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Medieval II: Total War - Gold Edition (PC DVD) | 
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| From: Sega
Category: Video Games
List Price: £29.99
Buy New: £14.67
You Save: £15.32 (51%)
New (7) Used (1) from £12.67
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 419
Platform: Windows Xp
Genre: historical-strategy-games
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: Video Game
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 1.1
EAN: 5060138434660
ASIN: B0012BFK0G
Release Date: February 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Ambiguous Review March 25, 2008
C. ASHTON
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I must say right now, before I go on, one minor detail: my computer isn't fast enough to play the actual battles, which is arguably the most important part of the game- my 1.8 GHz Intel computer can only play the campaign map, and that is all I can review at the moment.
Nevertheless, the campaign map is really quite entertaining. The cutscenes, oddly, play flawlessly on my computer, and they truly are amazing. There have been no budget cuts when it comes to voice acting, or synchronising the animations on screen with the sounds that you hear. And the game itself is far more tactical; factions won't enter war with you quite so lightly as they used to (i.e. in Rome Total War) and the options open to you have tripled in size.
To really enjoy the game, I would recommend a computer with at least 2GB RAM and 2.2GHz processor. Even on the lowest graphical settings, my 0.98 RAM computer cannot cope with the battles. If you can fulfil this game's requirements, however, then this is a companion that your computer quite simply should not be without.
Addictive June 14, 2008
Mr. D. P. Witter
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Having owned and thoroughly enjoyed the first 'Medieval Total War' my expectations were quite high for this edition. Some reviews had also made me a little worried about the progression in game play and concept, but this was all dispelled upon my first play. Rather than armies simply being moved from region to region, mountains and lakes have to be negotiated as armies shape their way through the terrain. These paths can also be used as important strategic strongholds, or ambush locations for other unsuspecting passing armies. The first edition lacked terrain on the main campaign map and this is perhaps the biggest change when first playing the game.
The main beauty of Total War II is how detailed both parts of the game are. For those who have not played the game, the game is broadly divided into two sections - firstly a map style campaign, similar to Civilization or the board game Risk and secondly individual battle scenarios. The game can therefore be played as both a strategy game and/or a battle one. Battles can be resolved automatically or commanded personally depending on how long or short you want the game to be.
In terms of playing time, the game does require a large amount of attention if you want to succeed as a ruler. Turns cannot simply be skipped in order to save money or for a building to be finished, as otherwise other `factions' will leave you in their wake. With experience and patience a huge European Empire can be under your grasp, but just when you think you have the game cracked, new and more powerful factions appear from the east, natural disasters strike cities, the plague sweeps through Europe and then America is discovered. Unlike many strategy games that become tedious and repetitive over time, these events help keep the game interesting.
The expansion pack features four mini-versions of the main game. Each is as detailed as the main game, but concentrates on specific areas such as Britain and the Middle East. These are equalling rewarding to play and I found the Crusades Campaign (which I still have yet to complete) perhaps even more compelling and addictive than the main game.
Overall Medieval Total War II is an absolute masterpiece of a game and coupled with the expansion pack it becomes the only game you will want to play for a long time.
Medieval II : Total War April 15, 2008
D. Evans
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Medieval II is the successor to 'Rome' and the original 'Medieval: Total War', combining the best of the two games while adding a lot of great new features to the gameplay.
It puts you in command as a Medieval King, Sultan or Emperor, where you must lead your armies to victory over Europe and Asia, while building and maintaining a sprawling empire. The game is essentially split in two, allowing you to command huge armies in real-time battles in one section, and a turn based empire-builder in another.
The graphics are truly stunning, and the game is easily the best looking RTS on the market. The battle animations are also a wonderful new addition, allowing you to see your soldiers pull off some nifty sword work on the battlefield. The artillery and cannon loading sequences are also pretty good. It's the little details like these that make the game worth buying.
The game itself is packed full of features. You have the ability to play a 'Grand Campaign' which puts you in control of a certain Medieval faction over the course of 450 years of warfare. The 'Kingdoms' expansion allows you to play through several historical scenarios such as the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Crusades, the Teutonic Wars and the 13th century conquests in Britain. Each scenario allows you to play as various new factions, be it Ireland, Lithuania or the Aztecs etc.
You can also try your hand at winning a historical battle such as Hastings, Pavia, Otumba or Acre. This puts you in command as various historical personages such as Richard the Lionheart, William the Conqueror or Hernan Cortes. You can even design your own custom battles!
With so much features, it will take months of gameplay to go through it all. I still haven't seen a quarter of what the game has to offer.
I've been wanting to play Medieval II for around 2 years, but my old PC wasn't up to the game's huge system requirements. Now that I have a new computer, I can safely say that the wait was worth it. Still, it is worth noting that even with a beefy computer you still need to turn down some of the features. For instance, I need to have features such as grass or shadows switched to the lowest settings if I want to play a medium sized battle - and that's with 2 GBs of RAM, a 512 MB Geforce 8400 card, and a powerful Intel processor. The game is also compatible with Windows Vista Home Premium, but it's better suited to Windows XP, especially if you want to edit the game files.
Medieval II: Total War is defiantely worth getting!
Saddam could have used this for tactics February 2, 2008
Mr. G. Paterson (East Kilbride, Scotland)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
great game, great package. Everything they were seperately in one HUGE box. Runs really well on my 8800gts which other total war games don't. p.s. do not buy shogun,vikings etc if you use 8XXX series.. it will not work
Excellent, despite a few minor flaws. June 30, 2008
T. Booth (London)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Anyone familiar with the Total War series will have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Medieval II and its expansion pack. There are two "levels" of gameplay; the strategic map on which cities and castles are built, and the tactical map on which battles are fought. With a couple of minor adjustments, the gameplay here is virtually identical to the previous instalment, Rome, the primary differences being the greater variety of units, buildings, and options available. The graphics are also greatly improved, and the look of the maps and the armies is fantastic. You pay the price for this in hardware requirements, though, and even the best home gaming PCs will struggle to cope with battles slightly larger than the norm.
The interface and gameplay is in some ways little changed since the first outing of the Total War series, and has now been polished to the point there is little to criticise. If anything, the weakness of Medieval II is that it tries to do too much. Some of the features it has added to the strategic map in particular- extra characters like merchants and priests- add little to the fun of the game and are much of the time simply pointless and frustrating distractions from the main gameplay. The strategic gameplay is solid, and challenging, but after a few plays it can become a bit predictable. There is a noteworthy bug in the strategic calendar, where characters age at six months per turn, but the calendar advances at two years per turn. This also leads to some ludicrous situations such as it taking sixteen years to cross the Atlantic... but these are details, and in any case this is all a sideshow. The true strength of the game is on the tactical battlefield.
Frustratingly, though, the game has not fixed some of the more annoying elements of its predecessor. Units from the eastern end of the map are still overpowered; the non-player horde armies are still virtually impossible to defeat, and a single unit of horse archers can still waste hours of your life as you fruitlessly chase them around a battlefield trying to finish them off (there's still no "super-fast-forward" button as there was in Shogun and Medieval I). Again, though, these are small details in an otherwise excellent battle game. The AI is possibly a little on the predictable and passive side, but is still challenging enough for all but the most experienced players... and then there's always the multiplayer.
(Players of Shogun will also welcome the return of short, entertaining videos illustrating the success or failure of assassination attempts.)
The game is slightly schizophrenic when it comes to historical accuracy; on the one hand it still paints in the broadest of brush-strokes when it comes to the strategic map (controversially leaving Aragon out entirely), which will doubtless irritate any scholars of the period. However, when it comes to unit names and designations, it is entirely authentic, to the point where, to some English-speaking readers, the names of some units will be all but unintelligible. It is difficult to fault the game too heavily in this regard, though, and the variety of units available is amazing.
The expansion pack, Kingdoms, fixes some minor bugs from the original, but, more significantly, introduces four new grand campaigns to play through, as well as new multiplayer factions. Of these campaigns (the Third and later Crusades, the British Isles c.1250, the Baltic Crusade, and the Spanish conquest of America) the only one to introduce anything really new is the American campaign, with its wide variety of native factions and units. All of the campaigns are fun to play, though, and their focus allows them to include historical details overlooked in the main campaign.
Overall, the game is excellent. Anyone who is already a fan of the Total War series will love it, and anyone who has not previously played it would do well to give it a try. My criticisms above are nitpicks and do not seriously detract from the experience, although veteran players might be slightly disappointed that some of the details have not been fixed since Rome. The strategic gameplay is comparable with franchises like Civilisation, and the tactical, unit-based gameplay is still by far the best of any game on the market. The graphics are breathtaking, and the interface is completely intuitive for all the important elements of gameplay (and there is good in-game help for those who need it). Five stars are well-deserved.
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