Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a real-time strategy in the same vain as the Total War series. And when I say "in the same vain" I really mean to say that the interfaces in the games are largely the same. If you've played Total War, you know what to expect here. The game looks like it is going to play in much the same way, however, there is little in terms of resource gathering, and managing your empire; you just march your armies around and squash your enemies. Your enemies will be doing the same thing, and on the campaign map you'll get to see all the armies moving around. This represents some of the largest tactical decisions in the game - you get to choose where to fight your opponent, if you've mastered enough strength. Alternatively, you can fall back and prepare to defend your fortress, perhaps softening your enemies up by forcing them into a siege they can't win. After that, you may sally forth from the fort and strike at your foes in their moment of weakness.

When I first saw those Warhammer: Mark of Chaos screenshots, I was pretty impressed with how the game looked. Well, I'm even more impressed with the visuals now that I've witnessed the demo. There's plenty of detail to be seen on the units and throughout the environments. The game also sounds excellent, with a decent variety of voiceovers for units. When you click on a unit it says the same sort of catch phrases you would expect them to say, usually about how they are going to grind their enemies into dust. Or you can sometimes hear death screams when they get wiped out.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos also has a solid physics engine. I witnessed a siege, and got to see towers explode as they were shelled by artillery. I also saw a giant hero unit run into enemy infantry, swinging a giant axe around, smashing the smaller soldiers willy-nilly through the air. And if your giant hero dies, he will fall over, and potentially crush whomever he happens to land upon.

There are a lot of different battlefields in the game, and different battlefields might have different things in them, such as forts, castles and lowly villages. As I said earlier, your enemy will also be moving around the map, and if you see a band of Orcs marching towards a village, you can choose to either intercept them before they get there, or wait until after they have attacked the village and then attack.

The game also has borrowed the hero system from Warcraft 3, although there are certainly improvements here, like skill trees, large working inventories with items that will change your heroes' appearance, and a wide variety of heroes to boot. The hero units are extremely powerful, and are the crucial ingredient that sets the game apart from the Total War series. The hero units have three different skill trees to focus in. You can choose combat abilities that can turn heroes into great warriors, or you can choose dueling abilities that will help your hero battle other heroes, and you can pick leadership abilities that will help your army with all kinds of buffs and the sort.

In respect to dueling, this is one of the more interesting aspects of the game. You can challenge your enemy's hero to a duel with your hero, and then they will begin to battle inside of a lighted circle. No one else can interfere at this time, and a good dueling unit could probably turn the tide of battle simply by being able to wipe out your opponents leadership-focused hero or your opponents combat-focused hero. Of course, all of these need to be balanced, although I am very curious to see the advantages to strict hero specialization, provided you have enough heroes in your army to fill each skill tree niche.

In the game, there are two campaigns - one from the perspective of the Empire (the good guys) and the other from the perspective of the Chaos (the bad guys). However, throughout the campaigns you will meet new races and forge alliances with them. If you're really into Orcs or Elves or something, don't worry, you'll get to add these units to your armies, even to the point where you could build your entire army out of just these units.

The armies themselves have a very large degree of customization. Not only can you pick the colors that your soldiers wear, but also what armor they wear. You can customize each individual unit in a regiment as well. This isn't exactly surprising when you consider the large degree of customization in the table top game that Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is based upon.

What sets this game apart from the Total War series, which was obviously the developers' inspiration, is the setting. I feel more inclined to give Warhammer: Mark of Chaos a go instead of Medieval 2: Total War simply because Warhammer: Mark of Chaos has an appealing fantasy setting, which is different from what we've seen before.

-- Jackson 'Smapdey' Johns

Chaaarge!

Gee, look at the belly on that guy!