Monday, January 21, 2013

Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall Of The Samurai



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Suddenly, I'm observing an increasingly chaotic battlefield from a spot just above and behind a single wheeled machinegun. Slap-bang in the center of the screen is a crosshair. Left mouse button depressed, I drag this reticule along a line of charging spearmen. Targets are knocked off their feet, flicked like puppets into unnatural poses, sent twirling to the turf. When the smoke clears, an entire enemy unit has been blown away.

Directly controllable artillery isn't Fall of the Samurai's most significant feature, but it's probably its most irresistible and surprising. Nailing far-off commanders is deliberately difficult through. The camera accompanies larger projectiles, but there's no sniper style zoom view. While there'll be occasions in FotS when you get to mow down of samurai with machine guns, Creative Assembly is too serious about their history for it to be a regular occurrence. Despite the cinematic Last Samurai overtones, the game's primary focus is the Boshin War (1868-1869) rather than the ill-fated Satsuma Rebellion (1877) that inspired much of the 2003 Tom cruise movie.

Both sides in this low-key civil war were enthusiastic modernizers, eager to lay their hands on the latest Western military tech and strategy. In other tweak, clicking the "end turn" button now advances your campaign a mere two weeks. With winters now lasting six turns, ponderous or ill-timed invasions will be costlier than ever.


Naval blazing
Longer cold snaps aren't the only new feature the humble Total War grunt has to worry about. Now the poor fools who do all the heavy trigger-pulling and sword-slashing can be slain between battles by naval bombardment. Select a friendly fleet on the campaign map and a range circle appears. Any army within this zone-o'-death may be pummeled without risk. You won't devastate targets, but hounding an invasion force as it trudges down a long coastal road could become the difference between victory and defeat in later battle.

Mark this moment. In Fall of the Samurai, Total War navies finally go from being mere amusing distractions to indispensable strategic tools. That bombardment ability can also be used to clobber cities, neutralize coastal batteries (a new buildable structure) and turn the tide in normal ground battles.


Secret servants
Unsurprisingly, given the 300-year period shift, most of the cast and rabble-rousers don't come direct from Shogun 2. Working alongside familiar Shinobi (ninjas) and Geisha are two faction-specific secret policemen-the Ishen-Shishi (Imperialist) and the massively useful Foreign Veteran.

Remember the nasty Colonel Bagley in The Samurai? That's the kind of calculating, conscience-free merc you get when you employ a foreign veteran. With one of these embedded in an army, your troops will move, reload and gain experience faster.

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