L.G.C. |Reviews| — Medieval II: Total War

Incompatible multiplayer, spite crashes, and hard nopes? Medieval II: Total War™ faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Medieval II: Total War™
Webzone: www.feralinteractive.com/en/mac-games/medieval2/ 
Devel: Creative Assembly / Feral Interactive
Engine: Custom (based on the Rome Total War engine)
Price: €/$ 19.99

Wazzat: Spanning the most turbulent era in Western history, your quest for territory and power takes you through Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and even onto the shores of the New World.


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • All games listed in multiplayer are shown as incompatible.
  • P-man and I were completely unable to connect.
  • Hell, we never showed up in the same chat zone.
  • Y U have 4:3 option when it no work?
  • WHAR windowed mode?
  • Performance is great | 100+ @ 1080 and 75/90 @ 2160

M-CHAIRCHAIR

  • 60 (w/ vsync) @ 1080p, 45-60 @ 2160
  • Constant spite crashes
  • Hard lock during first tutorial
  • Hello desktop constantly during the second tutorial and the campaign
  • Can’t be run from the command line to see what’s happening
  • Took the graphics settings down from #yolo11 and the game stopped vanishing

P-CHAIR

  • It hard nopes my box during the second tutorial mission.
    • And during the 4X type turn based missions
    • The one thing that might me care about this RTS game, doesn’t work.
  • It was so bad, even Ctrl Alt F2 wouldn’t work to switch to another tty.
  • I had to fire up the netbook and ssh in to kill it.
  • This may have something to do with the 361.18 beta NVidia drivers but the game didn’t justify me bothering to check.

Total-CHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • This game was released in 2006, so I can cut it some slack.
  • Seriously, that was almost ten years ago. OLD, go feel it!
  • and considering it’s a RTS I’m tempted to say it holds up?
  • Except for the texture pop-in on the trees and units.
    • I don’t know why, but I find that maddening.
  • That, and the UI (even in the original version) is hella stretched in widescreen.
  • Don’t even mention the minimal UI option since that just puts your units on the bottom and everything else up top #NOPE
  • WHY? Widescreen monitors were a thing in 2006! Granted mine was 1680×1050.
  • The sounds “work” but they were difficult to hear over FK mothering DRAGONFORCE

M-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • 2006 graphics might have looked good in 2006
  • overhead map is colorful and mostly clear / understandable
  • town maps are muddy and confusing
  • looks better w/ 16x AA and everything on 11 (and crashes!!!)
  • pre-rendered movies haven’t aged well
  • I didn’t even notice the music, but it’s there

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • The game looks dated.
  • The music is your typical medieval military beat and sometimes a choir will sing
    • Hell, if you get really lucky you’ll get to hear a lady singing solo.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s your standard WASD Q+E + zoomy gerbil wheel thingy.
  • Get ready to hear this two more times but units are not set and forget.
  • This is medieval times you serf motherfu*kers!
  • I’m not issuing suggestions.

M-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Turn based world map works well enough
  • RTS town battles are messy
  • AI is stupid, can’t round corners, go through gates
  • Can’t control individual units, results in extreme frustration

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • I can’t even give it 4 chairs for controls because more than once I clicked to select a unit and it would outright refuse to.
  • I would have to go to the unit screen on the bottom of the screen and select them from there.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • I’m not a fan of the Grand Campagin.
  • However a quick historical battle is a little bit of alright.
  • I’ve played a few and for the most part enjoyed myself… if you keep the difficulty at medium or below.
  • The next two difficulty settings should be labeled “Because FK YOU” and “That’s why!” respectively.
  • The only thing that kills this title is the lack of functioning multiplayer.
  • I could justify cocking about for a few more hours in PVP but we were simply unable to make that work.
  • Mix that in /w the 19.99 price tag for a 10yr old game you get two chairs, just.

M-CHAIR

  • Turn-based Civilization overworld map style decent enough
  • Diplomacy, spying, trade deals, capturing rebel cities, marrying off the princess
  • RTS segments are fun
  • …when they work
  • Rage inducing when they don’t
  • I spent a lot of time shouting at my computer “no don’t do that, do this!”
  • It didn’t listen

P-CHAIR

  • I don’t like RTS games.
  • I don’t hate them with the same passion I do uninspired Hipster Pixel Platformers – *cough* Taimumari *cough* – but I really don’t like them, either.
  • When I started the second tutorial and saw that the game had a 4X type scenario where you could move your units on the map and do all the micromanagement, I was… excited?!
  • “OMG” – thought I – “an RTS game I might actually enjoy”
  • Immediately after that thought, the game froze my system.
  • Tried it again, same thing.
  • I started a short campaign with Portugal.
  • The very first mission uses that same 4X type scenario. Another hard lock!

Total-CHAIR


Final-CHAIR

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