[Prince Toad]

Creative Assembly has released the newest in their critically acclaimed Total War series of historical strategy/tactical games. I loved the previous installment, Rome: Total War, and the expansions were also excellent. I'm finding Medieval II to be every bit as fun and addictive as the previous game.

Now, there are a few negatives. It doesn't run so well when there's a ton of people on screen, but there's a lot of graphical tweaking possible, so it's not such an issue. Diplomacy is a little bothersome (why won't Hungary make peace with me? Why won't Byzantium acknowledge that I've all but annihilated them?) but it's a nice improvement over Rome, which had a really terrible system. There are a few issues with units being complete idiots, such as the members of my ballista crew which chose to stand right in front of their engine as it was being fired. I lost about four guys this way before I caught them and fixed the problem (they didn't like standing in an open gateway-- easily enough remedied). I also wish my generals were a little tougher, but I can deal with that by keeping them more or less out of danger.

But, as in Rome, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Battles look beautiful and units look cool. The event movies are a nice little touch, although you see most of them pretty quickly. The music and sound are high quality-- I believe there are even unique speeches against each faction for every "voice" in the game. (My Venetian generals have been heard, in their Italian accents, specifically insulting Hungarians, Milanese, and Sicilians, so I can safely assume that everyone has a similar thing-- very impressive.) Most importantly, Total War games just have the most fun tactical battles I've ever played. I want to lead my troops, fight after fight, whether in little skirmishes or epic clashes. The new fortifications are awesome, and so is knocking them down. Nothing like wrecking a massive castle wall with a pair of trebuchets... well, except maybe doing it with cannons, but I haven't progressed that far as yet.

All in all, I highly recommend it if you have a decent computer to run it on. Does anyone else have it?

Ahem. Spoke too soon. I was in the middle of a battle, and for absolutely no reason it began to run like s***. There is no explanation, nor excuse, for this. What the f***.