Europa Universalis: Rome – 2. Tutorials and Manual
Click here to read Part 1 of this review
The in-game teaching tool is not interactive and not really a tutorial. You don’t actually click through the instruction along with the games. It’s a series of fairly static screens (you’ll see some animation in the background) with messages that point to and highlight the controls under discussion. They’re called “tutorials,” apparently, because that’s the custom in computer games. It’s better than calling them “static instructional screens.”
Unfortunately there is no way to back up in the tutorials. If you click OK too quickly, or inadvertently, you’ll have to play the whole file over from the beginning. And similarly there is no way to end the chapter early. None of the game interface controls work and the OK button only takes you forward. So once you’re in one you must go on unless you want to end task. So in a way it works out well that the need to play and replay them is nearly nil. None of them are long, fortunately, and you can probably zip through the entire set in 30 minutes or less.
On the plus side, the game’s background music accompanies the tutorials. As usual the developers have come up with a pleasing variety of era-evoking, ancient-sounding music. And it plays in random order too, an improvement over some earlier titles.
The hard-copy manual is quite informative, touching on many subjects the tutorials do not and in much more detail on the ones that they do. It is profusely illustrated with sharp and clear monochrome screenshots. A thorough reading of the manual would be well worth the time spent.
Click here to read Part 3 of this review
Click here to read Part 4 of this review
Click here to read Part 5 of this review
Europa Universalis Rome, games, history, strategy | bshears April 23, 2008
