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Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Preview October 30, 2006 John JCal Callaham |
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Summary: The Warhammer franchise is surging full steam ahead on the PC. We've already seen Warhammer 40k brought to life by Relic, and Mythic are making Warhammer Online. Now check out Warhammer: Mark of Chaos!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
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This game was developed by Black Hole Entertainment, whose first game was the underrated fantasy RTS game Armies of Exigo. However, they have taken a different tack for their work on their second title. Much like what The Creative Assembly do with their Total War series of games, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos combines a turn based gameplay mechanic with pure RTS action. There’s no resource or base building in this game; instead you battle on the field, collect gold pieces and then in between your conflicts you head to the turn based portion of the game where you buy new units, get upgrades for your armies abilities and generally fortify your forces before you send them back to get dirty with the enemies. If you are at all familiar with the Warhammer table top game series you will find this set up for Mark of Chaos pretty familiar territory.
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There are two single player campaigns in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and at least in our beta build you can play either one at will (no unlocking, thank goodness). The Empire side focuses on a captain named Stefan who has to fight off the Chaos forces. On the other hand you might also enjoy playing with the “bad guys”; the Chaos army led by Aasavar Kul. The Empire is the human side of the game and you also control Elven units in the single player campaign. Chaos units in their side include Orcs, the Skaven (basically really large and nasty rodents) and others. The single player campaigns are not totally linear; there will be side missions to take on as well.
| Gameplay | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
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In terms of units themselves you get quite a variety among the playable races from the typical grunts on each side to flying animal mounts. On the Empire side are the medieval-style units and even musket long range weapons, while the Chaos side are big, slow and powerful. The Elves have the best ranged weapons while the giant rat Skaven race tends to be the big “tank rush” side to use. All factions can be upgraded in the turn based portion of the gameplay and you can add extra bonuses as well. When you win battles you can get extra bonuses such as extra magic or armor abilities. One of the more interesting things about the game is the use of morale; if you are putting the hurt down on an enemy force and leaving them a bloody stain on the ground the few remaining units will tend to run away screaming.
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As is the case with many fantasy RTS games these days, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos also has Hero units that are more powerful and have extra abilities. However, Black Hole and Namco have upped the ante with this big powerful units with added features like the abilty to add to their abilities in an RPG like manner. Some new skills benefit the unit itself with more abilities while others benefit the armies they are leading. Still others add to your hero’s abilities to fight enemy heroes in the game’s duel combat.
| Graphics | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |
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While we didn’t have a chance to play the multiplayer portion of the game yet, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos promises to keep the single player’s emphasis on tactics. You will start out with a certain amount of points to build your army up and you can basically customize what units you can have available before the match begins against your opponents. As one might expect, single units with more abilities and power tend to cost more that a horde of smaller less powerful units. You have four different playable sides to pick from in the game (Empire, Chaos, Skaven and Elves) but the level of complexity for each faction will keep you occupied in the selection of your armies (you do have a time limit in your army customization phase so you can’t spend a lot of time tweaking your forces before the match begins). One of the more interesting aspects of multiplayer will be duels between the powerful hero units that add even more to the standard “tank rush” gameplay of most RTS titles. Publisher Namco plans to support clans in the game along with extensive stats tracking for multiplayer matches which can be one-vs-one all the way to three-vs-three matches.
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Based on our brief time with the beta build of the game Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is shaping up to be an entertaining fantasy RTS game that leaves behind base building and resources and concentrates on what every strategy game should do to be successful; battle tactics. You can look for demos of the game to be released soon. Namco plans to release Warhammer: Mark of Chaos to stores in mid-November.
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