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A good game, though room for improvement

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 32 / 34
Date: November 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've never played the table-top version of Warhammer, but this game seemed to be a fairly interesting take on the age-old elves, orcs, and dwarf formula that appears in so many games nowadays. I'm a huge fan of Relic's Dawn of War franchise, so I decided to pick this game up. Overall, I'm glad that I got this game; it's a solid product with lots of potential for expansion. However, it also has plenty of room for improvement, and I would suggest that anyone considering this game to play the demo first.

Gameplay: The game is true to the standard real-time strategy (RTS) formula, minus the harvesting and base building. You pick and customize your units before each battle and then fight it out against other armies in open fields or sieges. Some of the battles feel somewhat epic, especially the castle sieges. But there are never more than about 400-500 units on the map at any give time. Hero units play a huge role in the game. They can "level up" and collect items like heroes in roleplaying games, duel against other heroes, and give bonuses to the troops that they command. The hero system, as it stands now, needs to be refined a bit more so that heroes don't level up too fast (I had one go from 10th to 35th level in less than 5 minutes in one skirmish game!). However, I generally like what heroes add to gameplay. The game does have some tactical elements to it. Things such as morale, terrain, flanking, charges, and unit-counters do come into play. Units with broken morale will flee, which can end a battle quickly. Cavalry is underpowered and does not nearly justify its cost. There is friendly fire in this game, but only in the case of area-of-effect weapons like cannon. In my opinion, that's good enough. I killed too many of my own soldiers with Hellfire Cannon in the single-player campaign to want any more varieties of friendly fire!

There are two single-player campaigns that come with the game. One for Chaos and one for the Empire. Playing through each (about 20-25 hours all together) will allow you to use all four playable races (Men, Elves, Chaos, and Skaven), as well as some minor races (Orcs and Dwarves). There are a variety of missions, from sieges and kill-all-enemies maps to duels and some minor dungeon crawling. The campaigns tell a decent story , though a linear one with very little replay value. The game includes both a single-player skirmish mode and online modes. It's good fun, but my biggest gripe has to do with the very small number of maps. Even with the 1.2 patch that came out at the same time the game was released, there are only 15 skirmish maps. Of that number, only 8 can be played as single-player skirmishes! This is really a shame and inexcusable. As with all other RTS games, the shelf life of this one will depend on whether the developer provides strong support with patches that fix bugs and add new content (like maps), as well as whether modders kick in.

Graphics: This is an absolutely gorgeous game. The terrain and environments are beautifully done, and the models themselves are finely detailed. The only dull spot here is the animations, which are decent but not up to par with the likes of Relic's Dawn of War or EA's Battle for Middle Earth 2. The intro movie is phenomenal and the cutscenes are pretty good as well. The graphics go a long way toward setting the atmosphere of the game.

Sounds: Everything is pretty good in this area. Weapons sound appropriate, the music is boisterous and epic, and the voice acting is mostly solid. It actually sounds like some of the Chaos voice actors were imported from Dawn of War, which is fine with me since the voices are so appropriately wicked.

Technical issues: I have had no crashes, freezes, stutters, or any other problems with this game with the 1.2 patch installed. I am running it on a fairly good computer (E6600 dual-core processor, 2 gigs of RAM, Geforce 7900GTO video card). The game comes with a very good manual that explains the gameplay and units, and the in-game tutorial is pretty good. Also, I have had no issues with the camera, which rotates and zooms fine. For some reason, the game comes on 6 CDs, with no DVD option available. In this day and age, I don't think that any game that takes up more than 4 CDs should be released without a DVD option.

Value: As an RTS gamer, I liked this game very much. It's a good blend of tactical gaming, roleplaying elements, and a fantasy-based storyline. Due to the severe lack of maps, I don't think it's worth $50 (more like $30). However, if the developer steps up to the plate and releases several more (free) skirmish maps and makes some other adjustments with patches, I could recommend it more firmly. Also, a good, meaty, well-thought out expansion could do wonders for this game.

Rating: 3.75 stars (out of 5)

Rushed development ruined a potentially good game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

"Warhammer Mark of Chaos" is a combat oriented real time strategy game. All elements of base building and resource management have been removed and the game consists of a linear progression from battle to battle, with token plot elements scattered in between. The main strength of the game is its beautifully rendered characters. The user can zoom using the mouse wheel from the "bird's eye" perspective all the way down to the individual character level. Whilst the game provides plenty of eye candy, sadly this is one of the few positives in an otherwise limited repetoire.

The game has drawbacks aplenty. Firstly as mentioned above the game is very linear which severely cripples its replayability in single player mode. The computer AI is horrendous. Given that the combat system is the game's only real selling point, the user would expect the AI to be able to implement at least rudimentary military strategy. Instead, the computer AI sends its units forth one at a time to be invariably crushed when facing the entire weight of the opposing army.

The game has a duelling system which allows opposing heroes to fight. This was rather pathetic. The enemy heroes were so overmatched that I was able to leave my hero alone and he was able to slay the enemy foe without so much as a mouse click from me. The game is also poorly balanced to the extent that I was able to finish the final mission on hardest difficulty without losing even a single troop. The heroes are far too powerful and this saps much of the enjoyability of the game.

Once the novelty wears off, and it quickly does wear off, it becomes very difficult to find anything about the game which can be talked about in a positive light. As such my only recommendation is to stay away.

Great Graphics - Be Sure to Update

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: March 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Warhammer - Mark of Chaos involves thousands of soldiers in a fantasy world clashing against each other. Elves, Goblins, Skaven and Humans battle it out for supremacy of the known world.

Before you even start playing this game, make sure you UPDATE it. It took us five tries to even get this game installed - the install utility kept crashing. We have a very new machine, too. There are countless tales of the gameplay crashing. If you do a full update - which can take an hour or more - you have the best possible chance of actually playing this game bug-free.

The graphics are gorgeous. You do need a high end computer to take full advantage of them, but you were due for an upgrade anyway, right? The elegance of the elves, the gritty darkness of the goblins, everything shows up with great detail and an eye for the cultures involved. When you're involved in the battles you can zoom out for a general overlook of the terrain, or zoom in close to watch individual soldiers duke it out.

The game is all about large scale battles. You choose what units you're going to send out against the foe, and then the battle commences. Think in terms of massive samurai battles with gigantic forces sweeping down against each other.

Speaking of samurai battles, you also get the one-on-one hero conflict that samurai warriors were so fond of. This gives you a break from the massive battle for a while, focussing on just one particular person, and the way he moves and swings.

Like most games of this ilk, the single-player gameplay is really more of a training mission than anything else. There are two, reasonably long (each perhaps a weekend of playing) scripted missions that help you learn the strengths and weaknesses of the various units. This helps you hone your skills against the enemy AI which isn't awful, but of course isn't great either. Then head into the one-player skirmish to test out the other maps and to set up situations to test your less-strong points, to get those worked out.

Once you've got those basics down, it's time to take on the real challenge - other humans!

Online gameplay is where all games like this shine. You're now playing against real humans, with real skills, ones who will spot your weaknesses and take cold advantage of them.

If you're a fan of epic warfare, of the likes seen in the Lord of the Rings movie and the 300, then this is definitely a game to check out. Just make sure your system is tweaked and that you download all the updates before you take it on!

Recommended.

Looks good on outside, but unplayable.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First, let me say that this game has one good point. That is, you can customize your army by changing the color, design of weapons, and features. All units are customizable and if you are a person that enjoys doing this, then you will be able to keep yourself occupied for a while. Initially the graphic are a little impressive, but the fluidity is lacking. Regardless of this, the game is unplayable due the bugs. First, upon loading the game, you will need a patch just to get it to run. However, getting the patch installed is a major pain as the autoinstaller doesn't work.
And IF you can get the game to run, you will have problems with the mouse pointer disappearing onscreen in the setup screen prior to battles. Howevever, alt+tab out and alt+tab back in resolves this. The point is, why? Why all this labor to just play?
The game play itself has a poor framerate, and the campaign put me to sleep.
Another company should have designed this game. THQ did a great job with Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, and Creative Assembly's Total War series is quite excellent. If one of those companies designed this game, things might have been different.
Mark of Chaos is crap. Total crap, and a waste of money. If you want to buy a good battle game, I suggest something else. If you want a massive scale battle game, then you will need to stick with the Total War series. If you want a fantasy element in the wargame, then I have no suggestion for you. Maybe another fantasy battle game will come out in the future.

I am very unimpressed with Mark of Chaos. It looks good on the outside, but it's got nothing to offer. This game is the equivent of a car with a nicely painted body, but no engine. More time should have been spent on it, because it really could have been something special, but it was most likely rushed to release. I doubt there will ever be an expansion for this game, due to it's negative publicity.

For the same price, you can buy Company of Heroes AND Titan Quest. Both games have been marked down recently, and are excellent.

BEWARE - What a ripoff!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: January 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

To say this game is a disappointment would be an understatement.
Nothing but technical problems (and no it's not my system, plenty of horsepower - well beyond the system requirements) as witnessed on the Mark Of Chaos Technical Support Forum. Namco released this game with so many bugs that they had to release two patches in the first month totaling nearly 600MB !
My main problem seemed simple enough. I was unable to load previously saved games from the program's Load Game screen. The games were being saved (found them buried 14 folders down in the My Documents folder!) to the hard drive so it's obviously a programming issue. After trying to find a solution with Namco over a month's time, they finally said there was nothing they could do about it. This response came after installing, uninstalling, clearing the registry, installing the 600Megs of patches over 10 times!!

The game actually installs fine and game play is smooth and fun. But like others have posted, the single player campaigns are seriously lacking in scenarios. But not being able to load previously saved games means you need to have about 24 hours of time to finish a campaign straight through. And even when you finish the campaigns simply end with your character on a map. No theatrics, not even a message saying the game is over. What's next? Going to heaven and finding out it's just a bunch of clouds and nothing else?

Beware to all those who are interested in purchasing this game. If you need any further warnings just browse the 25+ pages of technical support problems posted on the Mark of Chaos Forum.

What a waste of money! Do not give in to the temptation to give Namco your money to be a guinea pig for their poor quality of work and customer support.

Great Game, best I seen in a while

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game, true to the table top game universe while still being a great Real Time Strategy game. I enjoyed both the Chaos and good single player campaigns. The Online battles are the best part of the game, creating different armies and then battling players from all over the world. Be warned though, the game needs a really good graphics card, I upgraded to a PCI-E card with 512MB just so I could play this game and that card worked fine

Might be okay, if it worked.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

nvidia 6800gt
2gb ram
4ghz amd64
win xp fully updated

Graphics are nice. But sound stutters on occasion. My biggest problem is random game crashes when loading new maps. I find its not a graphical issue, its database related. For some reason if I buy certain items for my characters, do certain things to my army ect - I can't load the next mission. I have to go back to a previous save, and buy something different, or arrange my army differently then the game will proceed.

Even after patching, reinstall/deleting saves, ect. Game still not stable.

Plus its incredibly short and linear with horrible constant loading. No you can't out manuever the enemy, since the map forces you to go a certain way. Want to attack from behind? Nope, invisible map lines keep you from doing that.

If I could get through the entire single player campaign without crashing it might be a nice short romp which was fun. I'm not interested in the multiplay part of this game. Maybe it is good? But don't buy this for the single player portion.

A Great Start For The Warhammer RTS Franchise

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'll keep this review short:

The Good:
-4 Unique armies with many units and customization options, including mercenaries and individual soldier customization, as well as extensive hero customization and rpg-style leveling
-Amazing attention to detail and army composition options
-Decent multiplayer when there is no lag or dropping
-Single player storyline was pretty decent, and you can play from the side of Empire or Chaos
-The absolutely INSANE intro video when you start up the game

The Bad:
-I experienced many drops on Gamespy while attempting 4 player matches
-In large-scale skirmishes when huge armies would clash, my game would crash completely with no explanation, and I run a pretty sick gaming rig
-While the story itself was good, the single player cutscenes lacked and the campaign itself was waaaay too linear
-Lack of variety and depth in multiplayer maps, with only a handful of varient or siege maps

The odd:
-You have to start a lan game with cpu's to have a skirmish?

Overall:
4/5: It's a great attempt at this serious, and far from failed in my eyes. While it lacks in places, I feel if they expand on it at all, it could only do some good. This game will soar with enough attention to it by the developers and gaming community. Rock on Games Workshop!

Take a nap instead

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: December 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I had just finished THQ's Dawn of War series when I bought this. Expecting something of the same experience, I was horribly disappointed on several accounts:

1. First of all, this is NOT a Warhammer 40K game, it is based in the plain-jane warhammer world. It is a Dungeons and Dragons remake with a dash of WH40K plot thrown in. This human, dead people, dwarves, elves, orcs type of world is tired, let it rest people.

2. The graphics, despite what other people have said above, are good but not great. It is relatively useless to have beautifully modeled characters if you spend the entire game in bird's eye view to get a comprehensive view of the battlefield. They are also wasted in the sense that all the units come in geometric arrays of 20, 32, 48 or whatever. It's like playing Risk on a Harry Potter book.

3. Harry Potter books are larger than the maps you play on.

4. This game is so linear I used it to help me hang paintings. Seriously, how stupid is the 'let's just follow the plot along and see what happens' type of game? This is purely laziness on the designer's part, and I feel pretty robbed. Again, if you lose a siege unit early, start over. Lame.

5. Despite what you've heard, the voice acting is ATROCIOUS! I'm sick of Elves sounding like they're 13 year olds on qualudes, and why does every human that wears armor have to have a bad fake European accent? The actors quite obviously read their lines in a half-hour session, never interacted in person, and used the money to buy their next bottle of Mad Dog.

6. Leveling/Items/Unit Management screens are non-intuitive to navigate and ridiculously roundabout to use. I have to wait to be in combat before switching items between heroes? Come on...

7. A little nitpicky, but the art in the load screens (which you will have the opportunity to study IN DETAIL) is undetailed and uninspired. One of the things that makes the warhammer series so cool is the visceral connection you get with the characters through the amazing artwork. Just look at the intro to Dawn of War, that's qual-i-tay. These stills look like watercolors that were left in the rain. And the intro movie sucks donkey.

8. The heroes are one dimensional. No, less than that, they are Half dimensional. 'I have a scar on my face and my daddy was killed so now I have to prove i'm a good guy' (even that struggle was not obvious throughout the game). Boo hoo. 'I'm a big, mean orc and I wanna kill humies'. YAWN.

9. At least with 6 CD's I now have a set of coasters.

To sum up: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, ever. Don't let your friends buy it, don't even let them know it was made. It is an embarrasment. NAMCO should have their Game Designer's Union membership card torn up for this. I want my money back.

PS the art on the box is cool-ish.

So far.... not so good, but still hopeful!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I really wanted to love this game & I think now that my expectations may have been too high. I'm an old school table-top Warhammer player, but for many years now I have not had the time or money to invest in the requisite hours of collecting, painting, and gaming with models (not to mention some of the people who play the table-top version are REALLY annoying)! I thought this game would be the perfect compromise, but instead it has turned out to be a big dissapointment. Oh well, there is always the Warhammer Online game due to come out in Fall 2007. If you're new to Warhammer or don't know much about it then you might like this game, either way it is pretty cool when a giant picks up one of your screaming men in the middle of battle and eats him.

PROS: Good graphics, good model animations, good sound, units gain experience and can be kept throughout the game (unlike Dawn of War).

CONS: Boring gameplay, boring and linear storyline, really long load times between screens, annoying NPC characters, poor keyboard controls.

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