Best and Worst Strategy Games of 2000

[Intro] [Overall] 
[Turn-based] [Wargame] [Real Time Strategy] [Expansion] [Multiplayer]
[Storyline] [Audio] [Surprising] [Disappointing] [Innovative] [Graphics]

Best Strategy Game of 2000: Shogun
DEVELOPER : The Creative Assembly
PUBLISHER : EA

There were a number of contestants for Strategy Gaming's Editor's Choice: Game of the Year, but Totalwar's Shogun managed to nose ahead due to its outstanding melange of tactics, strategy, graphics, multiplay, and in the end, just plain fun. The strategic elements are simple, yet engaging. Managing one's construction plan, income, captured territories and troops is in the classic method: simple to learn, difficult to master. Shogun is a subtle, entertaining, and ultimately successful balance between turn-based strategic gaming and the visceral excitement of tactical Real-Time combat. However, in the tactical engine that resolves combat Shogun in a sense turns directly away from its RTS siblings. Instead of making sacrifices in favor of playability, Shogun confronts the player with the essence of 'real time'; that is, reality. Need to pull troops to cover a gap in your battleline? See how fast they run - and judge to your delight or dismay whether you issued the order in time.

  
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Atop this outstanding game are some of the best graphics in the market, the battle scenes looking much like cinematic scenes from epic film. Armies of thousands (that's thousands of actual figures, not surrogates 'representing' thousands, mind you) clash in the scattered flakes of a gentle snow, or amid fog-shrouded peaks, or before a looming fortress. Play in the outstanding multiplayer, and you will never feel so close to real battle as your troops fight against the colorful 'Mon' of several other humans. Shogun is a title which sets the standard against which all future 'battle' games will be measured.

Runner-ups: Sacrifice, Ground Control, Combat Mission, Starfleet Command Vol 2: Empires At War