Medieval II: Total War - Kingdoms Expansion Pack (PC DVD) (Video Game)

Fantastic expansion to a fantastic game. I've played and loved all the Total War games and this is no expansion. Adding new factions, new units and four wonderful campaigns each with their own distinct features makes this game very enjoyable and must for anyone who has Medieval II: Total War. In fact, buy Medieval II: Total War just so you can play this expansion; it's that good. Can't wait for Empire: Total War.

Seriously Buggy and no fix forthcoming Fun to play, but it does not deliver certain features the video trailers advertised. I've been a TW fan since the first release (Shogun) many moons ago. There have always been bugs but, in the past, Creative Assembly have been very good to their customer base and addressed the bugs with patches. However, CA have announced that they have no intention of releasing any patches to address issues with this expansion, thus alienating a large portion of their customer base - myself included (check out their website Forums for confirmation). No doubt I will play through all the campaigns nonetheless, but will think twice before purchasing any further titles from this software developer.

Wow - easily the best of the lot so far! This is an extraordinarily good expansion for a great game and worth every penny. Excellent historical detail, great graphics, fine game engine, bug-free and really original. You get 4 brand new campaigns - each totally detailed and challenging to play, each with their own intro movie, and you learn a lot about history into the bargain. The game world is stunning to see, both in the campaign mode and battle mode. Great medieval period architecture - it seems almost a shame to have to destroy it in a seige! I disagree with one reviewer who said Rome Total War was better; come on man what planet are you on! - the graphics are MUCH better, those gaudily coloured clones have gone to be replaced with realistic looking warriors of many differant statures (short and ugly or tall and ugly!), you get fantastic gunpowder units now for the late period, staggering castles as well as cities, plus religion plays a BIG role (pope, crusades, jihads etc), and yes there are still war elephants as well, not to mention merchants and princesses, hence gameplay is much deeper. Finally there was just 1 proper campaign in RTW, with M2TW we've now got a total of 5!!!!! Well done CA for the choice of the campaigns too, new and challenging, the Brittania campaign was a surprise as a lot of us just expected a re-run of Viking invasion from the original MTW, instead you get.........well you'll see, suffice to say if you play as England then keep a tight rein on your Barons, as well as the Welsh, Scotch and Irish. Ah just like the Home Nations Rugby but with spears! Buy it, take other stuff off your hard drive if you have to, just get it now!

Poor Graphically beautiful, but once again the latest TW title is less enjoyable in the long term than it's predecessors. There seems to be no improvement to the passive AI we have come to recognise in later TW releases, the "fire fighting" of Britannia is reminiscant of the Western Roman Empire's early struggles in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion and there are STILL bugs in this Medieval engine even though CA are heralding their next release already. Sloppy, lacking diversity and anashamedly appealing to arcade fans rather then strategists, I've already gone back to Rome Total War where at least the unit diversity makes for a varied game. Each Total War release seems less mentally stimulating than the last.

Fun while it lasts This is a really good expansion pack for a game that was already brilliant. Apart from the 4 new campaigns, this expansion pack adds a few changes which although sutle, really do improve the game play. First of all, each campaign has different abilites associated with it, Britannia has the Barons revolt where if you dont care for your barons loyalty, they rebel and start their own faction rather then become just a normal rebel who you can latter bribe. In the crusades campaign, key figures such as Richard the Lionheart, Saladin and Baybars feature and providespecial abilites ot the army they are leading. In the Americas, there are no castles but support is provided from the homeland and explration is more challenging. In the Teutonics campaign crusading nobles help your cause and the good old Hanseatic League, lasat since in the first installment of Medieval returns. A recurring theme which is probably the best feature is that recuitment is dependant upon relgion, culture etc... as a certain level of catholicism for example is needed to recuit the most powerful units. The main problem this game has is that although there are four campaigns, they are quite short, some only require the capture of 25 settlements for the long campaign and thus I completed the game in under a week. it is a lot better if you take the time to play as all the different types of factions instead of completing each campaign once and then enver playing on it again.