Product Details
 | Empire: Total War |
| Price: | $19.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
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Product Description
Control the sea, command great armies, forge a new nation and conquer the globe. Empire: Total War takes the Total War franchise to the 18th Century and the Age of Imperialism—a time of near perpetual war. This latest installation in the award-winning, multi-million unit selling Total War franchise introduces a host of revolutionary new features, including true 3D naval combat. Players will be able to command single ships or vast fleets upon seascapes rich with extraordinary effects. After pummeling enemies with cannon fire, players will close in to grapple enemy ships and prepare to board, taking control of men as they fight hand-to-hand. With an entirely new game engine, Empire will see further enhancements to the 3D battles and turn-based campaign maps. Empire lets players experience combat on the high seas, India, Europe, and, for the first time, the United States of America.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #819 in Video Games
- Brand: Sega
- Model: 85229
- Released on: 2009-03-03
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista
- Format: CD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .40 pounds
Features
- New Real-time 3D Naval Warfare. Players control single ships or vast fleets with fully destructible sails as well as cannon and musket action, boarding raids and more. This is the complete naval combat experience.
- All-new Game Engine. With a newly created Windows XP-compatible DirectX 9 graphics engine, players will experience real-time seascapes, dynamic weather and a new advanced landscape and flora system.
- Episodic Campaign. Improves accessibility to the game by gradually introducing advanced features over time.
- Massive Scope. Over 30 in-game factions encompass all of the World's major powers including the United States of America.and dodge pursuers using the stylus.
- Brand New Multiplayer Modes. Players vie for a place at the top of the rankings and join leagues and ladders for even more gameplay challenges.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Call the shots in epic battles all over
the world and expand your realm of influence throughout the tumultuous
eighteenth century with Empire: Total War for your PC. Set against the
bold intellectual landscape of the Enlightenment, this extension of the
Total War franchise brings you out of the middle ages and into a realm
where guns, gunpowder, and naval warfare have a dramatic influence on
the face of combat.
Historic
Factions, Expanded Horizons, and an Updated Campaign Map
Total
War's detailed, turn-based battle system has received some serious
upgrades that will have an impact on both seasoned commanders and newly
minted combatants. The UI has been streamlined, and the systems for
handling trade and diplomacy have been updated. You have improved
advisors at your disposal, and realistic espionage techniques can be
carried out using agents.Empire puts a variety of major political
factions into your hands, including France, Spain, Great Britain,
Sweden, the United Provinces in northern Europe, Prussia, the Ottoman
Empire, and Russia. Detailed strategic elements come into play, whether
you're fighting in the heart of Europe, warding off Mamluk horsemen in
the middle east, or working to capture the wealth of India. Beyond all
this, for the first time in Total War history, the continent of North
America is an open field of play that portrays the unique strategic
problems encountered by the founding fathers during the revolutionary
war.
Dynamic 3D Naval Battles and Forces of Nature
Total
War's signature 3D battle scenes are paired with a new graphics engine
and improved technology, allowing war and conquest to take on an even
more realistic feel. Advanced landscape and flora systems add both
realism and depth to the world stage, while dynamic weather consistently
threatens to throw a wrench in your attack plans.
Whether you're
coordinating platoon firing or supporting a defensive square formation,
the musket and the cannon take center stage as newly developed
implements of war. And they're not just for use on land. Real-time naval
battle set on dramatic seascapes help shape the balance of power and
determine the scope of your Empire, and they're rendered in the same
impressive 3D as battles on land. You may find yourself directing a vast
fleet through intricate maneuvers, controlling the helm of a single
tall ship, or grappling to the enemy's boat and dictating the course of
hand-to-hand combat on deck.
New Multiplayer Action
Additional
updates to the Total War model include a multiplayer component that
provides player rankings for competitive commanders, leagues and
ladders, and a selection of entirely new modes of game play.
Realistic
landscapes and weather add drama to your campaigns. View larger. |
Dynamic,
3D naval warfare expands the combat zone. View larger. |
 |
For
the first time, North America is open as a field of battle. View
larger. |
Ships
boast destructible sails. View larger. |
Customer Reviews
Empire: Total War = EPIC FAIL
(For the most recent comments
see the updates)
Let me begin by pointing out that I am a HUGE fan
of the Total War series. I started with Rome, continued with the
Barbarian Invasion, segueyed into Medieval II and the subsequent
Kingdoms expansion. Needless to say, I was eagerly anticipating this
game. I even bought a top of the line Mach V rig with all the bells and
whistles and a 30in monitor to take in the beauty of it all. My machine
has no problem handing the graphics settings on Ultra and I can tell you
that visually, this game has the potential to be stunning (provided
your computer is up to the task).
Now the negative. The game
comes with Steam software which introduces its own complications to the
process of enjoying ones game. Granted that the auto-patching feature is
pretty sweet, but almost everything else about this system is not (See
other reviews here for more details). But thats not even the meat of my
beef.
Creative Assembly (CA) released this much anticipated game
KNOWING that it was a beta version. After reading countless posts on
various message boards, it is more than apparent that this game was not
ready for release but for some reason they went ahead with it anyway.
This in effect made everyone who bought it an unwitting beta tester
(with all the frustrations and none of the salary). As I see it,
Creative Assembly has spent all of its credibility capital from the
prior installments on this piss-poor shell of a game. Thats not fair, it
is 90% of a game but that missing 10% makes it unplayable (frequent
crashes to desktop, white screens of death, and corrupted save files are
the major issues with a few minor issues sprinkled in for good
measure).
This will be the last time I purchase a game from
Creative Assembly within the first six months of launch and I would
advise others to do the same. Not to send a message to CA (though they
deserve a swift kick to the junk for this scam), but to save yourself
the money and the frustration.
5/21/09 UPDATE: Two and a half
months after release, CA is still frantically attempting to patch this
game to make it playable. However with every step forward, it seems like
they are taking two steps back. The Battlefield AI has gone from
acceptably bad to unacceptably bad. Lingering issues related to crashes
still persist though the White screen of death and save corruptions seem
to have been resolved. The economy system has been tweaked to make the
game more difficult, some prefer the change, some do not. Modders are
doing their best to put a polish on this game but some fundamentals
still remain broken. My original advice to wait for fixes before
purchasing still stands, this game is still in post-market Beta testing
but should be fun once its completed (probably 3 months from now).
7/01/09
UPDATE: A week after the 1.3 patch, it is time for an update.
Personally, the game works much better now than before. This is
subjective since some people have had new CTD issues with the latest
patch that were not there before. CA released a hotfix tonight to
address the CTDs introduced with their latest patch. While the game is
generally more fun and playable now, there are still some elements of
the game that will likely require an expansion pack-sized update to
address (these issues include siege battles being totally broken and
unrealistic still, no cross-theater naval invasions, crap diplomacy, and
Campaign AI that never retreats EVER even when outnumbered 10 to 1,
just to name a few). Adding to my concern is that patch 1.4 will seek to
introduce a multi-player campaign (which, if you were paying attention,
was supposed to come with the game 4 months ago). That's like building a
house on a unfinished foundation, bound for more Failure. Additionally,
CA has decided to tweak naval units so that the biggest/tallest ships
with the biggest guns and best crews will have a shorter range, lower
accuracy, and slower reload times than the smallest/shortest ships with
the smallest guns, despite the overwhelmingly negative response from the
hardcore community that would like at least some adherence to the laws
of physics. CA hears but does not listen to its most dedicated fans.
Despite
all of this (which is really just most of the negative points), If you
cannot wait any longer, I think its worth the current price.
If I
had to rate this game again, I would give it 4 stars for fun, and three
stars overall. Too bad it took four months to achieve mediocrity. Oh
well, new engine, new problems, I bet future installments will have much
smoother releases. Still, I advocate hesitation when it comes to
purchasing future CA/SEGA collaborations.
My next update will
come a week after the release of patch 1.4.
A Very Buggy Release
EDIT (April 5th, 2009): Like
many others, my opinion of this game has gone down with time. I only
ever made it through one short campaign, which only lasted a few days,
and I have now uninstalled it. The more time I spent with it, the more
glitches and bugs I came across, to the point where it just wasn't fun
any more. They've released a number of patches, but these only addressed
the Crash-To-Desktop issues which many people had, and which didn't
affect me too much (the game REALLY was not released in an acceptable
state). If they ever fix it up it will be a superb game, but there's a
LOT to do. Be warned that for now the fun has FAR less staying power
than the last two Total War games, Rome and Medieval II.
*************
I've
been a loyal follower (and buyer!) of Total War since the first
Medieval. Unfortunately, this game, in its current state, is more a step
back than forward. Still, I would give it a 3.5 or 4, but when you take
STEAM into consideration, 2 stars is the best it deserves. Other people
have written about STEAM; I'd just like to add that it's nagware - ads
for other games pop up on my PC every couple of days.
Steam
aside, the game is decent, but below the Total War standard. I'm running
it on a PC which is well above the system requirements (e.g., 2.8 GHz
dual core processor; 3GB RAM), but the sound chops on and off during
videos, there have been temporary freezes and two complete crashes, and
plenty of other minor technical annoyances. Can't imagine what it's like
on a PC that merely meets the requirements. There are major gameplay
issues. The AI does some really stupid things - among many others, it
doesn't seem able to put troops in a ship and put them on your coast,
something which didn't hurt Rome or Medieval II too much because they
were continent-based, but this is a world-empire game that boasts naval
battles. Finances are sufficiently limited that it seems next to
impossible to maintain very large armies in multiple theaters, even with
high tax rates, cities with all kinds of improvements and 11 Indiamen
in trading ports. The game also has long-wait issues, whether between
turns or while loading new sections. I'm not going to go on and list all
the other annoyances; suffice to say they do a lot to keep this from
being an addictive game.
My advice? Don't buy now, but wait a few
months, monitor the forums, and wait until they've made it the game it
ought to have been. If you're new to Total War, get Rome or Medieval II,
which are among the best PC games ever made.
CA has overreached
itself - clearly they either needed a bigger team from the start, or
another 6-12 months to playtest and debug.
I haven't decided
whether I'll buy future additions to this series. Depends on what they
eventually make of this one, and whether STEAM, or anything like it, is
there next time. I'm quite upset at having to put STEAM on my PC. It
does say, on the bottom of the back of the box, in very small print,
that you will have to use STEAM, but obviously I didn't read that before
buying. Having paid $[...], I feel that for once the people who get
pirated copies have something better - they don't have to use STEAM.
I'm Sure Its Nice, I Just Can't Play It
I bought this game for [...]
bucks at [...] after reading many favorable reviews and seeing pictures
of the beautiful graphics. After moving all of my music, Word docs,
doing several rounds of disk cleanup, and deleting other games and
applications on my computer to make room for the massive amount of space
that Empire Total War requires, I finally installed the game. This took
me about a day to get to this point. But once done, I was excited; the
game looked well worth the money and the space. I hope that one day, I
will be able to know whether it is worth the money and space that I
used. I get to the main menu, click on any of the game modes, be it
Grand Campaign, Road to Independence, or quick battle; and wait for it
to load. Problem is, the load bar gets to about 40% and then jumps
rapidly back and forth. The sounds of the game are audible; yells of
charge, gunfire, noises of a town. I have downloaded both patches, and
they have done nothing. I can't return this useless garbage because of
STEAM. I feel ripped off, and after reading many nerd site message
boards, I know that my problem is very common. I hope this severe bug
will be fixed, but I doubt it. I have yet to even be able to experience a
bugged out version of gameplay that others describe. The ship
pathfinding may indeed be screwy, and the AI may occasionally run
aimlessly, and the campaign map may lag at some points; but, alas, I
will never know.
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