It's the ideal example of evolution trumping revolution in creating great video games.

The mix of turn based strategy (with economical, political and diplomatic ramifications) and real time battles is still wonderful, but the need to balance timing and aggression is more important than ever. Aggressive players will feel a little cheated, while diplomats will hate Realm Divide stage. Still, Total War was always about realism and the AI's scripted actions make logical and historical sense.

More of a masterpiece than check-in for the series.

It's wonderfully colourful and completely unique, and it should provide the usual hundreds of hours of gameplay for the hardcore. Those worrying about a retrograde step being taken for the series shouldn't have done so - it's a classic, no question.

Creative Assembly is flirting with a new audience with its totaly new and fresh multiplayer component and a streamlined overhaul of the Total War series. But underneath the polished surface lies the Total War we know and love and Shogun 2 has not lost the depth and complexity that has been established over the last ten years.

There is a je ne sais quoi elegance on how the game is presented and how well put together the game as an entire corpus is. Although it's still mired by some version 1.0 bugs, Shogun is highly playable and deserves a place on any Total War fan's hard drive.

A vast improvement from recent Total War missteps, and revitalizes the glory of the original Shogun, while adding so much new and interesting content that you might not even remember said original. And this one, finally, does right by newcomers, making things as easy and as polished as a game of StarCraft II.