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Its fairly easy to say Rome 2 may be the worst Total War game in the series as it stands right after release, but damn does it hurt. Even Empire didn't feel this bad for me and it's likely due to Empire's problems having to do more with AI and smaller technical details than the blatant problems appearing in Rome 2. Unfortunately most the TW fans have taken the PreOrder Free DLC hook line and sinker, but now its our job to try and warn other gamers about this game as it stands. It's easy for gamers not familiar with the problems plaguing CA's AI flaws to buy the game out of nostalgia for the Rome:TW brand, which is easily the most famous and most know game in the TW series. The AI simply doesn't act competent in any way shape or form. Usually poor AI isn't a big deal for us TW fans, we've seen it before and usually upped the settings for a tougher challenge(not anymore). Most TW AI is at least smart enough to exploit flanks and run down archers in battle, while attacking major cities with larger stacks on the campaign map. Rome 2's AI however suffers from some of worst AI I've ever seen in a strategy game and worse it feels like CA has added deliberately gamey features to cover over its incomplete AI. Units will charge solo then turn tail before impact with a better unit, allowing your ranged units to sit behind and slowly pelt them to death. When a unit does decide to charge it'll send all of its units (including archers) into the front of Phalanx and Legionaries without trying to first use its ranged units to dwindle your numbers or exploit flanks along alternate routes. These are things you could see the AI doing to some extent in Shogun 2 on release, but are astonishingly absent from Rome 2. Formations, a staple of Ancient Roman period combat and often what won battles in Antiquity, completely dissolve into blobs when sent into combat; a far cry from the constant formation and impact units had in the original Rome:TW. Your well set phalanx and legion formations will collapse before impact (usually after throwing javelins), instead these units rely on puffed up numbers CA has put in to give those unit better strength, that was usually due to superior formation. On the Campaign map, AI appear to always try to max out the number of armies they have, resulting in many factions having a 3 or more small Armies of 2 or 3 units, with only 1 army with a medium size force but no where near the number of units it needs to pose a threat. I have managed to find one army in the entire game with a massive unit stack at about turn 30. It came from a random barbarian tribe north of Greece and proceeded to wreck Macedonia, burn Athens, grind Sparta to dust until I could finally see it take out Epirus. Due to the AI splitting its forces, this single fluke army carved out an empire until I smashed it with a Legion half its size, discovering it was nothing more than a bunch of tier 1 troops. After you destroy a faction its remaining armies will then suicide charge with single unit stacks, rather than group up and attack as one. Unit balance has become another major issue. Navies themselves are pointless (beyond later game catapult/ballista ships) while Land armies can instantly gain bigger ships, easily ram the smaller naval triremes and win most boarding actions due to land units having 200 men vs the 60 aboard naval units. That's if you can get the boarding function to work properly for yourself, leaving you forced to use ramming while the AI can pick and choose who to board, although I imagine this will be one of the first things fixed within a month. This makes the formidable Naval powers of Carthage and Athens feel no where near as formidable as they should be to take down. Elephants are far more over powered than they should and a single general unit with Elephants can destroy and entire army on its own. However the worst offender of poor balancing goes to the Roman dog units. These units have trainers which send out packs of dogs as shock troops, which historically were used to scare enemies and weaken them before the real Roman assault began. In Rome 2, however, you might as well build legions of just them as they can destroy units in seconds and stop an elephant or chariot charge dead in its tracks. Rome 2 saving grace is its streamlined map and city management which is really well designed and its fantastic to see your cities grow in size. The technology tree is also streamlined, but still well displaced and easy to understand. I also like the number of factions and the map itself, but waiting for all of them to take their turn takes forever and don't dare play a co-op campaign. Multiplayer is a huge step backwards however, as the great campaign style fight for territory multiplayer is completely gone, leaving only custom battles. The ability to also call on jump-in multiplayer battles while in campaign, first introduced in Napoleon:TW is also no where to be seen. A feature that could save the poor AI.

This was one of the best Mech games on the market in the late 90s. It was a competitor to Mech Warrior and yet a very different Mech game. I'm actually surprised this game has become so forgotten and over shadowed by Mech Warrior that I'm the first to write a review for it on metacritic. Combat was fluid and Mechs moved around on wheels and jump jets, much like Tribes. While many of gameplay video I've seen on youtube don't show just how important speed was in multiplayer. Landing a Heavy Mortar round on a Mech going 100km took some talent, but it was worth the effort to master. To top it off there was even space and zero-g combat.