쇼군2 토탈워 토탈워 쇼군 2 : Victory 영상 포함.

[RoastBullet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ3R5oGt5EE

http://gameaxis.com/total-war-shogun-2-previewed/

Total War: Shogun 2 Previewed

By 

macbeth

— Monday, February 21st, 2011 @7:01 PM

Posted in Hands-On

I must confess, I’ve always had a soft spot for strategy games based around a historical context. My personal go-to title for this fix has always been the Total War series and thanks to the good people at Sega and New Era, I’ve been playing around with a preview build of Total War: Shogun 2 for the past week. With the playable demo coming out via Steam on the 22nd of February 2011, here’s you can expect from this sequel.

Banzai!

The original Shogun: Total War was set in feudal Japan and was a brilliant mixture of the ethos of the time drawing on the cache of Sun Tzu’s Art of War and melding it into game play. This sequel picks up after the Onin War setting a perfect backdrop of war, strife, and struggle between multiple clans with multiple and diverse agendas.

The Total War series has evolved quite a bit since the first Shogun, but after playing around with the preview build, I instantly felt that the series is returning to its roots. While previous titles like Empire: Total War expanded the theater of operations with the task of conquering the world, Total War: Shogun 2’sconfinement back to the island of Japan is a throwback to a more focused game play.

Main Page for Shogun 2 with its Japanese influenced artistic direction

This direction also allows the game developers to draw inspiration from a specific era and continent when it comes to the art and styling. Because of this higher cultural immersion, more time can be given to extrapolating the story line of the clan leaders. Even from the preview build, one could already get a sense that the “Daimyo” was the central focus of all that went down in the single-player campaign.

A Feel for your Units

Total War: Shogun 2 will expand further on unit progression and advancement by offering you the ability to level your General up as you please, adding abilities and qualities to assist him in the future, rather than have them randomly assigned to him at the end of the battles by the game itself. This offers a level of customization which was not present before. I noticed that some other unit had unique abilities as well,which you could level up to improve their overall abilities. General’s abilities include “Strategist” and “Tactician”, which grants a longer morale boost along with an increase in melee skills and missile accuracy.

The most important piece on the chessboard.

Ninjas

After playing with the useless rakes from Empire: Total War, it was a relief to see that the Ninja (spy) had been restored to prominence in this game. In the preview I found that the ninja performed all the usual sabotage operations in cities and also had the ability to sabotage armies making them sluggish and reducing the distance they could move in one turn. An extremely handy ability if you need to escape the clutches of a stronger force. Ninjas also had a new ability where they can be used to setup a crime ring in a city you control, bringing in money while sacrificing public order.

Family Matters

Another interesting development is the ability to interact with your own faction/family members. As Daimyo, you have the authority to bestow honor and office, with each designation adding special bonuses to the recipient’s traits. Granting office also increases the loyalty of the character to the clan. I felt this adds a nice new layer of strategy to the game. Should you grant office to your loyal son, boosting his capabilities, or to your errant brother in order to firmly secure his allegiance? Players can expect to deal with these dilemmas in Shogun 2.

Arts and Skills

The tech tree for Shogun 2 has been replaced with the “Arts”. As you proceed with learning, you can give your clan an aggressive or defensive slant to further complement your strengths or counterbalance your weaknesses. They’re well integrated into the game; old players will not find themselves lost, while new players can easily pick it up. However, the new additions mentioned make it possible to approach the same objectives from new and unexpected angles. The arts are divided into two schools namely “Bushido” which deals with military improvements. “Way of the Spear” and “Way of the Bow” fall under Bushido and are quite self-explanatory. The second school of art is the “Way of Chi” which deals with economic and policy improvements. One of the arts under this school that can be researched quite early in the game is “Todofuken” which reduces upkeep for armies and navies along with providing access to buildings such as Roads and Rice Exchange.

Changes have also been made to the battle dynamics. With your General becoming more and more integral to a successful battle, micromanagement has gained more importance. Hero units are also part of Shogun 2 but unfortunately, none were present in the preview build. However, I did get to watch a single unit of Katana Samurai take out two units of bowmen garrisoned in a house.

Katana Samurai. Deaths suffered: 23. Kills: 240.

Another helpful feature was the fact that missile units now have a display for their range, making them easier to position and move around.

The area enclosed by the red lines denotes range.

Siege

The one area of battle that has been changed drastically is the siege. Older players will remember that the siege was an extremely 2D experience. Bring some siege weaponry, break down the gate, send your armies through and fight your way through to the town center.

In Shogun 2, the paradigm has been changed. Using the fact that Japanese fortresses are multi-tiered, the siege experience is now distinctly 3D. You not only have to move forward but upwards as well. This makes it possible for a siege battle to ebb and flow, with the defender having a chance to regroup and have another go at thwarting the attacker.

The attacker though has been given the option of entering the fortress through multiple entry points and even having his infantry clamber up the walls at the sides. I found that moving a couple of units through the woods while hidden to find an opportune moment and then scaling them over the walls and into battle presented the AI with a nasty little surprise.

Naval Battles

Naval battles were introduced in the previous titles and they have been reworked somewhat for Shogun 2. Since Japanese ships were oar powered, you no longer have the problem with sail ships not being able to move directly into the wind.

The boarding ability has been retained and it provides the player with an excellent opportunity to add to his fleet without having to spend any resources.

All on-board!

Another interesting feature I found was the fact that water trade routes can be plundered. By moving your fleet on to a designated trade route, you can cut off the flow of money to your enemies while adding to your own treasury.

Shogun 2, seems to have remained true to the core of the Total War series. I personally am looking forward to the game simply because I feel that the additions they have made and the direction they have taken with the game was what was always lacking in previous editions. With a stunning artistic direction and a whole host of new variables to be taken into account for policies and strategies, Shogun 2 is shaping up to be the best offering from the Total War series yet.

Total War: Shogun 2, is scheduled to be released on 15 March 2011, and available in Regular, Limited, and Collector’s Edition sets from your local retailer.

Total War: Shogun 2 - Hands-On Preview

Submitted by Gwynne Dixon on February 18 2011 - 12:15

As Creative Assembly's latest opus gets set to deploy its units, we take one final look at its battle formation...

• Creative Assembly
• SEGA

Despite the fact that the Total War series has been around for over a decade now (this sequel revisits the first ever Total War game, Shogun: Total War, which released in 2000), there are still no other developers creating games that are quite like it. And it's not as if this is a series that's existed on the fringe for all of that time. When Empire: Total War was released in 2009, it went straight in at number one on the UK charts and that success wasn't limited to our green and pleasant land either - it was also the top-selling PC game in the US for the month of its release as well. At a time when the PC platform is struggling to the particular detriment of RTS games, Creative Assembly appears to be one of the few remaining developers that are actually capable of keeping the genre alive.

While Empire: Total War was something of a revolution in the Total War series though, Shogun 2 returns it to familiar territory. The focus on ranged combat that was Empire's 'Age of Gunpowder' theme has been replaced by good old-fashioned melee combat - with the setting of 16th century Japan, it's back to the humble swords and spears more synonymous with Medieval and Rome: Total Wars. If you were one of those gamers left a touch confused by Creative Assembly's decision to have you kneeling 50 metres away from your enemy for the duration of a battle firing muskets at each other all day, then Shogun 2 understands your confusion. While Empire was an intriguing project in the Total War series that greatly expanded its potential horizons, we must admit that it's somewhat grounding to see the series going back to normal again.

The legacy left by Empire hasn't been entirely forgotten though. Naval combat, one of the game selling back-of-the-box features for Empire, makes a return in Shogun 2 but from a different kilter this time around. Unlike the complex ballet of port and starboard cannon duels, about turns, and changing wind directions that left Napoleonic sea-warfare somewhat adrift from a gameplay perspective, the nature of Feudal Japanese naval combat translates itself to a game much more amicably. Its reliance on ores takes the complexities of wind-powered sailing out of the equation, while the combat itself relies on a more straightforward bring-alongside and board dynamic. Flaming arrows can be dispensed at range to strike fear into the heart of your enemy, before getting in close to board their vessel and kill-off any remaining stragglers. The whole setup is based around more accessible principles that can be explained in a quick tutorial, thereby encouraging players to take sea-faring battles on rather than clicking the 'Auto-Resolve' button all the time to avoid the hassle (a tactic that we regrettably found ourselves resorting to in Empire ).

Shogun 2 also feels like a more tightly focused campaign than its immediate predecessor. While Empire was set on a map that effectively stretched from continental America all the way across northern Africa to the Indian sub-continent, Shogun 2 is afforded the liberty of focusing-in on Feudal Japan exclusively. As a result, there's a more believable scale to the whole experience than in any previous Total War game. There's also a more endearing art style to the campaign map as well, evident in touches such as replacing the standard fog-of-war void with an overlay of Japanese parchment paper that's then annotated with ink brush writing (the style is referred to as suibokuga, we believe) to signpost each region.

In fact, the campaign map is peppered with fitting overtones of Far-Eastern culture and mysticism throughout. The typical technology tree of previous Total War games is replaced by a 'Mastery of the Arts' tree, which is almost Bonsai-like in its appearance across two separate disciplines of 'Bushido' and 'Way of Chi'. Each technology or advancement is then delivered in its wording as some kind of philosophical self-betterment, which certainly makes archery perks sound a lot more interesting. From Haikus during the loading screens to methods of diplomacy such as offering children from your clan as hostages and bartering tools with other factions (should you go back on an agreement, then the child will be killed), this is yet another Total War game that's steeped in its history, embracing the subject matter to a peerless extent. On a lighter note, we particularly enjoyed the fact that the stuffy Spy and Agent units of previous Total Wars have been replaced by seductive Geishas and sake-drinking Ninjas in Shogun 2, which are just infinitely cooler through the many context-driven cut-scenes that Creative Assembly has in store for them.

This culturally-immersed design philosophy that the developer has adopted also seeps through into the battle engine. Prior to each confrontation, generals will give a Braveheart-esque speech to their troops through a lavish cut-scene - entirely in Japanese with sub-titles - where they speak with the kind of maxims you'd find a Sun Tzu excerpt. The battlefield environments themselves appear with all the synonymously Japanese vistas of a Hokusai print, through snow covered mountain peaks, autumn pagodas, and cherry-pink spring blossoms. Truly, if you're a fan of Japanese culture and Creative Assembly's Total War games in equal measures, then you'll fall in love with Shogun 2.

We do have one cautionary note on the AI though: in the preview code we played through, which was quite a way off final we might add, the AI was as smart throughout as it was perplexing on occasions. It's a difficulty that the Total War team has struggled with throughout the series and it comes from the unparalleled level of scope, depth, and realism that the battles in these games exhibit. At one moment the AI will be surprising you with an ingenious flanking manoeuvre using its cavalry units while, later in the battle, it'll leave its archery units indolently dawdling on the periphery of your stronghold once the battle is all but over (the only solution being to send out some infantry to cull them like diseased sheep). As ever, Shogun 2 will exhibit some of the most advanced AI in any RTS game and there will be marked improvements over Empire - just don't expect it to be perfect, yet...

Following the vast, Modernist approach of Empire: Total War comes a game that seems altogether more content with its almost microcosmic focus on Feudal Japan. Shogun 2 will undoubtedly be yet another RTS master-class of historical battle re-enactment from the folks at Creative Assembly.

[artpoint]

오늘 아마존에서 프로오더로 리미트드에디션 구매했내요~운송비까지 85.93불 나오내요~이거 할려구 컴퓨터두 120만원대로 맞추었쓰니 -_-; 먼지랄 ㅋ

[오메가3]

아 한정판 저거 컨셉책 공부하는 나로선 정말가지고싶네... 누군가 한정판사서 책 파실려면 저 한테 팔아주세요! ㄷㄷ