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10 months ago
Feature: Don't Attila me
These are the Total War team’s favourite ever Total War factions
According to an ancient Sussex proverb, there are as many factions in the 20-year-old Total War series as there are sand grains on a beach, as there are angels dancing upon the head of a pin, as there are grenadiers in the armies of his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Co-Prince of…
1 year ago
Feature: Wherefore art thou, Rome-o?
Back before Rome became the big boss of the Mediterranean civilizations, it was just one of many cities on the Italian peninsula, distinguished primarily by being founded by a murderer with a taste for dog milk. It’s this early phase in Rome’s existence that’s the setting for The Creative Assembly’s new Total War: Rome II DLC, Rise of the Republic. The £12 pack whisks players…
Feature: Guanxi good thing
What Total War: Three Kingdoms is learning from its Warhammer cousins (and Crusader Kings II)
They’re climbing the walls. Hundreds of tiny warriors are using grappling hooks to scale the stone barriers of a Chinese settlement, as I look down on the battlefield from my perch at E3. I bite my lip and pretend to know what I’m doing. Yes, swordsmen, through the breach. Spear dudes, down the middle. Grappling hook men, up you go. Only stinky Romans use anything…
2 years ago
Feature: Danelaw and order
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is a smaller game with some very big ideas
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. That's a useful motto, a pick-me-up for the smaller among us, but the truth is right now, I am a very small dog with very little fight left in it. I'm the boss of Mide, a province in the middle of Ireland. The 9th century is…
Feature: How to build an empire
How Total War: Warhammer’s Mortal Empires engineers a world of unending war
This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they underwent to make the best bits of their games. This time, Total War: Warhammer’s Mortal Empires campaign [official site]. Mortal Empires is the logical conclusion of Total War: Warhammer. It asks this: what happens if all the races, factions, legendary lords and terrain of both Total War: Warhammer and its…
Feature: We chat to the devs
Total War’s free Mortal Empires DLC merges Warhammer 1 and 2
Total War: Warhammer is a big game, and the recently released Total War: Warhammer II [official site] is even bigger. But in the eyes of the Creative Assembly, that still isn't big enough. To remedy this, they've come up with the Mortal Empires DLC, a free download that will essentially merge the two games' campaigns together in one huge map, letting players assume command of…
Feature: A beginner's guide...
Hello. This is Spawn Point, a new not-quite-regular feature in which we take a genre, series or other facet of gaming culture, and try to convince you to give it a shot. It might be those hero shooters you’ve always wanted to get into, or that terrifying space game played by thousands of jerks. We’ll briefly explain the thing, followed by some ways for you…
3 years ago
Time Commanders, the BBC game show where contestants order around someone playing Total War, returns to British screens tonight. Imagine a blind Let's Play of Rome: Total War directed by teams who didn't know what Total War was but did between them share a Desmond in classics, a Duke of Edinburgh's Award, experience leading their university rugger society, and four awful haircuts. After eleven years…
Feature: From tabletop reskins to giant-er giants
With its deep and engaging turn-based strategy, sprawling armies and epic battles, The Creative Assembly’s Total War series is known for stealing days, weeks and months at a time from its players - such is the breadth and depth offered by these types of games. Add user-made mods to this hearty post-release mix and that stretch can easily extend to years. The latest entry, Total…
4 years ago
Feature: Grind for the grind god
There Is Only War: Playing Total Warhammer As The Chaos Warriors
Raze, sack, slaughter, burn, maraud. The life of a Total War: Warhammer [official site] Chaos Warrior is simple, with few diplomatic interruptions and little in the way of urban planning. There are buildings to construct, but they're part of the caravan of carnage that makes up your nomadic horde, and when you lay waste to a settlement, occupation isn't on the cards. The Old World…
Feature: The Death of the Party
Bleached white bone is the new black, undead immortality is the new 30 and death is the life of the party. Playing as Total War: Warhammer's undead faction, the Vampire Counts, injects some fresh mechanics into the long-running strategy series' blood and provides plenty of evidence that this will be far more than a fantasy paintjob applied to well-worn rules and mechanics. There are two…
Feature: We've put them in order from best to worst
At its best, the Total War series casts a spell over you. Your empire rises from nothing, surrounded by enemies who are poised to trample it into the dust. Each decision on the strategic level is a gamble on the immediate future, where "one more turn" isn't just a stepping-stone to a new upgrade, but a perilous step onto thin ice. Each time you take…
Feature: And how the campaign mode will work
When I go to watch the Creative Assembly team show off units from their upcoming Total War: Warhammer [official site] game, what really sticks out to me is the sense of humour. I've been to Total War previews before and the emphasis is very definitely on serious historical epic battles. This time around I watch a goblin with scrappy-looking wooden wings clamber into a catapult,…
5 years ago
Feature: Winter is Coming
The last time I wrote a preview of a Total War game - excluding spin-offs - I was excitable. I wanted nothing more than to go Roamin' with the Romans across enormous, epic campaigns, and the small slice of the game I played filled me with confidence that the short portion I'd enjoyed was a fitting representation of the eventual end product. I was wrong.…
Feature: Total Teamwork
Total War: Arena reminds me of Magicka: Wizard Wars, a game that I'm extremely fond of. Wizard Wars took the chaotic elemental combos of Magicka and directed them into a team-based multiplayer showdown. If it had simply been a team deathmatch iteration of Arrowhead's original concept though, it wouldn't have captured my attention for quite as long as it did. Arena strikes a similar chord…
6 years ago
Feature: Oh! What a lovely Total War
Sit me in front of a solid strategy game for a few hours and I'll ask you to give me a few hours more. I visited Rome recently to play Total War: Rome II. It's not that Total War games live in Rome, but it was an amusingly appropriate location to host what appeared to be 99% of Europe's gaming press. After two hours with…
8 years ago
Rezzed, the first PC and indie games show this 6th and 7th July, is adding more and more reasons to make sure you're there. As if knowing that we'll be there isn't enough, last week we revealed that Borderlands 2 will be playable, along with a sweet demo of XCOM: Enemy Unknown to watch. And now we can tell you that Creative Assembly will be…
10 years ago
Well, if only. Legions of squeaky-voiced footballers showing their crass tattoos to each other and trying to force their (allegedly) botoxed faces into threatening scowls... Someone mod that for me. Please. What is happening is that the Creative Assembly, best known for making splendid strategy games with colons in the title, are trying their hand at making a sports game. Back of the net...
Sadly, there's no room for a "Aren't You A Little Short For A Dictator?" gag in the subject line. C'est la vie, as Napoleon might have said with a Gallic flourish. News breaks from the European Land-Mass Videogameisual Show that - as perhaps expected - Creative Assembly are adding using the tiny tyrant as their next step on from Empire: Total War. CA's interview with…
11 years ago
It's been an astonishingly busy few weeks and I've neglected to mention a few bits and pieces of work that fell outside the RPS net. One such was this mini-history of the Total War games, which ends with a little clue from developer Mike Brunton as to where the Creative Assembly team might go after Empire. Oh, and my review of Empire: Total War will…
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