While standing by the sega booth and watching the mind blowingly awesome Sonic 4, a PR rep came by and asked a bunch of us media folk if we wanted a sneek peek at Shogun 2. The whole thing seemed like a desperate attempt to get people buzzing about a Total War game. I was taking to a tiny room where two developers were already talking about some of the basics of the game. Everyone in the room didn’t seem to know what was going on.
The presentation jumped right into the combat of the game. Giant waves of Samurais and other Japanese units filled the screen. The developer guided his army with a surprise attack to his enemy, only to be countered by fire arrows, one of the enemy’s units special abilities. The frame rate took a hit when all the units were on screen raging an all out war but the developer assured us they were still constantly tweaking and upgrading their engine until they get the results needed. The only real meat I got out of the what seemed like 5 minute presentation was that the AI will be programed around the tactics of Sun Tzu, and the weather effects were quite beautiful. Granted, the game wasn’t even running on a machine, it looked like it was running off a blu ray disc on a PS3.
This is yet another Total War game released on yet another year. The series is getting borderline stale at this point, and hopefully Creative Assembly can add some spice in the franchise to make it differentand and unique than previous iterations; I just didn’t see it. However, If you’re a fan of the Total War series, I’m sure you’ll have a blast with this one. Shogun 2 game was in a very early pre-alpha build, so don’t expect to see this one on store shelves anytime soon,
