Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - First Reviews

[Jason]

<strong>[ Review ]</strong>

<p>While <a href="http://www.markofchaos.com/" target="_blank" title="MoC">Warhammer: Mark of Chaos</a> isn't out just yet, the reviews are starting to trickle in. <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/us/pc/game/reviews/article.jsp?articleId=2006110917939787077&sectionId=1000&pageId=20061109174812715080" target="_blank" title="GR">Games Radar</a> gave it an 8/10, praising the solid RTS gameplay and RPGish hero leveling up. It wasn't all roses though:</p><blockquote><p>All that sounds like nirvana for a Warhammer fan, right? Well, it pretty much is. But the developers drop the ball in one key area by not providing enough interesting game options. The two campaigns, told from the point-of-view of the Empire and the Horde, are too linear and feature many routine missions that you can whip through in minutes. For every awesome castle siege, there seem to be a half-dozen dreary expeditions to kill everyone on a map or defend a location.</p><p>Even worse, there is no single-player skirmish out of the box. While there is a wide selection of online and LAN multiplayer skirmish maps where you can fill in human slots with AI opponents, you can't directly have at it in one-off solo matches against the computer. This is a shame, because the game has great skirmish features like the ability to build and paint custom armies from three factions within each race. </p></blockquote><p>Not having singleplayer skirmishes in an RTS automatically drops my interest level by 79%. If you're still interested, IGN has a <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/745/745192p1.html" target="_blank" title="IGN">review</a> (8.0) and a <a href="http://media.pc.ign.com/media/773/773711/vids_1.html" target="_blank" title="IGN video review">video review</a>, which I guess is the same thing but with fancy moving pictures.</p><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/gallery.php?dir=Mark%20of%20Chaos&file=MoC29.jpg"><img src="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/screenshots/Mark%20of%20Chaos/thumbs/MoC29_thumb.jpg" alt=" " width="200" height="160" /></a>
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[DarkUnderlord]

You probobly need to have the original Dawn of War and install this as an add-in in order to do the skirmish thing. Otherwise, that's just really bad. Mind you that's a strange way to do it.

As much as I enjoy online games, I'm a single-player whore.

 

[Jason]

Wrong game, girlfriend.

 

[EliotW]

I wish it had a bit more Myth/Shadows Of the Horned Rat in the battles.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Wrong game, girlfriend.

Oh, well in that case that no skirmish thing sucks.

 

[YourConscience]

Wrong game, girlfriend.

Oh, well in that case that no skirmish thing sucks.

Heh, and I first thought that that was an especially witty joke on behalf of DU. But honestly, when will we begin to see more (or some at least) interconnectivity between games? Imagine, err, playing some grand strategy title like Europa Universalis, then send a spy somewhere for an assassination and then playing that assassination out in the Thief 1 engine. Then available game options in any single game would really depend on which other games you own...

 

[kris]

Wrong game, girlfriend.

Oh, well in that case that no skirmish thing sucks.

Heh, and I first thought that that was an especially witty joke on behalf of DU. But honestly, when will we begin to see more (or some at least) interconnectivity between games? Imagine, err, playing some grand strategy title like Europa Universalis, then send a spy somewhere for an assassination and then playing that assassination out in the Thief 1 engine. Then available game options in any single game would really depend on which other games you own...

there is and have been many games like that. Often the tacked on parts isn't as good as the "main" part. In a modern game we shouldn't forget it is more or less like making two games, which stops us from seeing this. The old Cinemaware titles often was like this, check "Wings", "Defender of the crown" and "Lords of the rising sun", especially Lords did more or less what you said with assassinate missions, sieges and so on. the Total war games had this campaign strategy game tacked on...

 

[Jason]

Combat Mission Campaigns will have interconnectivity with CMBB. You'll carry out the strategic part in CMC and then play out the tactical battles in CMBB.

 

[YourConscience]

there is and have been many games like that. Often the tacked on parts isn't as good as the "main" part. In a modern game we shouldn't forget it is more or less like making two games, which stops us from seeing this. The old Cinemaware titles often was like this, check "Wings", "Defender of the crown" and "Lords of the rising sun", especially Lords did more or less what you said with assassinate missions, sieges and so on. the Total war games had this campaign strategy game tacked on...

Well, yes, there are some games that do this. Mostly pretty bad or in a primitive version. Warlords Battlecry 3 strategic overlay, anyone?

But that is why I was specifically referring to combining full games into each other. That should mostly ensure, that the various parts of the entire game are not bad. Of course, balancing in any way might become difficult. So for example, instead of doing such a half-assed strategic overlay in Rome Total War, they should have taken mostly Civilization. Because then suddenly each tile becomes meaningful (as in RTW most tiles were just meaningless). And instead of a boring mini-film for assassinations (which they even abolished in RTW) I'd even have liked a Daggerfall-type generated city with a few guards running about and the victim somewhere there. Or you could buy yourself Caesar 10 and instead of a random-generated city you'd get a truly functioning city to assassinate someone in it.

Basically this all boils down to the problem that games currently are almost 100% handcrafted and the idea of procedurally generated content only lurks behind the scenes somewhere and pops up from time to time in various forms (Roboblitz, Daggerfall, any other games?).

 

[chaedwards]

According to Octopus Overlords, there is single-player skirmish after all, for those put off by the lack of the feature.

 

[Hamster]

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=70245
review at eurogamer. 6/10

A man walks into in a field. Suddenly, it starts raining axes. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of axes, pouring across the skies, all straight at him. He doesn't even flinch, perhaps because, by some miracle, none of them seem to actually hit him

In the collector's edition of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos...
There are also three sheets of blank white cardboard on which to, apparently, paint your own banner. Blank. Cardboard.

They've even put two holes in the top themselves so you can hang your artwork from the plastic stand. This is, of course, a godsend, if a tragic childhood accident means that the tendon in your hand necessary to operate a holepunch no longer works. Now, at last, after years of torment, you can make your own tiny banners - all thanks to this game. If three sheets of blank cardboard aren't enough to justify the £20 asking price over the standard edition, then, well, I just don't know what is.

 

[Stainless]

The beta was pretty shit and buggy. I didn't really have much hope for it after that.