AS A SETTING, ancient Rome has much to recommend it. There’s the strong military culture, the mad gods, the orgies, the wine, gladiators, philosophers in togas (or was that Greece?), and a general lack of medical care.
Expeditions: Rome takes that military culture and spins it into a turn-based RPG in which you, as the scion of a famous leader, take command of armies and do an awful lot of talking. It starts off small, as you lead a disparate group you’ve met on a boat to Lesbos to kill guards and blow up ships with Greek fire, but scales into the command of whole legions, besieged cities, and doing more and more of the aforementioned conversing.
Standing between you and all this is the character creator, which allows you to create a custom-ish character—options are limited and we never really felt like we were in control—and then choose a 2D portrait that appears in dialog that looks nothing like the 3D model. Having chosen a portrait with lustrous curly hair and the face of actor Eddie Redmayne, we were then unable to match it with the 3D character choices, all of whom looked more like Russell Crowe. It’s possible to create female characters too, with the game referencing the expected roles of women in Roman society even as you make your way up the military ladder.
This story is from the April 2022 edition of Maximum PC.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 2022 edition of Maximum PC.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
2TB Crucial T500 M.2 PCle 4.0 SSD
The best budget 4.0 drive?
Hyte Y40
Traditional design meets Hyte
Lenovo Legion Go
A handheld gaming PC, just on a larger scale
Dough Spectrum One
As stunning as Dough's original glossy display
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G
1080p gaming with integrated graphics? Hell, yes
AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT
As cost-effective as an RTX 4080 Super
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super 16G Ventus 3X
Iterative change and 4K dominance
STATE OF THE PC INTEGRATED GRAPHICS
Can you get by without a dedicated GPU?
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super
LONG AGO, before the reign of the Supers, there was a graphics card. It was bold, gauche, and built with the blood of a Titan, with gaming in mind. Its heart was near identical to the goliath it was born from, yet it lacked the memory, spirit, absolute architectural majesty, and subsequent price tag of its Titanic kin.
THE ULTIMATE PC BUILD GUIDE
Strap in as we divulge 20 more tips on how to become the next master PC builder