Recent reviews by Ma'iq

Near the city of Chorrol













I have hundreds of hours on PS3, dw

Elder Scrolls was NOT meant to be online. People want another Skyrim-like Elder Scrolls, no one was asking for this.

DISCLAIMER: This game is going to save the Total War franchise (In my opinion). But to the seasoned Total War vet....well let us just say they may think other wise. AND I did Beta test this game

Pros-

- Blood effects (DLC ONLY!!!!!!) are much better than other Total Wars

- Battles are EPIC. The new flying units really work well and are heavily balanced. Examples: flying monsters can only attack every few seconds but in return do heavy damage. Just like flying monsters, Gyrocopters have powerful blasts that only shoot every 30 sec-to one minute. Magic is pretty balanced seeing it's reload time is long.

- A lot of attention to detail like Irondrakes (Dwarfs with flamethrowers) having beard armor and again dwarfs having their beards fly around in battle makes for a ridiculous but very convincing feel. Men, Orcs, Goblins, Humans whatever you want to call them will shout phrases about the enemy and even say certain things about a certain enemy they're fighting.

- Diplomacy has a new option of having other factions join your confederation (which means they will join you).

- Campaign has the same features like giving commandments to citys and each faction having their own advantages.

- Brought back traits and skill trees for your leaders.

- DLC whoring isn't as bad

Cons-

- Campaign is severely dumbed down. Examples: No raising and lowering tax levels, no exempting regions from taxes, no real empire building feel (like no army traditions, no followers for your leaders, and the populace will get angry with out a reason (because in past Total War titles it told you why the people would be angry)).

- Magic either does no damage or too much damage.

- STILL no general speeches (or at least really lame ones)

- Battles have no formations to start out with.

- No naval combat.

- Graphics are worst (they've got cartoony for some reason).
- Unit collision is still bad.

Hopefully this review was helpful.

Game's score: 8/10

LOVE IT

Pros-

- Charging actually works (unlike empire)

- Just like any other total war lol

Just......disturbing......

no

The best Total War in years. Lets's start with graphics shall we, I honestly can't find anything wrong with the graphics of this game because they are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beautiful for 2011. Like soldiers making the correct mouth movement when they talk and rain dripping off of a soldier's helmet. Great attention to detail, like unique battle animations for soldiers fighting and soldiers are able to gang up on an enemy to kill them faster. Music is fast paced and great, especially victory music, its so damn catchy and makes you feel good that you actually got a victory. Voice acting is like butter on toast (I think they hired some real English speaking Japanese people even though that sounds racist), in all my hours i havn't found a single bug, loading screens are a bit long, not an improvement from ETW and NTW, (where in those games loading screens were incredibly fast and it didn't have to go to a loading screen to get to the menu, but in this game, you do have to sit through a load screen to get to the menu). Diplomacy has slightly downgraded since the last Total War, like how you can not trade regions, but it's cool how it has little cut scenes for the diplomats instead of floating heads like in the two previous games. Speaking of cut scenes THERE ARE ACTUALLY CUT SCENES, I mean yes the advisor still takes you around the map but the cut scenes add depth, for instance when one of the great clans is destroyed there's a video of the daimyo of their clan commiting Seppuku. Also more easy to under stand research, simple trees of either Bushido (war) or way of Chi (civil research). And you know how I was talking about depth, well you actually feel like a leader, you can assighn generals to be commissioners of war (for 2+ recruitments slots and less up keep) or for finance (which will get you more money), more RPG elements like generals having custom traditions, skills, and personalitys. Also they brought back the general speeches (when your general give a cut scene speech in the beginning of each battle, skipable if you dont want to hear it). My final verdict......

10/10

This game.....Is great, but has many flaws too. Gorgeous graphics for 2011 like separate strands of grass, pretty realistic looking people but poor up-close textures including people with clubbed hands and feet (meaning all people in the game have their fingers and toes all attached). Voice acting is fine, I mean A LOT of the voice actors are the same (I think there is only six different ones), but the men kind of sound bad like a cliche bandit with a rough evil and voice. Controls are great and easy to get used to. Story is probably one of the weakest of the Elder Scrolls, with kind of cliche dragons coming back and that ♥♥♥♥. Definitely dumbed-down form the other Elder Scrolls like these epic dragons and trolls being taken down by a few shots and running around. And this last point is essential in RPGs, THE PEOPLE IN THE GAME DON'T NOTICE WHAT YOU'VE DONE, besides them thanking you over and over for stupid small tasks you've done for them but you save the world and stop the civil ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ war and people don't say thank you, they don't say how their lives will be different now that the war is done, and act like the war or dragon crisis is still going (even when you have finished them) by saying "Roads are dangerous with the war and the dragons coming back," like they haven't heard the news that dragons are gone or the war is over, because that is pretty big news to me. And the game is pretty lifeless. My final verdict....

7/10

Laggy, boring, sharks are not that big, and they leave you alone.

5/10