Recent reviews by TickleBiscuit

BFV except it's more like Arma and aims for realism. Squad communication is a must. Devs have mentioned adding a Meta-campaign. I'll be playing this for a long time.

This game was fun to play-through and has a ton of potential. Devs need to add a larger world map to play through and more characters to influence. They also need to fix the stats curve. It's real easy to build up one gladiator early in the game and then it's easy mode until end-game.

The depth, replayability, and reward system in this game makes for an experience that is unmatched by any other game so far. This game provides you with so many choices to make in real-time that it inspires you to keep playing mission after mission.

10/10

UPDATED 12/13/15

I changed my review since after not playing the single-player for a while I enjoyed going back through it. This truly is one of the best single-player games ever made and if you've never played or have a badass PC and haven't played in a while then definitely pick this up. The storytelling in this game is ingenious and fresh yet still part of a long legacy of GTA games. Having three completely different characters to play with is like having three different plot-lines going on in a tv-show. Rockstar's attention to detail is unmatched and keeps you listening to the absolutely ridiculous people on the radio or looking for a Burger Shot truck to blow up in order for their competitor's stock value to go up.

My favorite thing about this game has to be the soundtrack. They got some badass producers to find a diverse group of musicians to create original music just for the game. Artists like Neon Indian, Flying Lotus, A$AP Rocky, Oh No, and Twin Shadow wrote original songs that are all some of their best music. Kenny Loggins as a classic rock DJ is hilarious.

All this being said, What I said originally about the online play still stands:

Do you like being randomly killed all the time by nothing?

Do you like wating in a lobby for 30mins trying to get a heist going only to have everyone leave?

Do you enjoy never unlocking any car parts since the requirement is to win races and no one ever races (or see above question)?



Rockstar really needs to redesign online play for their next game. There should be missions built into the world like in RDR but with the gang system of San Andreas, that would be fun. Organizing Heists is a pain in the ass and the loading involved with doing any matchmaking related activity is excrutiating.

UPDATE: With DEI this game is great. Some of what I said about the todo lists still ring true but DEI brings new depth to this game.

WARNING: CAESAR DLC IS COMPLETE WASTE OF $15

I really wanted to like this game. I even still find myself playing it from time to time. The original Rome Total War not only got me into strategy games but started my obsession with Roman history. When they announced this game I was on the CA page waiting for every bit of coverage.

After playing since release, I have come to terms with how monotinously boring it is. The tech tree, the province system, the trait system, land plotting system, general creation, spy/dignitary/veteran system are all designed to add content to the game. Unfortunately, all that these features really do is take away from the abstracted depth that the original had. Everything feels too much like a todo list that takes too much work to navigate through.

Another issue I have is the ridiculous amount of tiny factions. Not only do they make waiting for the next turn a chore, they remove all sense of there being an epic war between nations. Often I'm thinking 'OK time to take out these guys.' Later game doesn't have this problem but by then (especially if you are Rome, Greece, Egypt, or Seleucid) you are practically invincible. The late game is not only annoyingly time consuming due to all the menus you have to click through, it isn't even worth playing due to the balance issues...

The DLC for this game is the most absurd thing I've ever seen from CA. I had to pay 3.00 just to have blood and gore in a game about sending massive armies of melee troops at each other? Really, CA? And the Caesar in Gaul campaign is a joke. It's the same exact thing with a different tech tree, a general named Caesar (and Marc Antony), and a few extra units. Definitely not worth $15. Really dissapointed by this.

The redundant roman units, slow loading textures, long battle load times, clunky naval battles, over-crowded/sized unit grouping, boring political system(the three territory system of the original was much better), frustrating multiplayer campaign system, completely unbalanced campaign(which is expected but still pretty excessive... Egypt), awkward campaign camera, and unatractive UI are just a few more of the things that make this game an epic failure.

In fact, I can't think of a single thing about this game that I liked that Rome 1 didn't do just as well, if not better. Even the graphics engine isn't properly optimized to look relatively decent on my Core i7, Radeon R9 280x machine. I have to stress to anyone who hasn't played the original...

Go play the original Rome: Total War, it is an incredible game that is much more fun than this mess of a project. Hopefully in a couple years Rome 2 will have been modded to the point that it is worth playing again.