Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Demo!

[Jason]

<strong>[ Demo ]</strong>

<p>It's time for everybody to find out if <a href="http://www.markofchaos.com/" target="_blank" title="MoC">Warhammer: Mark of Chaos</a> is a worthy use of the Warhammer franchise or just a Total War knock-off. Download the brand-spanking-new 1.1 Gb demo and play an early part of the singleplayer campaign, as well as 3 tutorials. Get it at <a href="http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=38396" target="_blank" title="WP">Worthplaying</a>, <a href="http://www.fileplanet.com/169769/160000/fileinfo/Warhammer:-Mark-of-Chaos-Singleplayer-Demo" target="_blank" title="FP">File Planet</a>, <a href="http://www.gamershell.com/download_16283.shtml" target="_blank" title="GH">Gamer's Hell</a>, or <a href="http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096486235/" target="_blank" title="3D">3D Gamers</a>. </p><blockquote><p>MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows 2000/XP
DirectX 9.0c
2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD Athlon
512 MB system RAM
3GB free hard drive space
128 MB NVidia GeForce 4800, 128 MB ATI Radeon 9200
DirectX 9.0c-compatible 16-bit card sound card
1024x768 display resolution
</p></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/gallery.php?dir=Mark%20of%20Chaos&file=MoC19.jpg"><img src="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/screenshots/Mark%20of%20Chaos/thumbs/MoC19_thumb.jpg" alt=" " width="200" height="160" /></a>
</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamershell.com/">Gamer's Hell</a></p>

 

[Astromarine]

Hm. There is NO WAY I can be objective about a Warhammer game, but what I saw seemed quite decent. Weirdly enough, the game that it reminds me most is Celtic Kings, but maybe it's because of a similar setting (Marauders in the Chaos Wastes).

I played the tutorial and 3 missions. The game seemed simple enough, maybe a bit too simple, but in the early stages all these games are. It follows the typical style of introducing you to new units and powers as the missions progress, but this is helped a lot by the fact that you keep all the units into the next stages (unless you're a putz who lets them die, like me). Shooting into your own troops without them dieing is retarded though, there's no way around it. Even in the tabletop you can't do that (except if you're skaven, a piece of flavor that this game WON'T have since everyone can do it).

The last mission I tried (and failed) was a siege battle with you as the defender. For some reason I had MAJOR slowdowns in that missions, while the previous ones, even with the same number of units, were just fine. I'm guessing it has something to do with pathfinding, since the walls are stopping normal movement and all troops need to go into their siege attack scripts. I dunno, I just know it's a pain in the ass.

The character and unit upgrade system is neat. Character skills are ok, don't seem to impact much but they're characterful. Units can be upgraded with champions, musicians, and standard bearers (like the TT), plus siege equipment, magic banners, new armor and weapons. Also, I think if you conserve your units they level and grow. My Marauder Axe Throwers were 39-men strong in mission 3, when they started at 24 I believe.

Overall, I'm no longer so pissed off at buying this game. I don't think it will make Creative Assembly quake in their boots, but it seems a fun way to play around for a few dozen hours in the Warhammer world, which is exactly what I wanted.

A note: Besides the things Baby Arm mentioned, the demo also includes an Army Builder so that you can see the interface and play around. You can't do anything with it though.

 

[chaedwards]

So just finished playing the demo, and feel pretty much the same as Astromarine. Was quite pleased that my pc was handling the game so well until the stronghold mission, when I also had major slowdown.

I would say the game is more similar to say, Praetorians or Cossacks, than TW, as it's pretty much an rts with units rather than a battle simulator, even if there is no base building. I have to say it also felt quite like Shadow of the Horned Rat, from what I can remember, including the persistent army taken from battle to battle.

I'm a bit Chaos WFB fan, so my views may be coloured somewhat - certainly if the thing was a generic fantasy simulator, I'd be less interested in it, as the actual gameplay isn't really that special - bog standard rts + hero duels which I feel are pretty shitty anyway.

In a way, it's a shame that the demo didn't have a larger set piece battle, to see whether they're manageable or not - the hero duelling I took part in required a lot of micro, and two or more on the go at once would be pretty much impossible for my dulled reflexes to handle.

I'm in two minds at the moment. I barely ever buy new games, and I'm worried about the slowdown on my pc, but it is WFB, and focusses on Chaos at that. On the other [third] hand, it seems that only Nurgle and Khorne are represented, which is a problem for a Tzeentch fan like.

Hmm.

Edit: One other stupid thing. My Chaos Axemen failed to stop a bunch of Empire soldiers from running past them and down the stairs of the nearby tower, so they decided to throw their axes through the tower at the soldiers inside it. Not very impressive.

 

[YourConscience]

Hey thanks guys for posting the impressions. I was just about to ask. Still undecided whether I'll bother and d/l the demo at all.

Since I am not familiar with the Warhammer Universe much, I am more interested in the game-play mechanics. Astro compare it to Celtic Kings - that one had some interesting strategic managment ideas. But I doubt anything like that is in here.

chaedwards compared it to praetorians or Cossacks. Such a comparison is, in my point of view, disqualifying the one who is comparing, because these two games are way too different from each other. (Actually, only the label RTS is common to both) But perhaps you could specify what gameplay element exactly in any of the two games you were comparing to?

So, please post more impressions and comparisons, I am curious!

 

[chaedwards]

Yes, it was a bad lumping together - I know what I meant, but obviously nobody else could be expected to. What I meant was that the way the units move and are ordered is similar in both games - units of men, with only a few basic formation commands, and the ability to attach leaders to them. The way that the final destination is shown by outlines is also very similar to Praetorians. Otherwise, it bears no resemblance to either, as there's no base or unit building involved - its straight Total War set battles, but with units and leaders having special abilities you can chuck around.

 

[Astromarine]

that's the thing though. It's NOT really total war set battles. At least in the first couple missions. Your army gets plopped in a map, and then you have to move around and explore, find some items and gold along the way, usually defended by some enemy units. It sort of mixes the tactical controls of Total War with a more "Standard" RTS map, with a story, goal, etc.

As for the tactics themselves, I'm still unsure. The units and heroes have some special powers to allow the player to affect the battle with micromanagement. For now I've seen 4 different units, and two heroes. The units made sense, and performed as expected. Movement is clear, you're always aware of how the army will deploy in the destination, and usually you can set up the charge as you want, since the units' radius of sight isn't huge. I don't have any info on whether terrain influences the battle or not, but I'd say not in a mechanical sense (i.e. bonuses for high ground and such).

I would say, don't look at Total War for parallels. The game is a straight RTS in terms of battles. Think of it as an extrapolation of the Dawn Of War principle of controlling big units rather than individual soldiers, taken further.

 

[chaedwards]

{Sigh}. I'm not this incoherent usually, really. Astromarine is completely right - the TW set battles comment I meant was from both sides starting with a set number of units, and not being able to create more or reinforce.

 

[YourConscience]

Ah, thanks Astro, that bit about how it plops you in the map and you move around and story and all that, that was the missing bit somehow. Also chaedwards thank for making things more clearly. I have a pretty exact understanding of how the game works now. I guess I'll fetch it when it's half-way to the bargain bin for some 20 bucks or so.

It seems it's good for some tight-packed fun on hard settings, but probably no or not much replay value. (Unlike NWN2, where I constantly think about how I can't decide whether I want to play a good or a bad character and end up playing a neutral one)

It's sad they didn't add a free-form grand strategy thingy after or independently of the story line, something like in Warlords Battlecry 3, just better.

 

[EliotW]

Its a RTS without the building and then not much tactical depth either. An odd creature.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

It's time for everybody to find out if <a href="http://www.markofchaos.com/">Warhammer: Mark of Chaos</a> is a worthy use of the Warhammer franchise

Is anything worthy of the Warhammer name? So far all the Warhammer games seem to "OMG ITZ WARHAMMER ITZ TEH BEST LOLZ" irrespective of whether the game is actually any good or not.

 

[Ryuken]

There are good Warhammer games (Dark Omen, DoW) and sucky ones (Fire Warrior), like with any franchise. I think a more obvious question would be which Warhammer-games actually tried to resemble the tabletop game? You could start to think Games Workshop might be afraid that a videogame conversion could lure people away from the real-life game?