Empire Total War
By Jeff Paramchuk,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Historical battles on land and sea done right.
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What’s It About?
EMPIRE TOTAL WAR is a historic strategy game that allows players to follow the rise of the United States and its road to independence. The game also offers a grand campaign where you take control of one of many historical empires and attempt to lead them to greatness. Players will experience both turn-based section where diplomacy, resource allocation, and army building rule – and a real time battle mode for both land and sea battles. Not just an extension of the Total War series, EMPIRE TOTAL WAR adds an entirely new dimension to the game with the introduction of full scale naval battles and some battles from American history. New to this version is the ability to influence the outcome of the game.
Empire features a lot of choice when it comes to playing the game, so you can chose to take the diplomatic route, or you can go for the route of pure domination victory. Even the Road to Independence mode allows for alternate history to take place thanks to the guided, yet still somewhat open ended gameplay.
Is It Any Good?
The Total War series has been very solid since its inception, and Empire is even a few steps beyond Rome Total War in execution. While the title has a tendency to pile on a lot of information, patient gamers who take the time to learn the strategies and intricacies in the game will come away very satisfied with the game. People new to games which involve micromanagement of cities for things such as taxation and research could be slightly overwhelmed with the vast amount of information presented. But the turn-based style of the game during these sections lends itself to players taking their time to learn and fully understand the impact of each move; haste is not always rewarded.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the colonization of the New World and it's affect on the native people who had lived here. Were they treated fairly and justly? Or were they exploited for land and forced to fight in battles that didn't concern them? Even though this happened only a few hundred years ago, is it difficult to believe that the world operated in such a fashion? Do the families think that this style of living was better or worse than what we have today?
Game Details
- Platform: Windows
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Sega of America
- Release date: March 3, 2009
- Genre: Strategy
- ESRB rating: T for Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Blood, Language, Violence
- Last updated: November 5, 2015
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