14 DAY TRIAL // I believe that the Total War series has one of the best concepts of the video game strategy world at the moment, and I am happy to report that initial impressions, after about 4 hours of single player and 3 multiplayer matches, suggest that Shogun 2 is the game to make fans forget the issues they had with Empire and Napoleon.
The entire presentation of Total War: Shogun 2 is pitch perfect, with Japanese concepts and motifs infusing the interface and the mechanics of the game and all the concepts are easy to identify and understand.
The computer also is much better when it comes to tactics on the real-time battlefield, capable of holding a battle line together as he advances and keen to move up to high ground when it is on the defensive and has local superiority in terms of archers.
In the 10 battles I tried out, I have also never seen a suicidal charge from the enemy commander.
Best of all, I actually suffered two defeats at the hands of the computer, although to my defense I was outnumbered two to one in both of them (these are odds which often lead to victory in other Total War game).
I cannot yet talk at length about the more strategic thinking of the computer opponents, but initial impressions suggest they are eager to get trade deals up and running and seem to be battling each other quite a bit.
There are also some less pleasant facts linked to the Shogun 2 launch, especially when it comes to the graphical quality of the game.
The game currently does not support anti-aliasing for DirectX 9 and 10, but the developers are promising that they will add it in a patch which arrives in about four weeks.
There are also problems with the way graphical cards are being detected, resulting in less than optimal performance for those who are affected.
The official support forum can be very helpful when it comes to fixing such issues.
Here's a look at the game in action: