Sound & Interface

BANZAI!

There's actually not that much sound to speak of. Battle voices are faint and distant, which fits in with the distant general motif. The music is soft and soothing with a clear eastern bent to it. It fits Shogun's theme, obviously. However, while the atmosphere might be there, the quietness of battle certainly doesn't pull you in.

The battle from afar

Twin cavalry strikes against hapless archers!

The other little quirk that you have to get used to is the lack of acknowledgement noise. There is no sound from a unit that it's engaged the enemy, no notice that it's retreating or dead. Of course, there are no unit creation sounds, since all that is done during the turn-based mode. Shogun clearly isn't StarCraft, but it would be a nice feature if there were engagement sounds. Just like when a tank fires its shock cannon, a battle cry would be a nice alert that "oh, my troops hidden in the forest are under attack." Still, with the fewer amount of unit groups to worry about, this isn't much of an issue.

Interface

The interface in Shogun so far is stellar. If you wanted to, you could do everything with the mouse. There is a status bar for each of your troop formation, which always shows their type and number. Move your mouse over the icon representing that unit and you will have their morale and combat status as well.

Oooh a tower

The bombardment begins

The mouse can move the camera in nearly every direction. Find your target, click its standard bearer to select it and give the orders. Click to move/attack, double left-click for a charge or right-click to tell archers to fire. Even the formation buttons are available. Want a tight wedge or a loose box? Heck, select a unit then click and drag to customize the formation - want a long, thin line or a tightly packed box? It's all up to you.

Of course, the keyboard controls all simplify and speed the process up. Want a wedge? Just give that little 'ol "w" a quick rub and everything's set. Have an area you need to get to quickly? Want a very specific view? Just right click on a point of the map then drag out in the direction from which you'd like to view that point. It sounds a bit complicated but it's really not. Creative Assembly has really got the interface down pat even at this early stage, though the addition of a few commands to rotate around a point would be nice.