PC Gamer UK Review

Here are some quotes from the PC Gamer UK review I received today in the post. I would post the entire article but that is illegal.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"To impress us - the old hands - NTW needed two things: novelty and refinement. Alas, it offers precious little of the latter and only a flawed form of the former"

"We get exactly the same length of time to succeed where Napoleon failed"

(for the first two mini campaigns)

"Partly due to the fact the CA have inexplicitly chosen to disable diplomacy and manual tax tweaking in [the Egypt campaign] I ran into servre cash flow problems while still some distance from Syria"

""The first time I set out for the land of Muscovy, I had no realistic expectation of reaching it. I controlled almost nothing to the east of Hanover. For turn after turn I expected them to be wiped out by force of arms or the same combination of disease, cold and starvation that ravaged the real 1812 invasion force. Incredibly the coup de grace never came. Apart from a brief scuffle at Minsk there were no incidents of note on the long trek east. My army was never challenged and never troubled by lack of supplies. On arriving at Moscow they overpowered the modest garrison with relative ease. Don't assume that the Campaign AI is broken. It's not. Holding captured cities can be hard"

"NTW's strat AI struggles to produce plausible play, and the new logistics system is so timidly implemented it's barely worth having"

"Playing as Blighty a 20-unit force was shipped over the channel and after a short stroll through Normandy Paris was reached and captured with one click of the auto-resolve button, I scrawled a big red "WTF" into my notes"

Goes onto say that leaving France alone as Britain makes the France do nothing while small one-state nations invade Scotland.
Too big to quote but the author says how the land battles and thrilling to play and watch again and are better than ETW.
Also the new Historical Battles are very good.

"With the high-level AI so shambolic, it's nice to be able to seek solace in Nap's splendid battle layer. While you still see stuff that boggles the mind (idiotic generals, ludicrous cannons, bizarre fortress assaults...) the majority of scraps are thoroughly engaging. A few are downright sublime"

"The only time you're likely to see Boney's forces fighting in an authentic fashion is in multiplayer. one of the few areas where NTW is significantly better than its predecessor"

Says includes MP campaign, the same as the ETW beta at the moment

"By delivering dunderheaded opponents and a half-hearted supply system CA haven't done themselves or Boney justice"

The summary and score:

"Not brave or bright enough to wow Total War veterans, but the improved battles and multiplayer save the day.
Score: 82%

(ETW got 94%)

All quotes (C) Future Publishing Ltd 2010

P.S. If you have any question I'll try to answer them from the info in the review.

Message to Moderators: Please do not delete this thread, or ban me, as the quotes the magazine only come from 4 out of 130 pages and under the fair use doctrine this is considered allowable.
Thank-You

Hm.. Sounds.. Fair?

No as it is in a magazine and although they sometime post them online that's a few months after and also its not on sale in the shops yet (i am a subscriber) so unfortunately there is no way of seeing it all unless i posted images put i don't want to get banned etc. Which is likely if i did.

Originally Posted by helmersen

Hm.. Sounds.. Fair?

lol fair? Fair would be to give out this game for free since those of us who bought ETW STILL have not gotten the full working product that was advertised, that we paid for. That would be fair.

Sorry, I just read the part where it was a magazine : Thanks, though

Oh, they are being generous. I guess CA had to pay 'em to get THIS review.

Originally Posted by Lockhard

Oh, they are being generous. I guess CA had to pay 'em to get THIS review.

Well I think that you would be correct in their review of Empire Here.
But it seems they have been fair on both sides of the argument this time around. except that they never mentioned in Empire and this review about technical problems but they do only test on two PC's.

Well this will make things interesting.

Hmmmmm......interesting.

haha told ya Nappy will be just as bad.

Originally Posted by emperor77

haha told ya Nappy will be just as bad.

Yeah. 82% is a terrible score.

Not that review scores mean anything.

And before I get the same old hilarious people going "Yeah, CA bribes the reviewers!" I mean a review score is an arbitrary number.. how on earth do you quantify game enjoyment or value? Answer: You can't. All you can have is the writers' personal opinion.

Originally Posted by Dain

Yeah. 82% is a terrible score.

Not that review scores mean anything.

And before I get the same old hilarious people going "Yeah, CA bribes the reviewers!" I mean a review score is an arbitrary number.. how on earth do you quantify game enjoyment or value? Answer: You can't. All you can have is the writers' personal opinion.

They only bribe reviewers when they get a good score. We need a smiley with a foil hat and a black helicopter circling above.

That's a good point, though. There are movies, for example, that I would give a 75--or lower--as a critic, but I still love watching (e.g., Mothra vs. Godzilla, any Jackie Chan movie). Everyone might already know this, but esp for the non-Americans out there: these numbers seem to follow the exact same logic as the grading system used in American schools, which is almost certainly the origin.

Sounds like the campaigns won't be that good. However i like to play alot of multiplayer so all will not be lost.

the review is showing pretty much what people here were expecting from NTW - i.e. not much except more multiplayer options....

A bit what I expected, no real improvement over ETW (at least not enough to buy another full priced game for me). Unless I read real good things on this forum, or some pretty good mods show up (should the game for some reason be more moddable than ETW) I'm not getting this one.

Originally Posted by JanWilm

A bit what I expected, no real improvement over ETW (at least not enough to buy another full priced game for me)

What full priced game are you talking about? You can buy Nappy for £17 delivered!

Well that magazine sucks, most other revieuws are possitive and thats there opinion, my opinion for what i have seen is that NTW will be a great game.

Originally Posted by klok

Well that magazine sucks, most other revieuws are possitive and thats there opinion, my opinion for what i have seen is that NTW will be a great game.

Yes, 82% is not positive in the least

Originally Posted by Dain

Yes, 82% is not positive in the least

From the magazines scoring system explained:
"76%-89% Good
Enjoyable well-made and entertaining - just falling short of true greatness"

The magazine is harsh overall compared to other review sources so don't take it too badly.

Their average score is 69% BTW.

Originally Posted by klok

Well that magazine sucks, most other revieuws are possitive and thats there opinion, my opinion for what i have seen is that NTW will be a great game.

blind faith eh - u cant beat it!