Warhammer: Mark of Chaos

By William Barker

Once upon a time, before global warming, Paris Hilton nipple slips, and parasitic brain bugs, a time when hyper-colour tee-shirts and virtual reality were the bees knees, a young boy was obsessed with Warhammer. And now that young boy is a living legend...

This Warhammer "fad" was a medieval fantasy board game that involved strategy, splash damage, and 12-sided dice. He had lots of little metallic troops - or dolls as his sister frequently called them - that one could fastidiously paint and then, after reading a thousand-and-one page rulebook, he would try and play the game against a mate.

It usually ended in violence...

But is was fun, and for hundreds - possibly millions - of months the Games Workshop (the creators of the Warhammer board games) built up a universe rich with fable and legend, and with such a wealth of information and intellectual property already available for different races, unit types, kingdoms, and heroes, it made a lot of sense to convert these things into a video game - and that's what they've done. 

And it's far less hazardous as being struck by a pewter goblin.

Yep, the latest title from the Warhammer universe is called Mark of Chaos. And it's a cool game. Even the legend who was once a young boy thinks so.

I personally knew this was a tip top game from the moment I viewed the intro, which in and of itself is easily one of coolest game introductions ever seen. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say violence, fantasy, violence, WICKED!

The game is firmly planted in the real-time strategy genre, but unlike your Warcrafts and your Command & Conquers, this one doesn't involve easily harvestable resources. In the past, I thought games like this - with no resource to collect - were a waste of time; complete rabble with no heart; the kind of thing I wouldn't wizz/spew on if it was on fire. 

But this game has changed my mind.

The execution of Mark of Chaos is very good, and if you can get past the tedious tutorials that don't really form part of the single-player campaign (yawn...), you'll find a rewarding tactical strategy game here.

Game modes comprise of the usual RTS fare - single player campaign, skirmish, multiplayer and so forth. I started with the single player campaign, of which there are two major parts - one for the Order (good guys) and one for Chaos (bad guys).

The game starts off fairly normally. You're given an objective - search for and destroy an enemy rank of orcs and goblins and don't wake the neighbours - and then you hit a button and deploy your troops on a battlefield (within a small area) and begin your campaign of extreme consequences. But it's at this point that it really hits home - there's no resources. 

I remember wondering "So, after these three regiments are dead, it's game over. Hmmm. I wonder if cuttlefish dream of the string theory?". Ergo, strategy and cunning are tantamount to success.

The specifics of combat are not greatly complex, despite the hard core traditions that the Warhammer universe has nurtured. Like most RTS games, you left click on a regiment or unit to select it, and then right click to make them move, or attack, or cast a spell and so on. 

And speaking of regiments, most troops in the game are ordered into groups of between 20 and 60 units, and these regiments, or über-unit as the voices in my head call them, make controlling and managing your large armies more efficient and far less confusing. For instance, it's far easier to click the mouse once and get a 24 riflemen to shoot at a wayward ogre than it is to order each one of them to target the hideous beast-man with his bovine-like cries.There's also hero units, which we'll get to in a second.

After a time I actually enjoyed this style of play with no resources - it makes you take better care of your brothers-at-arms, and enforces the use of strategy as well, and flexing the brain muscle is always a good thing. Oh, tell a lie. You do collect gold and items from the battlefield when vanquishing important and much tougher enemies and also for winning battles, so there is an element of a resource I suppose. And yes, you can spend this resource too. After the first combat mission and between subsequent battles you'll be greeted with a 3D map screen of sorts, with paths to various destinations some of which lead to battles that must be fought, some are like 'optional' quests or battles on divergent paths, and there are also towns.

It's in these towns and villages that you'll get to spend the gold that you find on the battlefield. As well as healing your regiments and buying new troops to boost numbers for forthcoming battles, it became evident to me that not only are your heroes highly customisable, but that your regular troops are too. You can give your everyday grunts better armour, improved morale, more attack damage due to better weapons and what not. You can also equip your heroes with new items to improve their combat effectiveness and leadership abilities, which makes these township stops quite enjoyable.

The meat of the campaign game comprises the battles (though I spent an inordinate amount of time spending cash in towns), and generally speaking, the gameplay is pretty good. It's nothing dramatically new - position your ranged troops on a hill or behind your melee soldiers and hope that you take less damage than they. What makes the game a bit more interesting than most RTS titles are the scope of the battles - sometimes they're huge - and the hero characters.

All characters, heroes and general units/regiments, will gain experience with every kill they make, and there's a little experience bar that tells you what level they're on and how much experience they need to gain the next level. This means that sometimes your oldest regiments from early battles (if they survive) will develop to be some of your most deadly. With heroes, these guys also gain levels, but they also get skill points when they pass levels, which can be used with each hero to improve skills, learn new spells and make them far more angry. 

Heroes also do a lot of damage in battle, and the Wizards who favour spell casting instead of strong armour and hit points can launch fiery attacks from long distances, softening up stronger foes before they even get close. As mentioned, your hero units can also be extensively equipped with armour, weapons, and magic jewellery to make them even more malefic and they also have way more hit points than most units and will usually last longer and fight harder in heated battles. There's also potions they can carry in their knapsacks, to replenish health or mana, or to improve certain abilities.

As well as normal fights, heroes can enter into a duel, which are very cool occurrences. Like the name suggests, two heroes go toe to toe and when a duel is initiated, and all other units are excluded. There are specific 'dueling' skills that you can upgrade in your heroes skill tree, and these come in handy during a duel. Two of the reasons I loved the duels was because dead heroes often drop heaps of cash and a trove of items to pilfer, so there's always a reward, and they look great. Normally the battles are viewed from miles above, but a duel zooms right in to focus on the combatants in all their gladiatorial glory.

Speaking of graphics, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos ain't ugly by a long shot, but it's not the best-in-class either. Up close the units look pretty good, and even from afar with hundreds and sometimes thousands of units on the screen the game looks great. The lighting, particle and special effects work well, adding a dose of excitement to battles, and it uses a very scalable graphics engine, though it can be a resource hog when bigger battles loom so people with 512Mb of RAM should be aware. The camera system is quite good too, allowing you view the action from almost any angle.

The audio aspect is neither great nor terrible. You'll hear the loud metallic ring of sword-on-sword, men will gurgle in the throes of death and monsters will roar. I don't even remember the soundtrack, so I guess it must have unobtrusive. I also like the fact that the game is set in the fantasy Warhammer universe. Sure, I was a Games Workshop geek, and this sometimes tedious boardgame was my bread and butter. And yes, I used to get picked on at school because at lunch time I'd go to the library and discuss tactics and painting techniques with fellow nerdlings. But my, how the tables have turned - run from the tax man you petty fiend, run like a blood-sucking Chupacabra!

So, I really like what game development house Black Hole Entertainment has done with Mark of Chaos. Their other major game, Armies of Exigo, wasn't terrible, but I think this one has more depth to its gameplay. It's not hard to get into the game and become absorbed with levelling up your heroes and armies and though the story isn't brilliant, it's better than most RTS videogame fare. As well as the environment playing a big part in the game - units move slower through forests, but get a protection bonuses, for instance - there also an in-depth customisation tool that allows gamers to create their own army uniforms. Yep, just like painting the little pewter models in real life, here you can change almost every vestige of your troops uniforms.

Problems? There are a few. We noticed some glitches and bugs here and there with the interface, and the campaign will only last you so long before the average multiplayer aspect must be played. But these aren't game-destroying issues, and what the Mark of Chaos has going for it far outweighs these negatives. 

With a lot of strategy that combines with a number of RPG elements, the game is very playable and remarkably addictive too. It's not a thunderbolt from the Gods, but if you like the Total War games you'll probably like this one, and fans of Warhammer and the Games Workshop tabletop games should definitely check it out.

Game: Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
System: PC
Players: 1-5
Online: Yes
Developer: Black Hole Entertainment
Distributor: Red Ant

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)