Is RTW Still Worth 95%?

[derF]

PC Gamer, thinks this game is worth a rating of 95%. I beg to differ.

Post your thoughts and give a rating.

[The Stranger]

i'll rate it 50% i'm just had it with RTW.

[derF]

Thar ye go Emperor, post a vote.

[Old Celt]

Why didn't you give a rating and justify it to start out this thread?

I think the rating of 95% is justified. Most people really do enjoy the game and unlike the more sophisticated users found on this forum, the average player will never get into enough depth with the game to have issues that detract from their fun. People play games for different reasons and expect different features from a game to make the experience fun.

My impression from reading the grognard postings here is that die hard Total War series fans just won't ever like RTW much because it isn't enough of a carbon copy (with new skins) of MTW. The public at large though, people like me, who never played the other games in the series, and expect a 3D interface in 2005 games, enjoy the game tremendously.

It boils down to how you measure success. The standards used by PC Gamer obviously consider RTW to be an outstanding success. Your standards seem to be different. Again, I think you should come forward and say what your rating would be, and justify it yourself.

[Jambo]

I love the first few posters' well thought out reasons! lol

I'd still rate it in the 90's based on ingenuity, graphics, sound and immersion. What brings it down in my opinion is this ridiculous two patch policy that CA/Activision follow.

All strategy games require more than 2 patches. As is plain to see, a patch will fix things as well as introduce new bugs and the "one patch to cover it all" mentality is simply ridiculous. Consider Civ 3 and EU 2 as fine examples of what I mean.

[Helium God]

I think that this game probably deserves 85-90%... this is a truly great game -- I really enjoy it, and find myself often drawn to play one more turn simply to see which band of bozos are going to invade me next. :)

However, with that said -- the "two patch policy" is definitely a crutch on the games' rating, because there are a lot of relatively minor problems (that seem major because of the sheer potential of the game!) that sort of bring down the experience a bit.

Of course, with the diligence of the mod community here, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a game that is far more deserving of the original 95%. :)

[tai4ji2x]

i agree with jambo. still, i'm probably more frustrated than him at this point, so i gave it 85%

[hrvojej]

My rating is 85-90%. Even though I very much like playing it, the feeling that it could have been more polished never really leaves me.

[Red Harvest]

I compare it to its siblings, and how much doesn't work right, and how much time I've had to spend modding it. 75 to 80% looks about right.

The battlefield AI problem alone hacks off a minimum of 10% probably more like 15%. Then there are the number of unpatched remaining flaws and bugs, with essentially a single patch policy... I was probably too generous with my score.

[SpencerH]

I gave it a 50-55. Its catchy but ya just cant dance to it.

[The Stranger]

it's just it didn't lived up to my expectations, after MTW (wich wasn't perfect either) i thought they would come with a exploding game, just one thet would make you sneak out bed at night like MTW did. so i gave it a 50-55%. the game is good but they didn't made it perfect, it's just better to loose with 8-0 than with 1-0.

[Tricky Lady]

I gave it 75%.

RTW is a good game, it's fun, it looks nice, but so far RTW didn't manage to ruin my social life like MTW did (I bought MTW only in Feb. last year).... which is a good thing in fact
MTW was much more addictive to me, but that has smth. to do with the depicted time-frame ...

Anyways, very good but not sublime.

(Just checked the other votes, and it seems that I'm a bit harsher in my rating.... oh well....) 75% is good for me, apparently it is not to other people

[The Stranger]

RTW is a good game, but there is just the small things that screwed it. MTW was a game for the lovers, and not for the money as RTW seems to me. just like Fifa 2004-2005 till 2003 it went great but 2004-2005 are just screwed on the PC.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I compared it to MTW recently. I thought i was playing two totally unrelated games. RTW definately isn't worth 95%, so i thought i'd be harsh and give it 35-40%.

[Barbarossa82]

I gave it 75-80%. There are maybe 4 or 5 games in my collection to which I would give a higher rating, including MTW.

It seems like it's becoming increasingly hard on these forums to express a view which is taken as a whole and not characterised as being either religiously pro-RTW or pathologically anti-RTW. Criticise any poor aspect of the game (no need to enumerate them for the 1,000th time), and certain people immediately leap to the attack to describe it as an unrealistic, juvenile, counterproductive rant by socially crippled, Total War-obssessed history nerds.

Equally, any praise for the game as being highly enjoyable, visually spectacular and very replayable (all true in my estimations), is seen as evidence that the author is clearly a member of the despised, staggeringly ignorant "mass market" for whose benefit the game was reduced to a facile parody of previous Total War incarnations.

For examples of this, see the later end of the "initial patch thoughts" thread!

I suspect I am like the majority of RTW players in that I am glad to have bought the game and glad to be playing it; I rate it comparatively highly, but I am surprised and very disappointed by the multiplicity of bugs, omissions and retrograde steps from STW and MTW. The game was hugely ambitious and seems to have been rushed out of development faster than it deserved, but is still overall a very enjoyable game. It had the potential to hit 95% at least, and it's a real kick in the teeth that it didn't fulfil its potential, but that doesn't somehow make it a terrible game.

[The Stranger]

to me the patch made the game worse. with 1.1 i also thought like you, but with 1.2 i haven't stopped modding the game, what's really bothering me is the campaign map turning black and that kind of stuff. Rtw is good but it just failed my expectations.

[derF]

@ the first few people who replied complaining about no explanation:

I didnt want to influence anyones decision.

[Bhruic]

I gave it 75-80.

Right now, the fundamentals of a good game are all present. There just are a number of factors getting in the way of that enjoyment. The bugs are highest on that list, and I would probably say a competitive AI is second. Fix those areas up, and it would deserve a 95.

Bh

[Puzz3D]

I think the rating of 95% is justified. Most people really do enjoy the game and unlike the more sophisticated users found on this forum, the average player will never get into enough depth with the game to have issues that detract from their fun. People play games for different reasons and expect different features from a game to make the experience fun.

Ignorance is bliss. Until I came here and read about the AI forgetting it was sieging on a reload and all the VnV's that don't work properly, I was having fun with the campaign. I'm not now because it's important to the gameplay that those features work properly. I don't play RTW multiplayer because cav beats phalanx which is backwards. If you started at 100% and took 1% off for every problem, you wouldn't even have 90% let alone 95%. The magazine reviews came up with their high ratings by ignoring the problems. The magazines are in bed with the publishers, and the objective is to dupe the consumer. Apparently, the average gamer doesn't know his ass from his elbow.

[nokhor]

Barbarossa82 speaks for me, and much more eloquently i might add.

[Orb]

I gave it 85-90% because I still think that it is a fantastic game but the AI and the amount of irritating little issues (elephants, triarii in three ranks, phalanxes etc) knocked the 10-15% off. I just have to mod little things so often. It is so annoying to have to modify all of these little things and the fact that I discover so many more every time I try the campaign.

[Quietus]

Compared to other games in general, RTW is worth 95%. As a TW fan, the game is 90% with the patch (much, much better than MTW, but still not as polished [read: fun and balanced] as the origiinal STW).

[Colovion]

I compare it to its siblings, and how much doesn't work right, and how much time I've had to spend modding it. 75 to 80% looks about right.

The battlefield AI problem alone hacks off a minimum of 10% probably more like 15%. Then there are the number of unpatched remaining flaws and bugs, with essentially a single patch policy... I was probably too generous with my score.

I voted the same way, and felt I was too generous as well... but I was mainly voting for the potential, not the actual game...

[Old Celt]

You are absolutely right Puzz3D, the average gamer DOESN'T know his ass from his elbow. The people posting on this forum are many cuts above the average gamer (for the most part). We aren't completely satisfied because the marketing is to the masses, not to us in particular.

But I still have fun with the game, and there is nothing better out there. I bailed out of the "initial patch" thread because I felt it was becoming too divisive and a rant fest for both sides. I have no problem with people rating the game low or high, it really is a personal thing. Some people will still rate a game very high simply because they enjoy it even though they know there are plenty of flaws.

[Ser Clegane]

80-85% for me

The game fell a bit short of my (admittingly very high) expectations, however it is still a game that I regularly come back to to play a couple of hours and in the end that's what makes an 80+ game for me.

My major dissappointment is not even the AI or some bugs - it actually is the fact that CA failed to live up to the promise that there would be fewer battles than in MTW and that the battles you fight would really matter.
It turned out that it is the other way around - the endless battles are somehow anti-climactic.

But again, just because a game does not live up to high expectations, does not mean that it is automatically a bad game - I still have fun playing it

[SpencerH]

If one gives version 1.2 a 90-95%, I wonder what scores will be given to a version without the many many bugs (some of which are just beginning to be described), with all factions unlockable without modding (can you say expansion), and that fixes the overall game speed and individual unit stat issues? That game might deserve a 95% from players who play the game (as opposed to testers who play for game mags).

[Spino]

It really pains me that I have to downgrade my initial opinion of RTW which was quite high. Now that the excitement and hoopla surrounding Rome's graphics and new strategic map & gameplay has worn off we're left with a decent game that is marred by disappointingly mediocre tactical AI which on its own is bad enough but when coupled with the strategic element seriously affects Rome's long term replayability factor. Tactical battles are the heart and soul of the Total War games and to see such a revolutionary step in the series coupled with such shockingly lackluster and regressive AI is depressing. The handful of welcome improvements the tactical AI did receive are offset by the fact that it is, on the whole, less challenging than in the last patched version of Medieval: Viking Invasion.

What's worse is that there is no relief from the bad tactical AI in Rome's MP game. Thanks to the higher paced movement & killing rates and the serious lack of unit balancing Rome's multiplayer battles are not nearly as fun or balanced as Medieval's.

I gave Rome Total War a 75-80 with a strong bias towards 75. Thinking purely on a scale of 1-100 I think 75 is still quite good.

[Puzz3D]

You are absolutely right Puzz3D, the average gamer DOESN'T know his ass from his elbow. The people posting on this forum are many cuts above the average gamer (for the most part). We aren't completely satisfied because the marketing is to the masses, not to us in particular.

But I still have fun with the game, and there is nothing better out there. I bailed out of the "initial patch" thread because I felt it was becoming too divisive and a rant fest for both sides. I have no problem with people rating the game low or high, it really is a personal thing. Some people will still rate a game very high simply because they enjoy it even though they know there are plenty of flaws.

I'm not really disparaging the average gamer. I think the average gamer wants all the features to function correctly. For instance, most players would assume that savegames save the full state of the game needed to resume a campaign. People who have been around here for a while know better than to assume that anything in a CA game works correctly because it's painfully obvious that there is inadequate testing being done, and the game is now more complex than ever. I don't think CA should be let off the hook by saying the average gamer doesn't care if features don't work. Fixing existing problems isn't going to hurt the players who aren't aware of those problems. It's going to give them a better gaming experience. Also, CA depends upon people posting at forums like this one to identify problems in their game. I think everyone who posts is part of the development of the game even though they are also the consumer of it. So, a comprehensive list of problems is going to be useful for getting them corrected in the add-on, but I don't know how they are going to get around the problem of inadequate testing.

I didn't rate the game because SP campaign was looking pretty good to me before this savegame issue, but now I don't know where to rate it. The only reason for me to keep playing SP campaign now is to look for more problems. Who knows what other parameters aren't being saved.

[Ellesthyan]

85%. I was tempted to give them higher (the game rulez with a decent mod), but the inability to add more factions is staggering enough to keep them below 90%.

[maru]

This is a fantastic game, and when I first got it, I was hypnotized with the graphics and the realism of the whole thing. And the campaign map is quite beautiful, then there's the music. Amazing, litterally hypnotic experience. But, as I kept playing I started noticing bugs that bothered me, and after a certain time (and this is much sooner than I'd like it to be for a game with such huge potential) it rapidly loses its grip. Bottom line is: it's not well balanced for very long campaigns, and it is not nearly so addictive as MTW.

After you conquer maybe 15 or 20 provinces, why keep going? It's just more of the same. I'd like to hear anyone who has conquered all the provinces in one single campaign. Half of them? It seems like hard work to me, while doing it in MTW was great fun. In MTW, there were events and units that you could get only towards the end of conquering the whole map, and there was always something else that kept one going for more.

Like some have already said or hinted at, there is the rating where you compare the game to the overall quality of the games out there, and secondly, when you compare it to the days and months of fun that MTW provided.

Bugs and inconsistencies detract from the overall experience, but more than that, it's the fact that this game was made for those who want to play for only a weekend or two. I sort of wanted to play it for a very long time, just like I did with MTW and enjoyed it. With RTW, however, that's not really possible. After you finish your tech-tree upgrades, and with less "civilized" factions this happnes in virtually a few hours of gameplay, there is nothing else to do. Nobody can beat you, (if you prepare your tactics for the battle map relatively well) and nothing new happens in the world. It's just boring. Killing the same legionary cohort with the same horse archers unit over and over again is not so interesting after a while.

So when it comes to grading it, this is really a big paradox. Where else can you find what RTW offers? A unique gameplay experience, great graphics, music, idea. It really does deserve a very high grade. 95% doesn't seem unrealistic.

For a dedicated fan, however, all that seems to be left is to weep at the sad situation in which this game is not even half of what it can be. Or... get to modding and add those changes which will allow everyone to enjoy the game even more.

I also wonder if it is possible to reach somene in CA who would want to pay heed to these and similar lamentations and change these things for the expansion, if not for another patch. :=)