Medieval: Total War Viking Invasion

Published by Activison
Developed by The Creative Assembly
Platform: PC CD-ROM
Price £19.99
Released: Out Now

The quality of expansion packs varies enormously from game to game. More often than not with an expansion for a strategy game you get a few extra races/civilisations, a few extra units, an extra campaign and a few maps to add to the multiplayer gamer. Seldom are expansion packs the quality of Viking Invasion. The content within this expansion warrants a whole new game and indeed had it been released as a standalone game it would have still scored favourable marks. Let's take a look at what it contains.

Viking Invasion is an expansion pack for the hugely successful Medieval: Total War. As you probably all know, the Total War games have redefined what a war game should be like. Using an original mix of real time and turn based strategy the Total War series has been immensely popular with strategy fans the world over ever since the release of the first title, Shogun: Total War. In case you haven't played a Total War title before it's basically a turn based strategy game but with one crucial difference, the battles are played out in real time and involve thousands of units.

So what does Viking Invasion contain then? Well the big inclusion is that of a totally new Viking Campaign which is based much earlier (around 790 AD) than the campaigns in the original game. Medieval: Total War was played out on a map of Europe and Northern Africa but the Viking Campaign is played out on a more detailed map of the British Isles. The campaign focuses on the Viking invasion of Britain (hence the title). There are eight new factions for the Viking campaign. These are the Irish, Mercians, Northumbrians, Picts, Saxons, Scots, Welsh and of course the Vikings. The Vikings have special abilities that allow them to raid and dominate the oceans to reflect their historical abilities. The Viking campaign is very reminiscent of the original campaign in Shogun. With all of the action being concentrated on the British Isles, and without the option to win by glorious achievements (like in Medieval: Total War) the action is more intense. In my opinion this makes for a welcome contrast to the more drawn out possibilities of Medieval: Total War.

The expansion pack also adds three more factions and a host of improvements to the original Medieval: Total War factions. Hungary, Aragonese and the Sicilians are the new factions that add to the 12 that were originally available to make a total of 15 factions that are playable in the original three campaigns. New units have been added to the original twelve factions and some have even been added to the rebel factions that you can't control. Taverns and Brothels can now be upgraded and will produce Assassins and Spies with increased valour. There are also some new artillery units such as the flaming catapult missiles, boiling oil and the Organ gun that should serve to spice up the siege warfare battles. One of the big improvements is the pre-battle system that gives you the chance to make adjustments to your army and reinforcements before you go into battle. This helps you to organise your attacks far more effectively. There are also four new historical battles, one of which is the infamous Battle of Hastings in 1066.

All things considered this is one hell of an expansion pack and positively great value at the price of £19.99. We would have liked to have seen a multiplayer campaign added, as this has to be the most requested feature from fans of the Total War series, maybe Rome: Total War will have this feature? Another gripe is that the tech tree for the Viking campaign factions is in Adobe Acrobat form only. Tech trees belong on a pull out poster. Wargamers like to study these things whilst away from the PC and unless you have a damn good printer to print it out in high quality, this just isn't possible. These complaints are minor though and this is sure to be the best expansion pack of 2003.

Overall Game Rating: 9.2/10
It's not often that we see an expansion pack of such extraordinarily high quality. The Viking campaign would have made an excellent game on its own.

Deaf Gamers comment:
Just as great for deaf gamers as Medieval:Total War, which you can read here.