During the time that I've had this site going and also when I wrote for Swankygames, I've never hidden my affection for the Total War series of games.  It doesn't get much better than these games to me.  Build up the armies, march them across the land then watch the corpses pile up on the battlefield as your cavalry, spearmen, and archers decimate the enemy in some sort of perverse game of rock-paper-scissors (archers > infantry, infantry > cavalry, cavalry > archers).  Unlike the standard RTS which is just a massive click-fest, Total War games make you actually think, plan ahead, and show some level of intelligence beyond what hotkeys build what unit the fastest.  I still believe what I said in my review of Viking Invasion but it also applies to the entire Total War series:

No game or series of games can even come close to comparing to the tactical acumen you have to posses to win at this game, not to mention some graphics that will continually have you panning the battlefield just to take in the entire picture. Yes all you Warcraft, Age of Empires, and Command & Conquer people please take notice and realize that you all are just a bunch of hyper-caffeinated click fests pantywaists. Do you even consider things like flanking, using forests for cover, archery ammo count or rear guard actions? Well, you probably do worry about rear guard action and how to get around it but that falls under don't ask don't tell.

A great many number of sites fell over themselves to be one of the first to call Rome: Total War  the best strategy game of this year or the best strategy games ever. Undoubtedly, you've read those reviews by now and in some respects I'm in complete agreement with them. In terms of the graphics, the scope of the game, and combination of strategic and tactical elements, Rome:TW wildly surpasses it's predecessors.  The graphics are fully three dimensional now, both on the strategic map and the tactical battles. Rather than have simple 2-d sprites for units, all individual units are fully realized 3-d models.  This makes for interesting results, particularly when heavier units, such as war elephants, slam into infantry units and send the infantry flying to and fro.

On the scope of the game, it's much more involved.  For example, rather than simply dragging and dropping units into regions as was done in Medieval and Shogun, you must move units along roads or flat areas and also must give slower units (such as siege artillery) more time to move than cavalry since the heavier units cover less ground per turn. 

More importantly, boats can not simply be used as "hopscotch" points to go from one land mass to another. In Shogun and Medieval if you had a string of boats in adjoining sectors and they were connected to land masses, you could simply drag your land units from one land mass to the other one in one turn.  This greatly helped game speed but it also was unrealistic.  Now, you must load your units onto ships and physically move the boats to their destination. Provided they don't sink before reaching their destination of course. 

The really ingenious portion of Rome:TW relates to how the strategic map directly parlays into the tactical battlefield.  In Shogun and Medieval there were random tactical maps generated based on general parameters for a particular region.  In Rome:TW however, where your units are located on the strategic map is directly related to what will appear on the tactical map.  Were your legions on a road march? Then a road will be on the map.   Were your reinforcements behind the enemy units and your main unit to it's front? Then that's where they will appear on the tactical map, giving you a huge advantage. Is Mt. Vesuvius erupting behind your army as you attack the Spartans?  Then it will be on the battlefield. 

The problem with these reviews from Gamespy, IGN, and Firingsquad, in my opinion, pertains to the fact that those reviews simply gloss over what I consider pretty annoying problems with this game.  "WTF you talking about, Sphinx? What the hell do you know?  Gamespy, IGN, and FiringSquad all wanted to make man-babies with the developers.  What are you some sort of pessimistic nit-picking douche bag?"  Well, I guess so. These problems are not necessarily show stoppers that will make your machine explode and your eyeballs cry blood but these problems do detract from the game, especially in the later stages of a campaign.  

The first problems exist at the strategic level game map. As cities expand there's a factor called "squalor" which means your cities are turning into slums, Mexico City style.  You can reduce squalor by building public baths, aqueducts, or entertainment facilities, but as the cities become huge (30,000 people or more) you can't get away from squalor and so the inevitable peasant revolts will occur. You can also try to counteract this by raising taxes (which reduces birthrate) but that lowers your population's happiness which again leads to revolts. It's a catch-22 which becomes maddeningly frustrating, especially when your empire starts to expand through most of Europe and you're trying to manage it all. If only I could have some off-shore accounts like Enron to hide the problems. 

And this is only half way done with game!

While you can turn on the "Auto-manage" feature for regions this might not be in your best interest since the computer might build units and buildings you don't need. 

Also at the strategic level, there's no simple way to keep track of all your units.  In Medieval for example there was a simple interface that gave you a snapshot of all your cities, army generals, spies, assassin, and diplomats. By clicking on their name you'd instantly be shot over to them.  This was probably done since the units in Medieval would really stack up behind one another on the strategic map so you couldn't see them all.  However, it would be nice to have that feature in this game as well.  With five to ten armies rampaging through Europe and multiple spies and diplomats in the region, not having some way to quickly jump between units turns the strategic game into a micro-management nightmare at the later stages.

At the tactical level, the computer assisted units show an almost suicidal level of ineptitude. As a suggestion, never let the computer control one of your high ranking generals. Always control your generals if possible and have any reinforcements be controlled by lower ranking peons which you won't mind losing.  Computer controlled generals exhibit the desire to greatly want to die for Senate and country.  A full cavalry charge by your computer controlled generals into waiting spearmen always ensures quick promotions in your ranks and a quick routing of your army since no one likes to see their leaders die. 

Other review sites are hyping this game but I'm only cautiously optimistic about Rome:TW potential.  A patch is greatly needed to address the squalor issue with towns and the Rambo-esque tactics of the computer controlled units.  While these aren't problems in the early stages of the game, by the time you get into large scale empire building, you may find yourself spending more time micromanaging your towns rather than partaking in the more important feature of the game: crushing your enemies beneath your spears and shields in glorious combat.   If you're wanting a score to quote let's call it 85%.   Good but some problems still exist.