Developer: Creative Assembly
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Since tabletop war games have traditionally often used hexes and cardboard chits, computer wargames have doggedly followed the same paradigm, using the CPU's processing power to remember rules and calculate formulas. The genre was stultifyingly homogenous until Sid Meier's Gettysburg came along and presented a real time Civil War battle with all the detail and earnestness of a wargame. But it was bound by another tradition of wargames, namely that it limited itself to a single scale. Meier has always said that he doesn't feel tactical and strategic level gameplay can coexist smoothly. So Gettysburg was just a battle in a bottle - it was a real time diorama, featuring combat that was entirely self-contained and without consequence.

That was three years ago. Fast forward to today. Enter the ingenious Brits at Creative Assembly. Their contribution to wargaming, Shogun: Total War, is every bit as earnest and detailed as Gettysburg. But it is also wrapped in a sweeping strategic shell that recreates the warring clans of 16th Century Feudal Japan. In Shogun, the tactical and strategic level of wargaming exist side by side in one of the most viscerally thrilling and visually impressive wargames you'll ever see.

The kernel of Shogun is a beautiful real time battle engine that allows for combat between literally thousands of men at a time, each represented by his own sprite. The battles are made manageable by a system of flexible formations that allow you to quickly organize your armies in one of the stock formations or meticulously place all the pieces yourself. As you're entering a battle, it's as easy as hitting a hotkey to select all your units and then hitting a second hotkey to assign them a formation; your troops take it from there. Alternatively, you can place your highly trained monks off to one flank, stretch a thin line of spear-wielding infantry across a broad front to shield the archers occupying a hilltop, and then arrange your cavalry in a wedge formation ready to charge down the slope. Of course, once the battle is joined, things get appropriately messy. The way you interface with the units and the 3D terrain gives the game a very organic, fluid feel that lifts wargaming above the restriction of hexes without robbing it of any depth.