Within the tight borders of the UK, the campaigning feels all the more savage. Proud Irishmen can expel the foreign invaders from their lands, and irate Scots can do what their football team could not and defeat the Faroe Islanders on their home turf. Frustrated Welshmen can rewrite history by leading their warriors to the gates of London. The novelty of having the familiar territories of the UK to wage war over counts for a lot.

The fierce Viking Berserkers are small bands of psychos and charge at anything they see.

Saxon Huscarls are metal-clad swordsmen that cleave through spearmen and peasants with ease. Welsh bandits are the masters of camouflage and the ambush. Though many units are generic from the main game, such as spearmen and archers, the different factions bring plenty of unique units to the slaughter. The new campaign features more primitive units and buildings. Add to this melting pot a stream of Norse invaders from Scandinavia, and apart from proof of what mongrels we Brits are, you have a recipe for wanton blood-letting. So among the eight rivals, in the north we see the Scots and Picts vying for position, in the South we have the Saxons and Mercians squabbling over the division of the spoils, and in the west the Irish and Welsh cling to their toeholds on their native lands. Re-winding to the Dark Ages, circa AD790, the new campaign sees a Britain torn between native Celtic tribes and various invaders.

The Viking Invasion offers owners of Total War two things -a re-fresh of the existing Europewide campaign in the form of new units and playable nations, and an all-new campaign set in the British Isles.

Another chance to conquer vast swathes of territory and fashion a medieval empire, to lead armies onto the field of battle and crush fleeing peasants under the iron-shod hooves of your knights' war horses. Don't Fight it-its natural to get excited over an expansion pack for one of the greatest strategy games the world has seen.

Total war age of vikings