SEGA PC Shogun 2 : Total War

This doesn't take away anything from the developer's love of the source material. It's clear they didn't revisit Shogun simply because someone in marketing thought it was a good idea to cash in on an old game design. There is a je ne sais quoi elegance...

UI and presentation ; Gameplay options ; Combat ; City management ; Graphics

Unforgiving difficulty ; Diplomacy ; Shogun

You'll have access to unlimited movement, a surplus on pretty much all of the resources you'll need, and perhaps the coolest feature is for one day construction.

Shogun 2’s only major flaws are outside the game. Shogun 2 is much less friendly to modders than the series has been in the past; the hardware requirements (and consequent loading times) seem a little bit high; and occasionally drop-in battles are hard...

AI that can play its own game; immense replay value; Total War embraces multiplayer; fantastic level of detail, beautiful artwork and epic visual style

Some crash issues; AI still has some holes in certain situations

William Abner is the Editor-in-Chief of GameShark . He is also co-founder of No High Scores and is a regular on the Jumping the Shark podcast.

There must be some mistake. Whatever game I've been playing lately -- the splash screen says it's called Shogun 2 and was created by Creative Assembly -- can't be from the same folks who made a spectacular mess of Empire: Total War. It's certainly not...