Age of Empires III vs Total War: Shogun 2
Age of Empires III
Age of Empires III is a great third installment to the classic, award-winning, real-time strategy franchise, Age of Empires. The game offers three seperate campaigns that will bring you on a journey from the European continent to the nations in the East. The game even has a multiplayer mode where you can play against or with players from all around the world.Age of Empires III (or any of the AoE franchise) is the sort of game that will make you lose track of time when you play. The gameplay is also quite challenging regardless of whether you're playing with a Hard AI or another human being. So, if you get the chance, you should really give this game a try. The game's a classic after all!
Total War: Shogun 2
Total War: Shogun 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the groundbreaking original game, Shogun: Total War. Set in the darkest age of Feudal Japan right after the collapse of a unified government (in 16th century to be exact), many warring clans have risen through the chaos and out of them, 10 legendary warlords, or Daimyos, have their eyes set on the coveted position of shogun, but only one of them will be able to reunite a warring island.The gameplay is pretty similar to the original game. The campaign map features a turn-based, Risk-style gameplay while the actual battles themselves (rendered in glorious 3D) are played out in real-time. However, this time around, the game is filled with a ton of new units, including massive warships, as well as a more in-depth strategic gameplay based on the ancient texts in Sun Tzu's Art of War. There are multi-stage sieges, unique hero units who can be improved through standard RPG methods, and that the campaign map is now in 3D as well and can be rotated whichever way you like.
The campaign in Total War: Shogun 2 can also be played cooperatively (2 players), but if you truly want to test your skills, you can engage in epic online battles with up to 8 other players.
This game does the very first Total War game justice and is the sort of game that fans of the series would greatly enjoy. Also, considering that the game came out more than 5 years ago, the graphics in the game is still pretty relevant today... so I guess, that's another bonus.