Napoleon Total War - Review

I am only the biggest fan of the Total War Games. Even though they are comparatively old, I can play them to the exclusion of all other media. Medieval Total War (MTW) was brilliant, and the sequel, only better. I am an amateur Medievalist and I love those games. Even the older Shogun Total War was great. So it is with the expectation of greatness that I looked at Napoleon Total War (NTW).

I should also say that I spent several years playing a miniatures game called Napoleons Battles. I had thousands of tiny, painted metal figures all organized into brigades, columns and corps. I would fight these massive armies against each other. I was familiar with Napoleonic history, had a good understanding of the soldiers, leaders and landscapes of many of Napoleon's real battles. While I have since dealt away the game, (it took days to play and players were scarce), I never gave up my interest in all things Napoleon. This seemed the mixture of two great worlds, Napoleon's battles and the Total War gameplay.

So disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the game is beautiful to watch and challenging to manage. I have cleverly set up my canons only to have them run over by an effective AI. No, I have no problems with gameplay, the graphics, the neat tricks, the units, the naval battles, even the cheesy videos. The problem is that the game is unstable.

The game regularly crashes, just as I am about to win battles. Not all the time, just enough to drive me crazy. I keep playing in the hope that it will stop crashing, that STEAM has patched the game, but to no avail. So today, as Napoleon routed the Austrians in a fine battle, trapping them near a forest just outside Vienna, the gremlins stepped in and washed away all my work. As all the support automatically comes from STEAM, and my computer is well fit to normally handle the game, I AM DONE.