© THQ NORDIC
Expeditions: Rome
OPTIMUM Immersive world full
of choices and dialog; spiced up
by fights, large and small.
MALUM Could do with a graphical
makeover; camera restrictive; maybe too
much talking?
RECOMMENDED SPECS
CPU, Ryzen 5 1600X / i5-9500F. RAM, 16GB.
GPU, Vega 56 / GTX 1070.
$45, logicartists.com, Rated T for Teen7
VERDICTin after moving into position, and possibly
letting you run away again afterward.
The opening of the game sees a tutorial
against pirates who board your boat and
quickly reveal one of your party, who
has a skill that refunds his action point
if he makes a kill, to be an absolute
powerhouse despite being armed with a
stick. Sending him wheeling across the
deck pounding already weakened pirates
into the planks gives you a sense of
what’s possible with the combat system,
which includes cover as well as attacks
of opportunity and a form of overwatch,
despite this opening being the worst part
of the game.
It soon gets better, however, with a
raid on a Greek dock to burn enemy
ships. The build-up to this sees you
attack a warehouse where Greek fire
(think pots of napalm) is being stored. You
get the choice of making your approach
directly or taking out the camp of enemy
reinforcements first. The problem with
this is that iron-age combat is rarelysilent, and the warehouse will be alerted
to your presence by their soldiers’
screams. We opted to take out the camp
first, which has the benefit of lowering
the number of guards at the main target.
Armed with the firebombs, we attacked
the dock, and immediately got another
choice: sneak up on one of the ships
and burn it immediately, or walk into the
middle and start the attack there. We
burned the ship, but managed to miss
the bright red target hex (there’s a grid
underlying all of this, but it’s not often
visible) and set the wrong part of the ship
on fire. We’re no experts, but a fire on any
part of a wooden ship should be cause for
concern, however, it didn't seem to bother
the crew. We got it right the next time and
left the dock in ruins.
From there, Expeditions: Rome expands
into a huge RPG, your battles scaling from
these dirty melees to those in which you
command legions at a distance. Real-
life figures such as Cicero and Cleopatra
appear, and the game likes to throw insnippets of conversational Latin. How
accurate they are, we couldn’t say, but
they add immensely to the atmosphere of
a bustling Roman settlement.
Looking old-fashioned and front-
loaded with its worst bits, Expeditions:
Rome does itself few favors when you
first get going. Persevere, though, and
anyone looking for a novel RPG set in an
impressively authentic historical setting
will find a lot to like about it. –IAN EVENDENIronically for a game on Romans,
the controls feel old-fashioned.Set fire to their ships.Raid their military bases.Command legions! Besiege
cities! Do lots of, er, talking!A hex grid underlies the terrain,
but it’s not always visible.APR 2022 MAXIMU MPC 91