic modding community, driven now not only by fanatical fans of TW but also lovers of the Warhammer tabletop game.

Would I buy full price? Yes.
Would I press a friend to buy it on 25% off sale? Yes.
Would I buy the DLC full price? Yes.
Would I press a friend to buy the DLC on 25% off sale? No, depending on their preferences inregards to the gameplay addition each module offers.

I feel like my playtime is a good summary of this game. You can spend 100s of hour in it and still leave feeling like it was an, ultimately, hollow and soulless experience.

Now, the elephant in the room is the existence of its modding community. Yes, after some many hours of researching mods, testing out load orders etc, you can mod this game into actually being somewhat fun.

But, then again; "It doesn't matter if the vanilla game is ♥♥♥♥ when you can redeem it by spending more time modding than playing it to fix all the issues!" - said no one, ever.

The world of skyrim is, at first glance, beautiful. Compliments have to end there, however. The fictional world of the game is dull, even compared to Oblivion's more conventional "high medieval fantasy" setting. There's a war going on that the game doesn't manage to convince me any of the characters really care about; its a dull, background event that, even if you pursue its questline, only changes who sits on thrones in certain location (initially dull characters are replaced by bodies with the personality of a spoon).

The quest lines are dull and ummemoriable. Even the Dark Brotherhood - which in Oblivion had a quest line that, in its twists and turns, made it seem oddly over-done amongst a list of main quests that involved the Fighter's Guild "mercenary competitors are getting ♥♥♥♥ faced on drugs and think people are goblins" plot - is forgettable, despite the repeat of a third-act twist.

The game lacks in quests (or interesting ones, I should say) in comparison to Oblivion, with the devs believing that their "RADIENT QUESTS" feature more than makes up for. It doesn't. Well, unless you enjoy randomely generated quests that involve the exact same template of "Go to [location] and find [item, likely a family heirloom] but, oh, you may have to fight [enemy type] there!".

The gameplay is also lacking. I know Bethesda has always had a horrible past with making sword/gun play actually feel like PLAY, but it seems even more boring here, hardly an improvement over Oblivion's. But, unlike Oblivion's, there's not a rich, intersting world full of character to get lost in to make up for that.

There are also literally no instances of true roleplaying in the game. In the best situation, you can respond to someone with a "Polite" or "Evil ♥♥♥♥" response. In the Civil War questline, you get to pick a side. After that, it really ends there. You can kill people if you want, or resolve quests where you help people. But don't expect a game that actually make you feel like you're actually playing a 'role'; making a character, giving them personality etc etc. You can do all that in your head, yet there's literally nothing in the game to actually stimulate any 'role-playing'.

Now, with some mods ('Interesting NPCs', gameplay changes etc) you MIGHT be able to create for yourself a game that is actually fun. Something to get lost in. But on this outting, I found that even dozens of hours modding the game couldn't make this game anything more significant than a timesink.

Have you ever pounded your ♥♥♥♥ so hard, with such power and uncontrollable lust, that you end up injuring it; resulting in a climax of blood, semen and pleasure?

This is very much what playing this game is like.