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Tutorial, a humble beginning to carnage |
Eye candy campaign maps |
For those who’ve already tasted the Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War titles, this offers a whole new experience for fans of the universe. An immediate difference is there are no units churning out of structures and battles are much more grand and glorious.
Mark of Chaos is more ‘true’ therefore to the table top version; you deploy your troops and hope you’re a better strategist than say “Lord BlackClaw”, aka the 8 year old that lives down the street from you. But enough jibes at ‘nerds’ as this game is more than enough to challenge the rest of the RTS community.
The detail to the maps and the units is great and really draws you in to the battlefield, top grade ‘A’ quality. Sadly the platoons of units feel cloned, of course given the nature of the games universe that shouldn’t really matter much to the fans.
You can have free reign over the camera, with a handy ability to reset it to a default position. So I guess if you feel you’re not witnessing enough uncensored carnage then zoom on in and watch the red pools flow’eth. I lined up the camera to see the volley of musket guns firing away, it’s no space marine but it brings a tear of satisfaction to the eye.
A main attraction is the heroes coupled with the fact that you can develop their abilities RPG style. No you don’t alter stats but you can spend points in three main areas with each having a variety of valuable advantages. If you’ve ever played World of Warcraft then think of how you choose your talents and you’ll be on the right track.
As this is a preview I can easily expect a few things to be incomplete, funnily this was true for the tutorial …all three of them. I would get to a certain part and the scripting would break making it impossible to complete, so I decided to heck with it and jump straight in. One thing is for sure, who ever is in charge of hunting down voice acting talent should get a medal because much like the Dawn of War series it’s great.
GUI is clean and very easy to access; units are split into three categories which are cavalry, infantry and siege. This lets you identify and get charge of units you need quickly.
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Too bold a hero? |
Detailed environments waiting for spilt blood |
Units themselves are easy to march about, either walking or running, and it is very similar to any other RTS out there. You can attach heroes to units which can grant them extra abilities and overall may lead to a victory. The true potential of these abilities remains to be seen but at least in theory it could make some platoons deadly.
The campaigns are very interesting in how they work; you select where to move your army. This doesn’t mean you can go marching off into the wilderness, it means you chose their destination along set paths. So you could bypass an entire enemy camp and move ever closer to the end but you’ll be missing out on some booty. You plunder gold after each battle which can then be used to reinforce your men, train new units or buy better equipment.
So upgrades don’t only apply to your heroes who can have an assortment of armour and weapons purchases, but you can outfit your normal units too. This all comes at a heavy price naturally, so you could choose to really concentrate on equipping your units at the expense of troop numbers or recruit like crazy and opt to just replace fallen comrades. The reason you can’t do both at least in the beginning is because gold will come and go very quickly. Prices could change by retail but at the moment it looks to be less but with higher gear, or more men but holding basic gear.
What’s great is that you can only recruit and equip your army at towns which you ‘enter’ for services. If that wasn’t enough of a unique twist then they also provide some quests for you, the first I came across wanted me to deliver a package to some other town on the map. Upon arriving at the delivery point I learnt that the town was under siege. Yet another RPG element for a game that actually is all about role playing as it is strategy.
The audio is there and sounding proud, the voice acting is especially of high quality which really can affect the impact of a game and I’m glad it has been taken very seriously here. Of course things could go down hill, or climb a mountain so time will tell but for now the Mark of Chaos audio experience is feeling fine.
Multiplayer could very well be the crux of the game if delivered well, you can choose either LAN play or the Internet. Not everything is set in stone just yet so what options are really available will have to wait.
Of course building your own custom army is the Warhammer dream so it would be a crime if it wasn’t included. You get a set amount of gold and you can spend it away until you’re happy with what you’ve got or let the game itself automatically fill the ranks. Choose your banner and then save to decide your armies name, you can choose from set racial templates of Hordes of Chaos, the Empire, High Elves and Skaven.
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Some battles are left optional |
Spent hero points wisely |
No cut scenes or movies were included so the storyline is what you can pickup from mission briefs and objectives really. With an already spectacular presentation, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos looks to be one you simply can’t miss if you’re either a RTS or Warhammer fan.
Top Game Moment: Honestly it would have to be seeing the campaign map for the first time; it is just too gorgeous for human eyes.
