Viking
Invasion is a solid effort by the people at Activision and Creative
Assembly to extend the enjoyment and playability of the excellent
Medieval Total War strategy game. While not breaking too much new
ground, this game does an excellent job of making you want to revisit an
old game that you may have grown tired of in the past. It offers a
decent amount of new content, new challenges, and new strategies. You
may think at first that this game feels like more of the same thing, but
if you let yourself play in the spirit of the times (and who hasnt
wanted to be a Viking?), then you will find that there is re-playability
in an older title.
First up, a
quick rundown of the new features in Viking Invasion: There are 29 new
units, eight playable factions for the Viking campaign, a new technology
tree for Viking campaign, three new factions for the original game (Aragonese,
Hungarians, Sicilians), and three new siege weapons (flaming catapult,
boiling oil, organ gun). Thats a good chunk of new stuff to play with.
The game is
still split into the same two main components: the overhead strategy
map, and the 3D battle sequences. All unit movements and building take
place on the map. A helpful new addition to the game is a pre-battle
screen that lets you view your troops and your enemies, as well as a 3D
flyover of the terrain (this was less useful) before you go into a
campaign. From this screen, a player can organize his reinforcements as
well as view his adversarys. You can always choose to have the battles
be determined by the computer, which I often do, as I find the strategy
portion of the game to be more fun than the battles. This is a wonderful
and necessary improvement over the original games tiny grey screen
which showed some of this same info, but in a cluttered and unreadable
manner. This new screen also adds the ability to quick save and quick
load without having to hit escape. Nice touch.
The most
exciting element of the expansion is of course the ability to play as
the marauding Viking hordes. While the Vikings are only available in one
era of the game (called the Viking Era, easily enough), they offer a new
set of challenges to a player who may have grown complacent in their
strategies for playing this game.
When playing
the Viking era, players familiar with the original game will notice that
the map is no longer the large European/Asian/North African world map,
but now a zoomed in map of the British Isles. While this sounds like a
condensation of the game, it really isnt as the British Isles are
carved up into numerous territories and the 8 factions are at each
others throats from the beginning. The map feels big and there is a lot
of land to conquer.
I had not
played Medieval Total War in quite some time, and I initially tried to
utilize my old tactics from the original game while playing as the
Vikingsthis was a mistake. The Vikings (and the era as a whole) offers
a whole new set of challenges. The production of income and the
development of technology are a lot different in the Viking era than in
the middle ages. Players will notice that unit production is also a bit
different from the original game. When playing for the first time, it is
a good idea to right click on the buildings and units you want to
construct in the queue to get a brief description about their benefits
and upkeep, as well as to know what buildings produce which units. Your
economic strategies will also have to be modified to account for the
unbearably slow upgrades to farmlands that happen in this time period.
I attempted my old strategy of massive military
buildup followed by massive attacks of overwhelming might on my
neighbors. This worked well for a few turns, but pretty soon I was
running out of money. I realized that I needed to play more in the
spirit of a Viking raids, raids, raids! This is where true enjoyment
began for me in this game. The Vikings, historically, were never too
interested in gaining territory, but rather in accumulating wealth. So I
started a hit and run campaignbingo. The game moved from being
something that was entertaining, but not compelling, to something that
was much more fun and a different experience (somewhat) from the
original. Soon I was cutting a swath of terror and avarice through the
English countryside. Ah the joy. Another thing that I noticed while
playing this were the constant updates to the personalities of my
generals and rulers. Generals also die of old age now. While it was
unfortunate to lose an excellent general, it adds another aspect of
realism to the game.
There are a
few negatives to the game, however. Other than the addition of the
Viking era (which is fairly substantial), there are no real additions to
the original game. There are three new factions and a smattering of new
units (I never got to the point where I could use the Organ Gun, which
has its own section in the manual). There is still the problem with poor
frame rates during battle sequences that have lots of units. I dont
have the most stellar video card on my rig, but it should be able to
keep the frame rate up when the only thing being shown are a few hundred
sprites with minimal movements. And yes, the units in the battles are
still the little cookie cutter soldiers who all move and attack in the
same robotic fashion (however, I believe that the next installment of
Total War, in Roman times, will move away from sprites and towards real
3D characters). When you install the game for the first time, it warns
you about being unable to play your old saved games from the original. I
didnt know quite what to make of this as the old games still load I
am guessing that it means that old saved games will not be updated to
utilize the new features of the expansion. This is unfortunate, but not
too important.
Viking Invasion is a solid, if not a stellar,
expansion to Medieval Total War. Fans of the first game will enjoy this,
but may not want to spend the $30 dollars or so that it costs. The
Viking campaign is a lot of fun to play, but the absence of any real
modifications of the original game can be viewed as disappointing.
Overall, it is fun and adds new dimensions to an already good game.