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So far, my experience with Rome 2 is of disappointment, but not at the AI (Which for me is working quite fine), instead it is at the horrendous optimization which Creative Assembly promised would be widely scaleable. I can't even pump out decent FPS at Very High (Which is essentially the "Normal" of the graphics options), and any changes I do make to the graphics settings seems to have absolutely no effect on the outcome of how it looks. Just awful. I could go on and on about the optimization, but I think I made that clear. My other disappointment was how slow-paced it's become, with turns taking well over a minute long to resolve once you get to your 25-30th turn, which means that around 10-15% of your gameplay experience (depending on how long you take to end each turn), will end up being just the resolve action of clicking the "End Turn" button. Those problems aside, I have encountered next to no AI or gameplay glitches, and when it works, it works perfectly fine. The campaign AI is unreasonably aggressive and hard to diplomatically communicate with though, rarely if ever coming to a "moderate" or "high" chance of success, and even then if it's only a moderate chance, you'll still more than likely fail in your diplomacy. But, there is a silver lining here; CONTENT. Rome 2 has literally HUNDREDS of unique units, and the units that are shared between factions, are designed to fit around the factions themselves, so no simple color-swaps here like in Rome 1, Empire, or Shogun 2. There's also numerous types of agents at your disposal this time, each with unique abilities, such as poisoning garrisoned enemy units with your spy, quelling public dissent with your hero, or causing political intrigue with a diplomatic agent. On top of all this, they've given increased options in easy-to-access, pre-made battle formations to put your troops into, organized by type and rank. There have also been some improvements to the economic aspect, as it's been streamlined, but the depth of how it can be affected, or how you can affect it, has been increased. Combat based gameplay has reached its pinnacle, as you can now have a truly combined Naval/Land assault on armies or cities, leading to some very grand-scale battles. Great strides have also been made to make simply attacking a factions city as quickly as possible something NOT to focus on at first, instead, drawing out their forces and fighting them in pitched battle, which removes the very arcadey feel of the previous installments where you simply went from base to base, fighting siege to siege. They've also added depth to the auto-resolve function, where you can focus on different styles of combat to insure a higher chance of victory, or a higher percentage of troops left. With a few patches, I'm sure this game could reach the 9 or 10 out of 10 it deserves.

This is truly one of the most definitive Hitman experiences out there, there are so many more options compared to the previous games, what would you like to do? Subdue a target discetely then take his clothes and attempt to walk straight through? But what if they notice you, what then, shall you proceed to use instinct to blend in and move away or perhaps find an alternate route? If you're caught, what then will you do, melee quitely and hope you're note widely discovered, fake surrender and take him as a human shield and blast your way out, or perhaps you skip the fake surrender and go straight for guns blazing? That's not even half of what you could do either, there are just so many more options in this sequel than the others. Sure, it doesn't have as many "simulation" features such as the inability to hide heavy 2 handed weapons on you, or having animations manually put your guns away along with other small features, but it trades those in for smoother gun control, more gameplay options, with a more complex melee system that works out for the better. One thing I would say that detracts, which I believe was intentional, was that if you put two bodies into a locker/closet together, you can see just before the doors close that they are positioned purposely in a way so as to make it look like they are having standing "doggystyle" sex, something which I think is a small detractor because the comedy feels so out of place and random that it doesn't blend well. If it wasn't intentional, which I doubt, I would very much like it to be fixed, for atmosphere's sake in a game such as this which has such a serious tone. The AI has been given a major overhaul, truly reacting to each and every thing you do in the environment, reacting accordingly to it as well, although with a few minor hickups and glitches that aren't all too noticeable. It's hard to go in depth about the AI because of how diverse and complex it is, given the multitude of situations that they react differently in each and every time. One thing I do like though, is now other people in the environment may notice you or become suspicious if you're wearing a certain disguise. Finally, the story. The characters are all unique in their mannerisms, voices, and look, each with their own feel and flavor to them. Their voice acting is all great and manages to make them feel alive and animated. One flaw that was fatal in the game for me, detracting it an entire point, was the checkpoint system. This checkpoint system doesn't save your progress, it simply records your character up to that point and places you in that position, let me explain. Say you clear a room of guys, then you get a checkpoint. You die, naturally, and come back to it, and now all of the guys you just got through killing in the previous room before the checkpoint are back. This I felt detracted greatly from the sense of accomplishment if you pull off a very smooth gunfight sequence, only to find out all your efforts were in vain after dieing past the next checkpoint. A good amount of the levels are sectioned off though, so the checkpoint system seems to work in a way that doesn't hamper the player in those parts, but in the larger sandbox maps, it becomes very frustrating. Finally, there is contracts mode, which enables you to cutsomize and create your very own hits and share them with the community. This is something that I wouldn't of expected to come from a game such as this, and works so well in so many ways as to be entirely unique, and hopefully becomes a permanent addition to the series from now on. Overall this is a fantastic game with tons of content and as much polish as possible for the date they had set, very few bugs of any kind have been encountered and the everything seems to work as it should. Hats off to the developers for making such a fantastic game.

Fans don't give this game the due credit it deserves. Not only did it save CA from bankruptcy, but it also revitalized the Total War series by offering a new, original take on 18th Century warfare. It's Naval combat is unprecedented in and almost bar none compared to any and all other naval combat games taking place in the 18th century and it's new diplomacy and tech tree mechanics work nearly flawlessly in their functionality. The gameplay, oh the gameplay, theres a vast amount of tactics and strategies you can devise against opponents, some nations requiring a different approach because of their methods of warfare and tech. It offers more interactive and varied approach to the campaign, offering a wide amount of variation from not only nation to nation, but region to region as to what you use each one for, be it for military, economic, or even technological advances to your country, or perhaps enhancing its national prestige.

Don't listen to all the idiots giving this game a 6 or 7 or lower, since they obviously lack any real understanding of gaming as a medium or as a game of the mind. Rome Total War is probably the greatest of the total war games in my professional opinion, although my favorite would have to be Empire. Rome offers what many other games fail to do, give you unparralelled strategy game play of the ancient Roman/Greek age. It's one thing to command armies on the campaign map, strategically positioning them to ambush your enemy or block routes, using diplomats, spies and assassins to your advantage, deceiving your allies or enemies, managing cities and towns, but it's another thing completely in the battle map. In the battle map it's a no-holds-barred kinda match, anything goes, it gives you totally complete freedom to setup your units as you wish, in formation how you wish and use them however you want. If you ever wondered what it would feel like to siege a Roman city as an invading Carthaginian army, feel free to do so in campaign or in a custom battle, you can use siege towers, battering rams, ladders, siege weapons like catapults, trebuchets and more to batter through your opponents defences. There is nothing quite like Rome Total War in terms of content and mere polish.

Probably one of the most underrated games for the Nintendo 64, Turok 2 was an excercise in originality, with original designs for weapons, levels, enemies, music, and almost everything about the game screamed "originality" back then in 1998. It was also most definately the goriest game up to 1998, with the ability to blow off heads, limbs, and even holes through enemies, the gore seemed almost limitless. But that's not what Turok 2 was about, Turok 2 was about traversing surreal environments fighting enemies which seemed completely foreign to us. They were all fought with different tactics, had different weaknesses, and were even excluded to specific environments. Besides the amazing gore and atmosphere and diversity that the game provided, it also had an extraordinarily dark, creepy, thrilling, and even mysterious soundtrack, one which alluded to the grisly setting the game took place in while also sounding mystifyingly deep. The game had few faults, one being poor a framerate at many moments in the game due to it's excellent graphics and because of how many things can happen on-screen at once and the larger view range. This game rightfully deserves a place amongst the top 100, no, top 50 FPS games of all time, it was extremely polished and had massive amounts of replayability.

I've been waiting for skyrim for about a year now, and so far it's an amazing game, theres great dungeon design, great combat mechanics, cool magic effects and weapons and lots of enemies and items to use and find. I also like the enhanced graphics and engine and increased interactivity. The increase in voice actors is also another great thing. But one thing that pisses me off, is that the balancing consistency is **** ****. I was level 7, and i just finished the mission where me and some other guards kill a dragon, it doesn't take that long, one of two of them die, no big deal, it was rather easy. Ok, now fast forward fifteen minutes and guess what, i run into a dragon randomly, but this time, I DIE IN UNDER A **** MINUTE... It baffles me. Apart from that and a few glitches i found, it's a great game, it's atmosphere and combat is certainly the best in the series.

LEGEND was an interesting game, at first when i got it, the story seemed vapid and uninspired, but when i actually got into it, it seemed actually deeper then Diablo 2 what with it's lush environments, unique kill animations, amusing ragdoll, and dynamic lighting which really shows especially in cave sections which were a real treat. I also liked the detailed enemy designs, although the animations themselves could use some work, with better voice acting, and honestly, after a while it got a tad bit tedious and tiresome, either just form the constant grind of the action or the repetition in how the environment is designed, something made the experience feel like it was just one big grind after playing for an extended period of time. If the game fixed the horrible VA, fixed the pace, and made the levelling system a bit more detailed, it could've received a much higher score such as an 8. But as it stands, it's little more then something to tide you over till Diablo 3 arrives or maybe just something to experiance for yourself and see if you like it.

How do you write a review for a title close to being the best video game ever made? It's soundtrack is a mixture of classical and 40's - 50's era contemporary music which both combine to give Bioshock a wondrous sense of contradiction in it's atmosphere, what with it's crumbling, leaky architecture and dramatic lighting, yet and mellow and angelic orchestral sounds backing the resonance of sheer destroyed beauty laying before as you wander through the world intrepidly. This dual atmosphere is a constant throughout the entire game, which is a good thing, as it keeps itself consistent, unlike other titles i could name which tried something similar but came up short, thus breaking the illusion that it had. The story is nothing short of brilliant, with your entire life being revealed before you to be none other then the artificial workings of someone else, breaking the characters and your own perceptions of what you really knew. Voice acting is also top notch, with slick accents that are spot on, mature sounding voices, voices which sound real and have some authenticity to their tone and behaviour, and fit the characters their assigned to. You may be thinking "Well it seems like the sound and story are the most effective parts of it", but you'd be wrong. The gameplay sacrifices nothing as there is rather deep customization to skills and powers you can gain. The ways you can go about and manipulate the environments and enemies can only be described as vast and dynamic, would you prefer to sneak past a foe or clobber them over the head with a wrench? Carelessly walk into an open area or set traps with your weapons/powers in some doorways or on the floor before continueing to search the area? Hack a sentry to help you in a fight with multiple enemies or maybe use a power to make one of them fight for you? The possibilities and combinations are nearly endless and it only gets even better when i say that it's all dynamic. That's right, there are very few scripted enemy paths or actions compared to the huge amount that is unscripted. The developers managed to create a living, breathing, fully organic world that feels like it could be real and that you're some nameless joe exploring what was once a glorious city that is decaying because of the very foundation of it's demeanor. This is a revolutionary game which is worthy of the title of "Art" in the highest sense of the term.

Unlike nearly all fantasy RPG's, this one actually has depth to it's story, depth that i have yet to see in ANY other RPG, why? First of all, it manages to recreate a truely authentic feeling medieval game world, where the land is governed not by your own status as a "hero", but by the kings that rule over them, and your merely just a warrior trying to help along with many others. Not to mention it doesn't carry the fanciful "kiddy" aspects of rpg's such as cut elvish women dual wielding blades while wearing armor that covers less then a quarter of their body, this game takes itself very seriously while also squeezing in some small moments of comedy which helps to diversify the atmosphere and create even more depth. The combat has been majorly upgraded as well, the magic system has been improved so it flows far more fluidly with more intuitive controls allowing for easier and quicker use. Sword-play has been polished and is now smoother then in the original game, allowing for easier encounters with enemies. If you think this game is hard, your not a gamer, simple as that, you may think it's punishing, but there are far more punishing games then this, this game requires a tactically sound mind and quick thinking. Dialogue and NPC character animation are superb, you can see the heart put into each simple little movement such as walking or drinking, each animation finely done to feel realistic and human, with characters speaking in ways which suit them and don't spout over-pretentious monologues which get boring and slow down the gameplay AND the story. (im looking at you Assassins Creed and Metal Gear Solid) I look forward to much more coming from this great polish developer, as they definitely have seemed to of learned from their mistakes in the past. Their future continues to look bright.

Super Meat Boy is a classic throw back to how games used to be, and that is being mostly platformers and also being masochistically hard. I seriously had to practice level that can be completed in around 7 seconds for 20 - 30 minutes simply to beat it, even longer if i wanted to attain a high score (which i would recommend against trying to achieve as hackers and cheaters have ruined the leader boards for us all with times impossible to achieve such as 0). Super meat boy isn't just about jumping through saw blades of death to rescue his beloved partner, it's also somewhat of a self teaching lesson about what the average human will put himself through just to reach the end of the game, much like our brutalized hero, spending hours upon hours just repititously playing a level over and over again, death after death until we beat it. Luckily there is another little shining star in this, as you can unlock characters by getting band-aids, getting enough high ratings on levels, or beating warp portals, and surprisingly these characters each have their own unique abilities to help the player get through these obstacle courses of impossibility. It is a great challenge that is at the same time enjoyable for the most part.