Metareview - Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
by Alan Rose 
{ Nov 16th 2006 at 1:30PM }
Still smarting from the disappointing Mage Knight Apocalypse, Namco Bandai really needed a hit with Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Adding to the pressure was the success of THQ's Warhammer series (the excellent Dawn of War), and competition from other fantasy-themed strategy titles such as Battle for Middle-earth II and Heroes V. The good news is that Hungarian developer Black Hole Entertainment delivered the dark and gritty aesthetics of the Warhammer universe, and the scores reflect their efforts. However, like many publishers of late, Namco Bandai may have compromised quality assurance to stay within the all-important holiday launch window.
- IGN (80/100) enjoyed the game's deep customization and attention to detail: "The visuals in general are very good. All of the unit models are finely crafted pieces of art. The modeling is great and the textures on top are excellent. They do some nice things with lighting and heat shimmer effects that make magic come alive. All of this comes with a price. The framerate can drop substantially in large battles."
- 1UP (70/100) is holding out for the first patch: "It's a real mess sorting things out when you get into scrums where unit overlap turns organized regiments into brawling blobs. In short, you get plenty of detail under the hood, but too few helpful barometers. It's hard not to fall under Mark of Chaos' 'almost-there' spell. Prize-winning? No, but certainly promising...if we can hold our breath for fixes."
- Game Informer (68/100) thinks the combat system could use some tweaking: "Lacking any sort of base-building or resource-gathering, Mark of Chaos has to get by on the RTS combat that makes up the majority of the gameplay. Unfortunately, the battles fail to distinguish themselves in any meaningful way from what we've seen in the genre for years. Hero duels (no armies allowed) invariably go to the person who spent more points in their 'dueling' skill tree – which, of course, gimps them in terms of leading an army."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Lorben @ Nov 16th 2006 1:43PM
“Lacking any sort of base-building or resource-gathering, Mark of Chaos has to get by on the RTS combat that makes up the majority of the gameplay”
Someone doesn’t know what Warhammer 40K is.
darko82 @ Nov 16th 2006 1:52PM
@Lorben, that may be true, but people expect certain gameplay elements in an RTS. D&D has never been about base-building and resource gathering, but Dragonshard was somewhat successful in bringing those elements to the first D&D RTS.
Lorben @ Nov 16th 2006 2:21PM
People may expect base building in an RTS game, but is this supposed to be a Warhammer game or an RTS game first? If the creators want to deviate from the original game style like in Dragonshard that’s ok, but they shouldn’t be penalized if they don’t.
It’s like when 1UP got on Never Winter Nights 2 for using the D&D ruleset.
Ekrim @ Nov 16th 2006 2:31PM
I have to agree with Lorben here. While the other two reviews bring up some valid points, saying in essence, "I don't like the lack of resources" is kind of off topic. Besides the fact that quite a few similar games used no resources (Myth, anyone?), it's essentially trying to compare the mechanics of one type of game with another that differs in a profound manner, however minor.
Sort of like trying to compare Prince of Persia or other 3d platformers with first person games. There's quite a difference in the style of play, though the essence can be quite similar.
Wraithzula @ Nov 16th 2006 4:56PM
Yeah, the demo gave me a rather strong Myth vibe. This game is more Real Time Tactical then strategy.
Games Workshops been doing well in their push into gaming, DoW was excellent, now this little bugger.
Patrone @ Nov 16th 2006 5:59PM
Although the game has some flaws that prevent it from being truly great (like DoW is), some of these reviews are pretty unfair. On top of ignoring some of the real problems that exist within the game (like horribly inefficient code, item-swapping bugs and unit cohesion bugs), some of these reviews mark MoC down for things that many gamers and Warhammer fans would find fun. In this way, I find some of the reviews actually misleading. I think it speaks to a general lack of education/sense of purpose within the gaming journalism industry.
Will @ Dec 5th 2006 1:25PM
I agree that this game doesn't need the base building element in fact i think it would take away from the extremely well detailed warhammer feel the game has. however the item swapping bug is annoying. This game is, in my opinion, clearly better than dawn of war which feels slow and small because of the base buling element.
kevin sutton @ Dec 25th 2006 6:22PM
Game Informer wasn't claiming that lack of base building was a con; it merely pointed out that removing it meant that the only way for Mark of Chaos to distinguish itself would be with the combat itself.