History Great Battles: Medieval

 

 

Create your own review

This is a good game for the money with the hard to load prob one person had, when the game looks like it`s hanging after pressing play , press your esc key and it will go to the game proprer , if you have probs navigating switch off some of the shadow graphics etc and slide other ones back to lowm

First thing I can't understand is why this game was not marketed more competetively or agrressively, especially with the total war franchise. I was dubious about buying this game for the reason that it seemed obscure. Im glad I did though.

The game does have a few teething problems, some of which are mentioned by the other reviewer who gave this game a 1 star - there is an initial problem getting the game to install, but I found that taking the disk out and putting it back in again, solved the problem. Secondly, I agree that making you play the tutorial is a bad idea. However once you get into the game itself it becomes quite entertaining and strangly addictive.

Campaign map - Many battles and raids to keep you playing for a while, each battle is of varying difficulty levels depending on how you construct your army. Not as good as a total war game unfortunately, but good enough in it's own right. There is a negative side to the campaign, you must save regularly, as there is a chance that if you get ambushed with an inferior army, it seems like you can't retreat and therefore must find some way of winning the battle or starting from a previous saved game. This needs to be addressed... unless I'm missing something?
With both main campaign and single battles you can be either English or French, each have their advantages.

Battle map / battles - Formation and set up is easy enough, controls are easy to grasp - pretty much the same as total war controls. Graphics seem a little basic at first but when you zoom in they don't seem so bad. Saying that, the game doesn't exactly have bad graphics either, so 3/5 for graphics overall. Playing the battles and changing your formations constantly to suite the situation keeps you on your toes and missions can vary depending on the type of task you undertake, for example, you can have raids, full battles, ambushes and protection missions. The pause feature to control your troup movements works surprisingly well and this is one of the things that keeps me coming back to the game.

Troop / army / battle cards selection - Basically, you can customise and recruit the units that suite your personal needs. There are three basic unit types - 1. archers. 2. peasants and 3. cavalry. Each unit type can be updated dramatically with armour, sheilds, skill points and techniques etc. For example, you can recruit a peasant unit and upgrade that unit to heavy infantry with a selection of weapons, sheilds, armour and skill sets to choose from. This is one feature (sadly comparing to total war series again) that the Creative Assembly could possibly implement into their own products in future. You also get to choose your units insignia and colours etc. Overall a very nice feature.

Overall, the game, especially campaign map, could be a lot more flexible and the army / unit numbers could be larger. One thing that really bugs me above anything else in the game are the cut scenes. The games setting is the hundred years war. However, the history channel cut scenes appear to be about the crusades and the knights templar with no reference (video wise) to the english and the french between 1337 and 1453.

I personally reccommend it, especially at this price. Just be aware that, despite total wars recent instability issues, the creative assembly still have the edge... for now.

Let me start by saying that the following are the findings of a not very experienced strategy role player - YMMV. Though in fairness to me I should mention that I went through the whole Doom series (sans cheats), Warcraft, Starcraft, the Rome series, C.O.D. Halo and Tiberian Sun without problems.

I have no idea how this game plays and that's why only 1 star (if I could award 0 I would have)

Cons : Firstly, once you put in the DVD to install the game you are given 4 choices, one of which is install, you click on that and apart from the box changing colour nothing else appears to happen except the occasional whir from the DVD drive for over 6 mins - I actually thought there was a problem not least of all because the game box says system requirements XP/Vista/Win 7 but the booklet inside does not mention Win 7 just XP and Vista and I have Win 7.
Secondly, and after some considerable time , things start to happen, you are asked, again, what language and then installation begins, sometime later it completes. When you first click on the icon to start the game you are asked to register so your scores etc can be recorded on-line, presumably something to do with multiplayer, I choose not to register at this stage, the game still allowed me to continue, things continue with a cut scene. On my system this played very blocky and I skipped it, this may be down to the fact I have a wide screen monitor and no fault of the games.

You are then presented with a menu, but you can only choose the tutorial the other options are locked - pardon......I paid for this I don't expect to be told what bits I can see and what I can't - puerile perhaps...... Starting the tutorial as the English things just fell apart for me, you just go round in circles, literally, picking men (units) for your army, each of which debts your starting amount of money, 5000, and arming them. Once I was down to 1500 I was not allowed to spend any more, who knows why, who cares, and that seemed to be it! No matter which icon I selected, I just seemed to end up back at the arming screen, at no point did I seem to be able to get any further. I spent considerable time reading the accompanying booklet, but nothing............

I'm sure it's me but I don't want total difficulty, I just want to pass a little time enjoying myself, I know I'm not going to be fighting the real hundred years war - although I feel very old after fiddling around with this for aeons, just make it simple stupid!

I'm sure that masses of folk will chime in and say it's all my fault, that I shouldn't give only one star to something I couldn't really get started; and you would be right, but it's my review, I paid for it and what you've got above is how I found it. PS The only plus is that you seem tobe able to play without the DVD needing to be in the drive.

2115|R2S6DW5I1DWDUZ;2115|RB00FSDR9VSVL;2115|R3KHEI44N3DWW9;

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!