This boredom was slightly compounded about 10 to 20 turns into the game, when my partner and I were informed that Attila, the near-mythical warlord the game is based around, had just been born. Not rising to power. Not even figuring out that he likes girls. Born. The sense of dread and impending doom that previously draped the game’s beginning stages quickly withered away when we realized that it would be at least another forty turns before the instrument of our destruction could legally ride a horse.
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Those who are looking for a faster paced co-op experience would likely be interested in playing as two of the game’s starting horde nations, but be warned: unless one of the two players chooses the Huns, the game can be very unforgiving. In our second campaign, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths came to find peace (admittedly, this was probably not the easiest pair to choose) in the mountain ranges directly between the Huns and the Eastern Roman Empire. Full disclosure: my friend and I are not decorated generals, nor could either of us pass for what some call “tactically capable”, but our time with the Gothic duo required no less than three near-immediate restarts, as we were easily crushed by one of either the technically superior Romans to the south, or the Hunnic hordes to the North. Once we finally determined a safe route out of our situation, the campaign took on a nice flow that involved pillaging and reinforcing in brief, alternating phases.
It’s tough to call Attila a bad, or even below average game. In fact, I would venture to say that it does what it sets out to do quite well. It’s certainly not going to be turning any heads or coaxing in new players, but Creative Assembly’s most recent effort proves that they are indeed capable of making competent games. Unfortunately, the disaster that was Rome 2 seems to have made quite an impact, and the developers appear unwilling to venture too far into new territory, at least in this iteration. Veteran fans who felt spurned by Rome 2 should definitely give it a shot, as TW:A does nothing if not show off what its predecessor should have been, but I certainly wouldn’t point to it as a watermark for the future of the RTS genre. The minor iterations and potentially plodding co-op gameplay mean that Attila is really only a necessary purchase for current fans who want to see what they missed the last time out, or possibly for anyone with a real deep-seated hatred for the Romans.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Two players control allied factions in an effort to conquer Late Antiquity Europe.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.