So, short summary of the gamestar review in today's issue ... if you're interested

[Marten]

Short summary from review in "Gamestar":

Graphics: better than Empire, polished effects

Sound: also very good, great music

Balance: good tutorials, helpful tooltips, unit balancing good, sometimes weird calculation in auto-calc battle

Atmosphere: Historicaly correct events, the author critisizes the "limited map of europe"

Handling (hey, we are germans): good interface, the author liked the "empire style" more (like me), loading times equal to empire

AI: Mostly better than Empire, more aggressive in campaign, but sometimes also weird behaviour in battle and campaign, diplomatic behaviour a "bit" better, sometimes ai generals act like in the old times of medieval warfare ... you know what he means, don't you?

Multiplayer: In summary good, sometimes heavy "lag" and loading times

The italian campaign: ~5 hours (36 turns), he missed surprises or important events.

The egyptian campaign: In his opinion better (~5 hours ->62 turns), "More action and tactical elements"

European Campaign: You can start with the campaign of the coalition (~ 15 - ... hours -> 192 turns), but for france you have to play the first two campaigns. In his opionion the best part of N:TW. Trade and management is compared to Empire less important and gameplay and "feel" of N:TW is more "casual".

Their conclusion: The best "Napoleonic" game so far, but not the best TW. Means 84% (or 8,4 / 10), they gave Empire 90% last year (and always said they played maybe Empire 1.8), Cossacks2 got 77% and Imperial Glory 65%. They reviewed the game with 2 authors, one a complete TW-Aficionado. He regrets that empire will never get the better stuff ...

After reading the article (4 pages - empire got 8!) and watching the vid i am not willing to buy it ... but that's just me.


Edith says: There is a subforum for Napoleon? .... Can someone please remove it?

Marten

[Fisherking]

My wife preordered the game for me. (good woman that she is) So I guess that I will give you all my early impressions, provided it works on this machine.

It is also something that I likely wouldn’t have done. I felt let down by what was delivered previously.

Personally I prefer the wider scope of Empire and I am more than just a little disappointed that it did not get the improvements handed to NTW.

Empire had all of the potential to be what it was hyped to be and more (had the mod tools been delivered). It is just a shame that it didn’t manage to live up to all that was promised.

I figure this was because of pressure from Sega and a bit from the fans after the first delay, but it really is of little matter.

In the end NTW is just an expansion in its scope, regardless of what ever else may be claimed.

I just hope it lives up to CAs expectations as well as our own...No more disappointments please.

[gollum]

Thanks Marten,

another review score in the 80's. Its normal of course that the hype would go down for an expansion (and NTW is an expansion, that doesnt even upgrade the core game, no matter what they say), but the scores are a bit too low even for that.

Something tells me that finally this time only Mike Simpson will be saying that "its the best TW ever".

I passed on M2 (although i got it as a gift), and bought empire as "the last hope" - needless to say that it was all hype and the potential was again drowned due to having too many dimensions and expectations and visual aims and scope for the resources and complexity at hand. Mike Simpson does not regret it, but he is disturbed from the 67% of user score on metacritic. So maybe he does, after all. A little.

The truth is that this is how its been for quite a while now. CA sinks lower and lower the more they compromise the game to reach a larger and larger audience. But this is not the sims or wow. Its (actually it was) a strategy game. You have to deliver a bit more than just visuals. And all baloons can take only so much air before they blowup.

[Durallan]

Well, it comes out tomorrow! so I'll be picking up my emperors edition and hopefully I might have some photos and screenshots! maybeee, anyway yes! tomorrow O.o , as long as it doesn't crash repeatedly!

[Durallan]

Sorry for double post, server wasn't responding properly!