RTW Second Best PC Game ever according to PCGUK

[Silver Rusher]

Today I bought the PC Gamer magazine for its demo of BI, and I noticed that they had a top 100 games of all time thing. So before playing the demo I decided to read a bit through it. After stumbling through some pages I turned over to reveal Rome Total War, with a big picture of some legions marching across some grass. At first I thought it was twenty-something, but soon realised there was no second digit. OMFG. RTW has been voted the second best PC game ever by PC Gamer readers. This is in front of Halo, Deux Ex, World of Warcraft, The Sims 2 and many other great games. Number 1 was Half-Life 2, which is strange because RTW and HL2 were both reviewed in the same issue and HL2 got 94% whereas RTW got 93% (if I remember correctly)

I haven't posted this so I can get a huge rant of "But Rome Total War is inaccurate and a crappy game, why wasn't it Shogun or Medieval?" which I can almost guarantee somebody will post in the first page. Maybe it has its problems, maybe it isn't all that accurate, maybe the AI isn't as smart as some would like it to be, but you have to admit, this is the kind of statement about the brilliantly complex but balanced gameplay that RTW has that it deserves.

[Kor Khan]

If I remember correctly, Medieval was at number two before Rome came out. At some stage it (MTW) was even number one, or so I've heard.

Rome's a great game and all that, but I'm not sure if it deserves such a high ranking.

[edyzmedieval]

If I remember correctly, Medieval was at number two before Rome came out. At some stage it (MTW) was even number one, or so I've heard.

Rome's a great game and all that, but I'm not sure if it deserves such a high ranking.

I second that....

RTW is a great game but it has tons of bugs, which makes it very annyoing...
MTW is my favourite game, although it doesn't have 3D appearance, but it doesn't have annoying bugs!!!!!

[bubbanator]

RTW is a superb game but it could be better. I would put it in the top ten for sure. But #2!!! And Half Life 2 is not better than Rome IMO. And what about Starcraft. That was and still is the best computer game that I have ever played. It has a campaign that really draws you in, a wide variety of units that are still almost perfectly ballanced. And the multiplayer is phenominal. I have NEVER seen the Blizzard site crash or kick me off. It didn't lag (even when I had dial-up) I would put Starcraft at the top of my list.

[Silver Rusher]

If I remember correctly, Starcraft was #84 or something like that (many people love that game, but please remember this was voted by the British public, or at least those who read PCG and can be bothered to vote). I think we play too much RTW over here that we have taken it for granted and don't appreciate its true greatness.

[Grey_Fox]

It's just people putting the flashy new games up top. Same with Best Film Ever polls, people choose the new good ones, not necessarily the greatest ones. That's what happens when you have the public choose. People have a short memory.

Personally, I'd put Tetris as the best game ever.

[andrewt]

If you ask the mainstream gamer to vote, they're always going to put graphics over anything else. They're also going to put the latest game over the previous games in any series. RTW has an excellent strat map but the battles are anything but balanced and tactical.

If I'm going to make a list, my top 10 will include the following, not in order:
1. XCom: UFO Defense
2. Baldur's Gate 2
3. Starcraft
4. Diablo
5. Civ 2
6. MTW

Honestly, today's games are too dumbed down to put in that list, RTW included. Only BG2 and MTW came out after 2000 in my list. Also, XCom, Diablo, Civ 2 and MTW all have sequels but I found those editions to be the best in the series.

I'm also willing to bet that most of the voters are new gamers who haven't played the true classics and weren't old enough for most of them.

[Oaty]

Probably didn't deserve second place, but third place for sure. Anyways if RTW is so bad why are you wasting your time on these boards.

Congrats CA on second place.

[ToranagaSama]

Probably didn't deserve second place, but third place for sure. Anyways if RTW is so bad why are you wasting your time on these boards.

What "boards" precisely do you mean?

[Puzz3D]

Wargames never seem to make those lists. Combat Mission is an excellent game that never makes those lists. Also, anyone who didn't play Myth missed out on an excellent, realtime, 3D, tactical game which had very good atmosphere as well.

[Silver Rusher]

Probably didn't deserve second place, but third place for sure. Anyways if RTW is so bad why are you wasting your time on these boards.

Damn, this is exactly what I was going to say.

andrewt, how in hell can you put five games ahead of the Total War series when you spend so much time on the Org forums? If you prefer all these other games, either go annoy some XCom: UFO Defense forumers (if you aren't doing so already) or go outside and do something. Also, how in hell can you say that battles are not balanced and tactical? So, from your point of view, charging into a silver shield phalanx with urban cohorts will win you a battle? That's how it would be if the game wasn't "balanced and tactical". The people take the small problems in the game too seriously. I think people on this board only find the AI rubbish because they spend too much time playing the game and know how to exploit the weaknesses of the AI.

Grey_Fox, I think it is the "mainstream gamers" who are right, not you. I'll agree with you on films, but games are completely different. If you set aside the fact that Tetris is old and was addictive back when it started (which was only actually because there were barely any others games around back then), comparing it to nearly all modern games, it's complete crap. I don't have a clue why everyone thinks that how far back in history a game was made is a multiplier for its quality. But you need to wake up and realise that Tetris is just moving a bunch of blocks around so that they fit in gaps, nowhere near the depth, complexity and size (plus any other factor you can think of that makes a game good). The reason why it is the new, "flash" games that go up there is because in terms of fun and other things, they are the best to play. Graphics do form a lot of what makes a game good, but they aren't everything that these "new" games have that make them so great. What makes them great is perfection through time, which adds aspects to make the game better. Developers learn from the mistakes they or other developers make, resulting in overall better games.

Sorry about the rant, but I think there's something weird about the fact that people are criticising this decision. We should be celebrating!

[Gaius Magnus]

This is in front of Halo, Deux Ex, World of Warcraft, The Sims 2 and many other great games.

Sims 2



Enjoy playing those vastly superior games.

[Puzz3D]

We should be celebrating!

Why should I be celebrating that Rome caused most of the people I've known for 4 years to stop playing the game including 7 out of my 11 clan members?

This is the same PCGamer that just got an exclusive on the BI demo isn't it? How stupid do these people think I am to place any stock in a game rating from a magazine that just got an exclusive on an add-on to that game.

[Silver Rusher]

Sims 2



Enjoy playing those vastly superior games.

Meh, I only pu the Sims 2 there 'cos I couldn't remember any others.

[bodidley]

"If you don't think RTW is the #2 game of all time then why are you visiting the forums?" That is one of the least impressive loaded questions I've come across in my time. It's like saying, "If you don't think tic-tac-toe will end famine then what gives you the right to even talk about it?" RTW is definately not among the deepest or most well balanced strategy games I have played, so why do I visit the forums? Because I payed for the game, I enjoyed the game, and I like discussion about the game, not because I worship it. How about this for a loaded question? "If you don't want to hear someone else's opinion, why ask?" With regards to all that tetris bashing: the greatest games are timeless

Cheers

[Grey_Fox]

Silver Rusher: I played Tetris last week. Still a brilliant game. Age and graphics have nothing to do with it, it's the enjoyment you get out of it that comes first. The genius of Tetris is that it is insanely addictive, never crashes, never suffers a bug, works when you want it to and never, EVER loses it's appeal.

I wasn't actually comparing films and games, but the polls. The comparison between what get's voted into the top 5 is the sane for films as it is for games, the flashy new ones that are in any way half decent get placed ahead of the older but better games.

[Mongoose]

As much as i like RTW, it's not the 2nd best game ever.


IMO, shogun deserved the spot alot more.

[Slyspy]

The PCGUK chart is not a readers chart at all, so it is not the combined wisdom of Britain's game players. Rather it represents the opinions of the PCG journos and, it must be said, acts mainly as filler over the traditionally slow summer months.

Repeat:

THE CHART IS NOT A POLL!

[Grey_Fox]

Ah, what threw me off was this part:

RTW has been voted the second best PC game ever by PC Gamer readers.

[Azi Tohak]

Hey! At least it is better than here with all the morons who think shooting someone... over and over and over again is the pinnacle of entertainment.

I hate FPS.

Azi

[bodidley]

Hey! At least it is better than here with all the morons who think shooting someone... over and over and over again is the pinnacle of entertainment.

I hate FPS.

Azi

I'm mostly a strategy gamer, but I can't say I hate the entire FPS genre. The best FPS are high stakes (like, bullets freakin' kill you man), and manouvering for the kill rather than pulling your triggers a million times a second is the heart of the game. Ghost Recon was nice, Rainbow Six was good, Operation Flashpoint was pretty good too though the interface kinda sucked; hell, some FPSs actually are strategy games. One that is a bit more mindless, but a classic nonetheless, is Doom.

There is a level of effort and planning that results in a good strategy game. In that way, some FPSs are strategy games, while some strategy games are FPSs in different clothing.

[andrewt]

Damn, this is exactly what I was going to say.

andrewt, how in hell can you put five games ahead of the Total War series when you spend so much time on the Org forums? If you prefer all these other games, either go annoy some XCom: UFO Defense forumers (if you aren't doing so already) or go outside and do something. Also, how in hell can you say that battles are not balanced and tactical? So, from your point of view, charging into a silver shield phalanx with urban cohorts will win you a battle? That's how it would be if the game wasn't "balanced and tactical". The people take the small problems in the game too seriously. I think people on this board only find the AI rubbish because they spend too much time playing the game and know how to exploit the weaknesses of the AI.

I said those rankings are not in order. And if you actually knew those games I listed, most of them were made long before forums on the Internet were popular. Hell, I don't think IE even existed when Xcom: UFO Defense was made. I played it again 2-3 years ago and I had to download a mod that slows down my PC just to play it. They don't make games like that anymore. I haven't seen a squad-based TBS game with that much strategic and tactical depth ever since.

Name me the last good CRPG on the PC? It's still Baldur's Gate 2, released 4-5 years ago. They haven't made any good CRPGs on the PC ever since. Face it, most PC games now are either FPS or RTS without the S.

As for spending time here on the board, most of my posts were during MTW all the way to the first month of RTW's release. I'm just playing RTW again because of a.) trying out the new patch, b.) broadband is down for 2-3 weeks and can't raid well in WoW. I post a lot on forums on whatever game I'm currently playing. I'm continuing my 3rd RTW campaign while I did around 10 each for MTW and STW.

As for charging a silver shield phalanx with urban cohorts and winning, I wouldn't be surprised. A tactic I commonly used when I played early on was charging powerful spear/pike units using cheap cavalry. The cavalry would get slaughtered but they would totally destroy the formation of the phalanx and another cavalry charge by a stronger cavalry would destroy the phalanx. That's how powerful cavalry charges and how weak phalanx units are in this game. You can just run around using cavalry and keep charging repeatedly. By the time you get exhausted, the enemy would be in a complete rout already. Charges are also too powerful in general and units just rout immediately after even frontal charges.

There's also sieges. The AI likes to park soldiers on top of walled cities or run around the inside of wooden wall cities. You can park your ranged units outside of the range of their wall defenses and shoot at the defenders until you've run out of arrows. The defenders also love running around the inside of wooden wall cities and getting exhausted before you even get inside the city. Pathfinding is also atrocious inside cities. It's very annoying with the addition of the short timer.

The Roman legions also have to stop a long time before firing their pila. Sometimes, they don't want to fire at all until a long time has passed. Fortunately, the AI is kind enough to allow you to stop close in front of them, use up all your pila and wait for you to charge them.


Also, I liked MTW and STW's fire at will mode as well. It's a lot more tedious to turn it off and have to fire manually, rather than just turning it on and using force fire to fire at units where you might hit some friendlies. You have to turn off fire at will so much in RTW because your units like to fire at places where you have other units nearby.

I could go on and on but these are just a few problems I've noticed in just 2 full and 1 not finished campaign. Medieval didn't have so many gamebreaking bugs and balance problems. The reason I'm playing RTW right now is the strategy map, which I think is a major improvement over MTW's, though it suffers from a few problems as well.

There's a memo a few years back where Sony told game publishers to make games shorter and easier to focus more on the graphics. I guess most game studios took it to heart.

[bubbanator]

If I remember correctly, Starcraft was #84 or something like that (many people love that game, but please remember this was voted by the British public, or at least those who read PCG and can be bothered to vote). I think we play too much RTW over here that we have taken it for granted and don't appreciate its true greatness.

Well, I understand then...

I mean, their British. I know very few people from Britian (most of whom are on this forum) that don't judge games just on their flashy appearences and added features.

About us playing too much over here (U.S. I presume) that is a good arguement. However, I had stopped playing Starcraft for a few years while I played various other games. Then I played RTW. I thought it was an amazing game (and still do) however, I just started playing Starcraft again and realized just how much better it is in many aspects. You can play that game literaly all day, on campaign or on multi-player. The only other game that I can do that with is Halo 2 and you need to buy Xbox live for multi-player on that anyways...