User Reviews (51 - 61 of 115)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

If you like RTS, history and realism - this is the best game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have played all Age of Empires series games, and always wished for more realism and control in combat. This game is perfect in that. Weather (wind, snow, rain..), terrain, flank attacks, surprise attacks, soldiers experience, morale, fatigue - it's all there, the effects of all these variables are realistic, it's all as it should be. If enemy is beaten - they will run, you can go after them..

The game is played in two basic screens - the map (where you manage economy, diplomacy, raise army and attack) and the 3D battle screen, where you fight.

Battle experience is the best in RTS if you like realism. However, diplomacy and economic management is a little bit stale.

Game has high replay value - you can play as one of 8 or so clans. Each clan has different advantages in the price of soldiers they can raise, but soldiers are the same (they are all Japanese, after all). There are about 11 soldier unit types, each specialized, but none of them can be used alone. In that regard game is balanced very well.

The game will require thinking from your part. AI is pretty good and will respond to your actions as well as human could (if not better).

The interface is very easy to use, camera moves perfectly (comparing to Black & White).

In summary - this is the best RTS game if you like tactics in combat, realism and historic accuracy. It is a game from general's perspective.

Shogun the full review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game as you should know is taking place in feudal japan. here are good things and bad things

GOOD 1.ninjas 2.geishas 3.a reaistic truth that alliances were made betwen daimyos and broken the next day 4.graphics 5.fun 6.realistic battle happenings BAD 1.unrealistic soldiers each clan really had its own helmets armor swords and decorations 2.no ashigaru

... My god a game I love, and and and! *please read*

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game gets my highest rating in the genre hands down, it's a fine example of what a video game can do for you. Put you in a time place and setting you could not possible encounter in real life, and while it's at it, you get to conquer a country one piece at a time using tactics, and battles. everything about this game screams wonderfulness if you like the genre, specificaly if you like fuedal Japan and strategy games, the graphics where impressive, the depth and immersion was right on, and everything about it told me I would be playing this game for months to come, and more than once at that... as there are a number of clans to choose from. so this game is not the flaw... the flaw is in the programming/design... the coding... this game is so unstable, in order to write this review and get what I did out of this game I had to reboot my computer once every ten minutes at best! it crashed froze and short of killing my computer, did everything a game of this callibur shouldn't do. In a few words... I was VEXED! I was forced to uninstall this game from my computer and keep the disks in a safe place until I get a better system, and my system is not that dated at all, in fact I beat every requirement this game has for it. the problem? this game has compatability issues that are not mentioned on the box, or documentation, even in the fine print. Electronic arts failed to test this game properly, and institute propper patches, and fixes. even the patches that are available, tend to make a difficult gaming experience worse, since for me the patches only made it so the game was unplayable since it crashed before I could even start the campaign. I have heard some rumors, and some facts, and it all boils down to bad coding and application of system rescourses. If you have a Voodo video card this game will likely frustrate you to tears, even with the final version of the now out of business 3DFX drivers. Whats more you can't control to much of a degree what form of hardware accelleration to use. and software mode runs slower than a dead walter hudson on most systems. if it even works. Electronic arts basically let down a large percentage of their customers on this title, not in the gameplay, graphics or other ways a game normaly fails, but in the worst example of a buggy game I have ever seen. I am no technowizard, but I do know a bit about computers, and trust me, if this game works on your computer, you are in the lucky 60% (my own estimate, since it hasn't worked on my friends older industry standard 2GIG processor, 2 gig RAM, demonic graphic rendering monster machine his father custom built for him so he could do special movie effects for the company he got hired into. and if it doesn't work on his machine, given his technical experience etc, within three hours of system updates and trouble shooting, it won't work on most peoples PC's), this game is as picky about what system you are using as your cat can be about eating what you put in front of him/her. sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't... mostly doesn't. Consdiering everything, I would say take the chance, if you like the genre, and the aspects mentioned about this game, if it doesn't work just return it, and don't even think about it. Me? I am a hopeless romantic, and am gonna wait till I get a new computer, with all kinds of compatable hardware before I give this game another try and then decide to use it for ultimate ... frisbie. I love this game and it pains me to say all this... I wanna play my game, one of my favs. but how can I? anyway! On a further note, after many hours of tearful frustration of rebooting, and sore knuckles from pounding my desk, icalled tech support at Electronic arts. They WHere helpful, so I tip my hat to them, but it was kind of funny, when I talked to the operator of the companies tech support line and mentioned what game I was having trouble with he sighed, and I could almost hear him mumble "Oh boy... another one..." somehow the 3DFX drivers, or direct x, or something about voodo, or even Geforce cards conflicts with this game. I don't know what systems they play tested this game on, but it wasn't one like a large amount of people have. This game was well made in the game aspect, but rushed on the race to put it on store shelves, rather than test it properly, and support it properly. money is the root of all evil I spose, second only to impatience... so buy this game if your a tech wizard, are lucky, or have a nice system, and cross your fingers. As I said, I would personaly estimate 20%-40% of you won't be able to fight one battle before you computer locks up and you have to do a hard reboot... (turn off the power without shutting down) hope this review helped somebody out there!

tech problems

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: June 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have a pentium 2 400mhz with a riva tnt2 vidio card. I cant get the game to work. Neither can my friends who have twice the computer I have. The demo was great, but this game is a heartbreaking letdown.

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: October 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is fantastic. I normally never played computer games before until one of my best friends showed me this game. At first I found it boring yet interesting. But later I started getting really into it, to the point that I HAD to buy it. Now I have been playing the game for months, and the game has great grafics and wonderful battle scenes. The multiplayer format is good but it needs a little work. Now, even my brother wants to play it like I do, and we get in fights over who's allowd to play next. It's a fantastic game and if you haven't bought it yet, you really need to.

Every Clan has a chance

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: June 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is just to disagree with Chow Dog's review.

*Every* Clan can win, even at the hardest (Expert) level, you just need to have a knowledge of your clan's strengths and weaknesses. The Hojo and the Shimazu are , in my opinion, the easiest clans to play and win with, but there's molto fun in the others. Brag: I've won with every clan except the Imagawa (yet!) at the hardest level and that means I've defeated the Hojo at least five times.

The weather is also vitally important. I used to only play in fine weather so I could see...but you can sneak up in fog...or if you are close-combat oriented, attack one of the computers Archer- heavy armies in the rain.

I could go on. I discover new subtleties with every game.

I agree that the "diplomacy" is rudimentary, and that is my one real gripe. You cannot get your "ally" to attack in concert on a mutual enemy, even if you are both at war.

A strategy suggestion: in the beginning you have two choices: immediate blitzkrieg on your nearest enemy to take them out before they can get strong, or a more measured approach, building up infrastructure and armies till you are ready to fight. Both approaches have their place, but you will find that your long-term development is slowed if you choose the former.

Cry Banzai! and let loose the dogs of war!

Camera Management is the design center

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought Medieval and played Shogun's demo, and got the same strong impression: the game is too reliant on control of the camera as the action is too fast to both get the right perspective and issue orders. I played 4 scenarios and uninstalled it as I wanted to think about command troops in the field, not fly some camera about a battle.

While there is clearly some value here that is not found elsewhere (I'm sure you'll find it in the positive reviews), I found better choices for the thrill of real time grand tactical sim in the Myth series (particularly The Fallen Lords... fewer units used to accomplish the same depth of tactical richness, combined with better camera interface) and in Sid Meier's Gettysburg! and SM's Antietam!

Have fun whichever you choose.

tone

excellent tactical game but need patient

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: June 09, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I've played so many tactical/strategies rts war games since D.U.N.E came out. The latest one is the Age of Empires II. As many other players I believed, we like to build up our army slowly from the start and then crushed the enemy phase by phase. However Shogun Total War does not really emphasize on this. It focused more on tacticals moves/formation to lead your massives troops into battlefield just like in most turn-based war games. One thing I like about this game, it allows you to do some espionage move on your enemy and sneak attack behind trees! WOW! Overall the game is kind of slow that could bored some of our fast paced gamers! Excellent 3D view and storyline but horrible user interface. In addition to this, I would recommend you to read any of asia's ancient tactical wars books if you like to win in this SHOGUN total war. Previous war games experiance is NOT ENOUGH! I give 4 Stars for because it has difficult control buttons and it is not a very intresting single-player game. This is a multiplayer game - a huge one!

Computer Cheats, with Bad User Interface

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: September 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The good thing abut this game is its impressive graphical controls and scrolling in combat mode.

But this good is overwhelmed by the directly human to computer observed combat decisions on a high level, specifically when the human and computer moves combat groups into contact with each other to initiate attacks. The game attempts (tries) to go beyond a turn based alternate action (which is a plus) so that both parties attack simultaneously, but the result is that the computer waits for the human move, and then ambushes the human attack for its own optimum win. The human does not know anything about the enemy's armies in adjacent provinces, except by building special watchtowers or spies, but the computer knows exactly what the human has (no fog of war) and makes attacks against small garrisons of human defenders with armies of 140% or 150% size to make quick wins. When the human makes a full scale attack from one province to another with a large army. leaving a small garrison behind, the computer jumps past, over, or through the large human army to conquer the denuded provence, something that normally cannot happen without helicopters. And all this is in normal node, I could accept this in impossible mode.

About computer strategic cheating behind their own lines where humans cannot detect it, I have no firm evidence, but when I finally win or finish off my half of the board and meet the last opponent, I am surprised and shocked to see an army of 10 to 20 times my size facing me. Not percentage, Times!! No way. I really think the various computer players are really not fighting each other, but are ganging up on the human, which violates the spirit of the game.

The user interface is cumbersome and difficult to work with. It is hard to keep track of your wealth when you make improvements, or to remember that a province finishing building is idle, without checking, rechecking, and endlessly looking again. When a human attacks an enemy general with a ninja in normal mode (not easy mode) nothing happens (not failure - not success), while the computer sends many ninja attacks.

There are a fair number of new product bugs, but we can ignore them until hopefully the next bug release comes out.

A Great Game, but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: March 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Shogun: Total War brings you back to the Warring States Period. You may play as one of the seven warlords. The history and everything appear to be accurate. Ninja, Geisha, emissary, and all kinds of soldiers, from regular spearmen to archers to warrior monks to calvary, are all available. The game play is indeed simple. Most of the time you are like playing card board game, you move your soldiers like playing RISK. But when a battle breaks out, it turns to an action mode, in which you can command and actually see the soldiers crossing blades (the sound effect is cool!) You win the game until you defeat all the other lords, i.e. conquer Japan.

There are several things that make this game fascinating: (1) the sound tracks are great: very traditional Japanese music; (2) accurate historical background. Good research; (3) the videos are fantastic. For example, when the ninja carries out his assination, a video will show that whether he has succeed or failed (i.e. whether the ninja or the target is killed); (4) like the AGE OF EMPIRE, you need to build things in your dominiants in order to improve either your country's economy or the quality of your soldiers; (5) you can choose between two languages, either English or Japanese. If you'd like to enjoy a more traditional Japanese environment, this will be a very good option.

Many people have praised this game, but there are several drawbacks that made me give it only 4 stars: (1) the function of forming alliances is almost useless. An "Alliance" in this game only means "non-interference". You cannot plan and cooperate with your computer allies to attack your common enemies. Also, they sometimes offer you alliance without reasons: they can immediately invade you right after forming an alliance with you; (2) Although the introduction claims that all the warlords have equal chances to win, this is simply not true. After playing it for a few times, you will discover that the Hojo Clan has almost 80% chance to win, the remaining 20% goes to the Oda Clan. The remaining five lords have no chance at all; (3) after all, it is force but not strategy that really matters. As long as you have a large and elite army, you can win for sure. In fact, I don't see how one can apply Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR to this game because of the illogical alliance relationship; (4) ninja assassinations are not helpful. Even if your ninja has succeed in killing the enemy general (this is rare), the death of the general has no real impact on the enemy; (5) ninja assassinations are extremely tough missions: you can hardly make it. Sometimes I wonder why do I spend money on training ninjas...; (6) the graphics during the battle mode may not be as good as you think. You can't really see the tiny soldiers clearly. You won't see any blood. You won't see where the arrows are shooting at until you see some of your soldiers falling down. The map is also not impressive. The weather makes no real difference. Sometimes when the enemies are hidding, you will never find them, and when time's up, you will lose the battle even though you should be the victor; (7) I don't like the difficulty levels. The EASY mode is too easy, it is like your competitors are standing still and waiting for you to knock them down one by one. But the NORMAL mode is too difficult, and unless you play as the Hojo Clan, your chance of winning drops to zero, because the Hojo Clan controlled by the computer is "destined" to win.

Overall, this is a nice game with several shortcomings. But to be fair, many strategy games have these shortcomings, too. I would recommend you to play the EASY mode, enjoy the sound tracks, learn some Japanese history, and to be absorded into the traditional Japanese atmosphere that will be automatically created by this game through your computer screen. But don't expect too much for the AI of this game.

Review Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next 

Actions