The "Why Napoleon?" Blog, by Mike Simpson

[Fisherking]

No I didn't bring over the text...

just the link.

http://blogs.sega.com/totalwar/2010/...-mike-simpson/

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

To anyone who hasn’t played its predecessors, Napoleon is the best TW we’ve made, and a great way to get in to the series.

Well yes, because they haven't played any of the predecessors. The actual validity of that statement remains to be seen.

[Beskar]

Well yes, because they haven't played any of the predecessors. The actual validity of that statement remains to be seen.

"This game is the best! if you haven't played any of the others!"

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Sounds like another of these stunts to get people over to a most likely unsuccessful product.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Sounds like another of these stunts to get people over to a most likely unsuccessful product.

Maybe not so much that as just unnecessarily defensive. People have different preferences for a time period - it seems like a logical extension from Empire, and even those who don't like the time frame should be able to see that. Furthermore, it's a little late to sell us on the period, isn't it? I'd much prefer something like "the strategic AI is better and here's how", or "we've made infantry staying in a cohesive line a bigger priority for the battle AI".

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Maybe not so much that as just unnecessarily defensive. People have different preferences for a time period - it seems like a logical extension from Empire, and even those who don't like the time frame should be able to see that. Furthermore, it's a little late to sell us on the period, isn't it? I'd much prefer something like "the strategic AI is better and here's how", or "we've made infantry staying in a cohesive line a bigger priority for the battle AI".

I actually like the period. I would pay gold to get a game which encompasses European warfare from the Spanish Succession all the way to the Revolution, but ETW is just too much of a let down. It's crappy, buggy, unrealistic - name whatever unflattering thing you can get on your head.

Back in the early days of 2009 there was a whole gigantic amount of hype here and in TWC about the release, the game, the demo, and so on. All of that is lost and nobody is lifting a finger save for a few who could somehow stomach ETW and like it.

[Beskar]

"This game is the best! if you haven't played any of the others!"

Some one stole my message!

Comment # 15

“To anyone who hasn’t played its predecessors, Napoleon is the best TW we’ve made, and a great way to get in to the series.”

Yeah, because if you played the predecessors, you will know that it isn’t.

Posted by WeLoveMike on January 14th, 2010 at 9:35 pm

[antisocialmunky]

One has to feel sorry for Mike Simpson in that the franchise he started 10 years ago has failed to live up to everyone's expectations 10 years down the road :(

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Maybe if they were trying desperately to fix the franchise. :/

[JeromeGrasdyke]

One has to feel sorry for Mike Simpson in that the franchise he started 10 years ago has failed to live up to everyone's expectations 10 years down the road :(

Well, his position has its pro's as well as con's - not everyone gets the chance to helm a franchise as big as Total War long-term and leave their mark on it. The games may not have lived up to everyone's expectations, but each installment in the TW series has its own character and charm, and none of them are dreadful by any stretch of the imagination, though I'd agree that ETW is probably the one that had the most rough edges at release. But then, it was also significantly more ambitious than any since Rome, there was a lot of new tech in it.

I may yet walk down the road to the local HMV and buy a copy of NTW for old times' sake ;)


Edit: someone's going to have to remove the CA tag from my profile, as the reset doesn't seem to have worked, and I moved on from there some time ago.