Total War: Rome II Angry Review
Release Date: September 3rd, 2013
Platform: Windows
Developer: he Creative Assembly
Publisher: SEGA
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1 Offline Player, 2-8 Online Players
Angry Joe gives Total War: Rome II some much needed tough love. Roman Style. How does the latest in his favorite strategy series fair? Find out in this comprehensive 42 minute Rant & Review!
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251 thoughts on “Total War: Rome II Angry Review”
Everyone praises the new patch 14 for its updated siege AI.
AngryJoe, care to give RTW2 some (tough) love ?
…would be interesting to have a comparison on what was fixed 1 year down the line.
you fakin bitch whoyou think ya re te game should get 10/10 u batch
Medieval 2 wtih Stainless Steel, or Deus Lo Vult, is still by far the best Total War.
Rome 2 was… it was and still is inherently broken. So inherently broken at its very core that no amount of patching or mods can fix how terrible the programming and design of this game is. It is just a bad game.
Joe gave it a 5 because of what it could be. But Rome 2 can never be that, because it is just terribly made at its very foundation. This game is a 2/10, not a 5 or 6.
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Is Rome total war 2 FIXED? what can you guys tell me? I just got a new pc and I want to buy it, but after watching this review…….not…so much.
Ah err… kinda. They’ve done a lot (been about twelve patches) which have fixed a lot of the technical problems (bugs, performance and AI issues.) I personally haven’t had the time to test out a lot of the recent patches as much as I’ve liked to, so I’d recommend you check out Heir of Carthage’s channel at Youtube, he goes through each patch and can give you a better idea on how much the game has improved. From what I can tell so far, it’s significantly improved.
If you do pick it up, I’d get it on sale though. As performance is still spotty, and varies widely. Some people game runs great, other’s it’s crap. I’d also probably picking up Caesar in Gaul, and or Hannibal at the Gate’s DLC once you get your feet wet. The Grand Campaign was just too ambitious for CA honestly, and I think the smaller more confined DLC ones are a lot better.
If you’re a first time TW player however, don’t get Rome II. A lot of people harp on the fact it’s been “streamlined” which I personally don’t agree with. I’m a long time TW vet, and they introduced a lot of new stuff and systems, especially on the campaign map, which can easily overwhelm a new player. Get Shogun II. One.) It’s cheaper so you don’t need to worry about blowing sixty bucks on a game you may or may not like Two.) This is the simple TW game, not Rome. (Which is good, people praised it for it) It’s systems are simple and easy to use. Strategy is the traditional rock paper scissors between sword infantry, spears, cavalry, and arches (with a few exception here and there). Three.) It’s also the easiest to get into. Things aren’t thrown at you all at once, and the tutorials are excellent.
Bottom line, wait for a sale if you’re a veteran TW player, or if you’re a newbie get Shogun II to get the hang of things.
I probably don’t have the best specs but my game usually lags like hell on the campain map like 8 fps tops, while in battle it usually runs higher. But I still encounter crashes of the game for no reason, while other games runs really smooth.
I also agree that this game have really too many streamlined things compared to older TW. I personally finished Medieval TW 2 a while back and felt really satisfied conquiring the world as Egypt, while I play as Sparta in Rome 2 and have only really gotten a challange by Higher tier soldiers/ factions that have units with better stats.
All so far in Rome 2 I feel my experience being bleak and unfulfilled, its causing me to yawn and feel boored while I play. I usually use two computers to acutally have stuff to do on waiting time of this game.
The only thing I found hillarious in the game was that unlike Rome 1 I conqured the whole of Rome in a single turn (Not game turn but attack turn) Basically boating in my three large Spartan armies and march upon their cities and wham Rome was mine. I really auto battled it too without losses as their cities had like 0 garison.
In rome 1 I actually feared attacking rome too early, seeing as it got the most advanced city and troops early on out of many…but in Rome 2 it was a cake walk.
What I liked about the sea in Rome 1 was that a small naval army could take out a whole Army that is transported by fewer ships.
~
Another thing in Rome 2 that really bothers me is the routing system, sure its cool seeing armies spread out like everywhere…but its fairly annoying when they still can reform to chase them all over the map to find those bastards still putting up some resistance. Also that even thought you surround your opponent, they can still at points flee right through your troops and survive where they normally should be butchered.
All in all it generally turns out that armies get knocked back from routing than being crushed like in Rome 1 due to bad AI.
I was twelve years old when Rome: Total War was released. I fell in love with that game, and played the CAMPAIGN for three years straight. I remember that even with the AI of the day, there were hard-fought battles. I remember that despite the limitations it had in the day, the AI actually tried to kill your dudes. Well. I tell you this. I watched the god damn parts about the unit AI with the benny hill music. I will demonstrate my initial response, and my final response.
First response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb8fWUUXeKM
And then it hit me after the benny hill shit. This was the sequel to the game I grew up with. Enter response 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHfsr2NhfzI&feature=player_detailpage#t=76
And then there was the campaign map. I remember how memorable the speeches were. How they chanced as your general went from a scrubby, spoiled teenage family member to a fifty year old god damn roman equivalent of Patton ;_; I remember that I had a god damn miniature temple made out of fucking lego, that had bits of paper with the names of ten star generals on it. I remember a time when god damn speeches were shit that actually touched you.
And then after THREE YEARS of being HONEST TO GOD ENTERTAINED by the CAMPAIGN on a DAILY BASIS, in 2007 there was MULTIPLAYER to look forward to. I took my struggle online, starting as a Julii newbie like everyone else. Made a newbie clan, and saw it torn down by an honest to god real life neo-nazi. Then I was picked up from the gutter by the Sith clan, trained for TWO YEARS, and beat the shit out of Paulus with Armenia. To date I have not come across ANYTHING that approached that level of satisfaction in ANY RTS. That feeling of anxiety when you fight your clan leader for the first time, or the pride I felt when me and my training buddy beat the two best players in the clan in a 2v2 for the first time, now what the fuck is left? Staring at the Turn Rotation screen in campaign for 5 minutes?! Not even the avatar conquest mode from Shogun 2?!
I played Rome 1 from 2004 until 2012. I’ve gone from struggling with the tutorial to having trained over twenty tournament players, I pointed out the dumbing down stuff since Medieval 2′s MP, even though I loved it’s campaigns. When ETW was released and we were served that shit I prayed to every deity I could find, PLEASE, Don’t let Creative Assembly fuck up Rome 2, and when they announced it, I spent many a night curled up in a ball crying because I was afraid they would do exactly this.
And the worst part?? The worst part? the WORST FUCKING PART OF IT ALL is that when I TALK to the kids in MY OLD CLAN TODAY THEY THINK THAT IT IS NORMAL TO PAY FOR A DLC TO UNLOCK A FUCKING FACTION, WHEN THEY ALREADY SPENT 65 DOLLARS OF THEIR PARENTS MONEY ON THE BAREBONES PIECE OF SHIT ITSELF.
Why? Why? Why couldn’t they just make a 60 dollar remake of RTW1 and add the campaign features they got in RTW2 right now? I literally can’t stop seeing the AI from this review in my head. Oh god, oh god make it stop
В целом согласен с Джо, но к сожалению я её купил, при чем купил коллекционку. Зря, зря, зря, зря.
great review, joe. i gotta admit i’m a fan cos you tell it like it is. i’m from UK and most UK reviewers are being paid for giving good reviews about any old cack. there’s been controversy about it and some guy even got sacked for giving kane & lynch 2:dog days a 7/10 which i and all my gaming m8s thought was a fair score [tho 6 was prob more accurate].
well, i want to believe R2:TW is/was good but i’m not gonna bother. i kinda like Napoleonic period so enjoyed NTW but i STILL play that oldie but goldie M2:TW.
actually, to be precise, i play M2:TW with the Stainless Steel [& LotR:III Age] mod. i’ve played as Templars surrounded by turks and egytians in Jerusalem and thoroughly enjoyed battling my way thru the ports to create a massive mercantile empire the Carthaginians would’ve been proud of.
M2:TW SS mod runs on my old i3 quad core w no grfx card just an intel grfx chipset, 4gb ram with settings set to max detail and huge unit size and, for its age, it looks damn good!
so R2:TW? booo!
M2:TW? hurrahhh!!
SHOGUN 2? hurrahhhhh!
I think rome II is fixed for 90%
The land battles are nearly perfect, the only bugs are in the Siege battles, were they still throw torches to the gates..
Naval battles are also fixed. Campaign AI also fixed and got a bit harder.. Now i can recommend the game, but i still think its overpriced when you don’t buy it in Sales…
I bought it at release, and i cried… Now i can be a little more proud on the game.. (as loyal total war fan) But for starting players: i recommend Rome I (and barbarion invasion, i played the expansion over 500+ hours)=> medieval II (also a great Lord Of the Rings Mod called “Third age total war”)=> Shogun 2 => Rome II => The rest, in that order…
it turns out i was lucky with this game when it came out as far s the ai goes at least. can you do a new review of it now after the patches. NOT CinG. that DLC is buggy as fuck.
Thanks for this review Joe!
I love the Total War series too and it almost breaks my heart to see how this game ended up. I hope this doesn’t become a trend for this game series.
Really starting to regret buying this, even with the discounted Steam sale price. I’ve already decided to go back to playing Shogun 2 once my campaign in Rome is finished.
If I’d waited and watched this review first, I would have known better. It’s just hard to be betrayed like this with Rome II. I don’t know if this is Sega’s fault or Creative Assembly, but it really doesn’t matter now. Any CA product in the future is going to receive a good hard look at before I dive into it like this ever again.
What are your PC specs Joe?How well do you run R2TW?
youre very right we need our great total war back joe !!
Joe man you really need start streaming on Twitch TV I would watch you everyday =D
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I haven’t played this since it was released. Very buggy and uninteresting I dont even care if they have mostly fixed it which I doubt. It’s simply too little to late to keep me into this game or series.
I still regularly play shogun 2 with darth mod, I am addicted to it, then again I’ve pretty much mastered it I just love winning enough to keep playing.
That one guy who died from cancer or something and was allowed to play the game before he died even got his face put in the game…ugh…1 he was lying when he said it was great fun it’s a broken game no way he played it with all smiles, 2…he must be rolling in his grave the way it turned out.
Hi Joe
Please, please, pleaseeee!!! do a caesar in gaul expansion review… PLEASEEEEE!!!!!
no the first siege is laggy at best. and thats the 2nd battle you fight and its not even a big battle
…is Rome II fixed yet?
I remember seeing a PR video just before release with a member of the team breathlessly spouting all of the great stuff in Rome II… which sounded exactly like the original Rome TW. I mean after every line the guy uttered I thought to myself “Sounds like the original Rome TW”.
I went from being quietly interested to see the game to suddenly completely cynical… then I saw this review.
Oh boy, was this thing a turd on release or what?
Anyway, I’m really curious to see if they’ve managed to fix it yet; what’s the good word?
Yeah I dont think I’ve even installed any patches I played for an hour or 2 before just uninstalling it. I cant stand broken games at launch I have no tolerance for it. I have played shogun 2 for over a thousand hours thats…nuts. I loved it that much, and will stick with that after installing it. For whatever reason got some glitch that would crash whenever I try to enter a battle, or they invade me.
Well, after seeing the reviews and some in game footage, I’ll definitely buy the game someday…in a year or so. The original R:TW is my favorite game of all time, I played it for more than 1.000 (in words: one thousand) hours (vanilla and tons of mods)…so its successor is not only an insult to the franchise, somehow I feel it’s an insult to me personally. And on top of that they want me to pay 7,49 Euros (~9-10 USD) for packs of THREE measly factions each? Factions that should’ve been in the release in the first place? Where I probably only want to play one of the three anyway? Screw that, there’s no way in hell I’ll ever reward such incompetence and greed with anything even close to the full price. But I know I have to buy it someday…
u guys are right but rome 2 is a great game thay just stuffed up big time and couldn’t complet it by the deadline which is there own fault but atleast there updating the game which is taking forever. but there making rome 2 playable. instead of just saying it’s shit just wait till patch 9 comes out hopefully they’ll have fixed the siege towers and walls by then cos thay just fixed a bunch of things with update 7. check out the patch notes guys and keep and eye cos when u see patch 9 out maybe you’ll be able to enjoy the game more. i’m loving it cos my siege units finally stands still when attacking a new target and thay made generals harder 2 kill no more losing your general to a single sling shot barrage
Agreed. Seriously it is so fun, yes there is still bugs and glitches especially with a co op campaign but still worth the frustration. Looking through all the unit mods on the steam workshop lets you customize your experience and more importantly the way your units look as well as hundreds of new units made by players. I agree by patch 9 I will be playing Vanilla with just unit mods to make them look cooler. Everything else should be fixed by then, Angry Joe please have another look at the game in a month to tell everyone it is worth there money. Because the more the merrier!!!!!
I loved the original Rome so I got myself a $2000 gaming rig to play its successor. I did this before the game was released
I’m now replaying the original Rome. If anyone is looking for someone to game with add me on steam imaunit31. I’ve got about 40 games now thanks to steam sales
Too bad I was considering buying the game hope they patch it…
I feel like they should go over the game now. The patches seem to be working. I would still love to see what he thinks after the fixes.
After patch 5 the game is really good. With all the MOD made from the community every aspect of the game is fixed. Blood and gore is way better then in shogun 2. check out the mods in the workshop. It may take a while reading which ones you want and which ones are compatible withe eachother but it defiantly makes the game what total war should be.
what iz the show(vid clip) that starts at: 12:20
???
xD
It’s Ylvis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaEnaoydUUo
Good day! I simply want to give an enormous thumbs up
for the nice data you
disappointment of the year, 40% bigger budget and they still messed it up, not acceptable.
I may be a ‘little’ bit biast, but since patch 5 I’ve found all the bugs to be gone and the core game is fantastic. Sure there are faults – the political system is useless and balance between factions is flawed. It may be a bit too easy but god damnit it’s a great game!
Rome2 could had been a great game if it had gave it more time in to the game
[...] & CONS Breakdown Here: http://angryjoeshow.com/2013/09/total-war-rome-ii-angry-review/ Video Rating: 4 / 5 Share this:TwitterFacebookGoogleLike this:Like [...]
its recently been determined by the CA Q&A of late, that this current dev team had no idea what the family tree even really did or anything behind it and removed it. The long term fans know more about how the game is meant to work than the developers. We have youngens in there basically! cocky little young bastards who thought they knew it all.
People… When will these video game publishers stop ruining potentially good/great games with rushed release dates. These boardroom morons would rather cash in for instant returns on their investments rather than giving developers the time they need to complete a game. The old edict, “fix it in the mix” doesn’t work here (or anywhere else in that matter). DLC should be used to improve an already completed and polished game and patches should be used to fix bugs that slipped through the QA testing. These two thing should not be used with the intention of finishing a rushed, incomplete game, EVER!
Unfortunately with most companies run by “suites” instead of, ya know, developers, artists, and designers, then games (or by all media in general), that are already popular and financially successful, become ripped apart into something not impressive AND anti-consumer friendly.
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What do you give this game after patch 4? And would you recommend shogun 2 over Rome 2
I’m a Total war fan, and I think I’d recommend Shogun. Even though Rome has more diverse units and strategies, everything feels more signifigant in Shogun, considering you all pull from the same units, buildings and technoligies. There’s a stronger sense of achievement and the multiplayer is amazing and very deep. If you decide to buy Shogun and feel like multiplayer hit me up on Steam: emil4383