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Warhammer Battle March Review: Marching Backwards
Posted by Mike Fahey at 7:00 AM on September 27, 2008
Warhammer is a pretty big name right now. With the launch of Mythic's epic MMORPG Warhammer Online and previous successes with the Warhammer 40K setting in the PC real-time strategy market, it makes sense for a console game to take advantage of the name recognition. Thus have Black Hole Games and Namco Bandai brought us Warhammer: Battle March, a remake of the PC RTS Warhammer: Mark of Chaos that came out back in 2006. Console ports of real-time strategy titles haven't fared all that well in the past, but over the last couple of years we've seen a bit of a reversal in the trend, with console owners getting their first taste of what RTS gaming is truly about. Does Battle March advance the war for compelling console RTS experiences, or does it turn tail and flee in the face of progress? Red and blue meet on the battlefield, after the jump.
Loved
Epic Soundtrack: Composer Jeremy Soule is the go-to guy if you want your game to sound legendary and epic. His work in Battle March is particularly excellent, especially considering the general blandness of the rest of the game's sound.
Detailed Units: Developers did an excellent job of reproducing classic Warhammer units in virtual form. A few a might be a little bit off, but for the most part very nicely done. The environments they march through are a bit on the bland side, but considering the setting it works.
Hated
Complicated Controls: The controls in Warhammer: Battle March on the Xbox 360 are ridiculously complicated to the point where they turn an average RTS into a complete mess. Complicated button combinations are the rule of the day, and I often found myself lost while trying to figure out which combination of the right trigger, analogue sticks, and directional pad would return my view to default.
Story? What Story?: Having not played the original PC version Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, the dazzling opening cinematic led me to believe I was in for an epic tale of legendary heroism, but once the game actually started up the story turned out to be as bare bones as the actual gameplay. There's a big war. Go.
Simple Gameplay: While I am not a big fan overly-complex RTS games, I do like to get my hands a little dirty and try out complicated maneuvers, etc. Battle march pretty much makes that unnecessary, leading you from objective to objective with no deeper strategy needed than outnumbering the other guy.
There have been several above-average to excellent RTS games for the Xbox 360 at this point - Supreme Commander, Battle for Middle Earth, and Command and Conquer 3 to name a few - and I was really beginning to think that the genre was finally getting to a point where it could flourish on a console machine. Then comes Warhammer: Battle March, stumbling onto the Xbox 360 with controls so complicated I had to play through the tutorials twice. Honestly I've not been so tripped up by a game's controls in years. This would have been a halfway decent game with entertaining (if a bit sparsely populated) multiplayer if not for the fact that the control frustrations permeate ever aspect of the title.
Warhammer: Battle March is a stunning example of why RTS games tend to struggle with console audiences, only serving as a good excuse for Warhammer fans to revisit the PC version.
Warhammer: Battle March, developed by Black Hole Entertainment and published by Namco Bandai was released on Sept. 2nd for the Xbox 360. Retails for $59.99. Played through three campaigns on normal difficulty, played one online match but had difficulty finding open games, played several versus CPU skirmishes.
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Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Gouki4u
Posted 7:17 AM 27/9/08
Hell I'm a Warhammer fan, and I wasn't impressed with the PC version. It baffles me why they would port this over of all things.
Gouki4u
Razgriz1
Posted 7:12 AM 27/9/08
Very disappointing, but I'm sure any die-hard Warhammer fan is already busy with WAR anyways.
Razgriz1
TearsandScreams
Posted 7:05 AM 27/9/08
Sounds horrendous, in these times where good games are (we're hoping) in abundance, certainly one to avoid. Cheers for the heads up.
TearsandScreams
the-hypnotoad
Posted 7:03 AM 27/9/08
Good news re: the Jeremy Soule soundtrack. As an avowed fan I may have to buy the digital version of this soundtrack; the game itself not so much.
the-hypnotoad
Ashiu
Posted 7:44 AM 27/9/08
I love Jeremy Soule. I have to listen to the Morrowind soundtrack at least once a day. Oh man, it's so good. <3
Ashiu
ara
Posted 7:42 AM 27/9/08
@Razgriz1: I'm sure die-hard Warhammer fans are painting figures, not playing on PC. : P
ara
Mohican
Posted 8:39 AM 27/9/08
Jeremy Soule is good, I just want to see more film composers working in the industry. He is becoming the "game sound," and I don't think anyone would want an entire music industry defined that narrowly.
Mohican
proverb
Posted 7:10 AM 27/9/08
I once played the demo of the PC version of this, I was impressed by the models but the game play was so slow and straightforward it didn't hold my attention through the second battle.
proverb
stupid_mcgee
Posted 9:18 AM 27/9/08
As a huge fan and long time player of Warhammer: Fantasy Battle (started in 92), Mark of Chaos (Battle March's predecessor) was such a let down. Battles were... boring is being too nice. It was just flat-out dreadful. They should have made it turn-based instead of a really, really, really, really slow RTS with no base building. The models, sound effects, music, and even the cheesy voice acting were well done in MoC, too. It was all completely ruined by the the shoddy gameplay and snail-speed pacing.
I hope one day a good Warhammer Fantasy RTS comes out. I didn't think this would be it, and would just reiterate the problems with Mark of Chaos. Too bad I was right.
Thanks for reviewing this, Fahey. If it's anywhere near as bad as the MoC, I know playing a bunch of this game wasn't easy.
I
stupid_mcgee
Cell9song
Posted 9:36 AM 27/9/08
all this could be a moot point if MS would stop being so bull-headed about having some kind of mouse-style control scheme. The Splitfish controller comes to mind......
Cell9song
stupid_mcgee
Posted 10:17 AM 27/9/08
@Cell9song:
They should. If 360 players could have m&kb then there wouldn't be any whining about cross-platform control advantage/disadvantage. Devs could do what Epic did for the PS3 version of UT3 and make online matches be "controller only", "m&kb only", or "mixed". It was a brilliant idea that renders the entire balance issue completely moot.
stupid_mcgee
Benjammn
Posted 12:19 PM 27/9/08
@Mohican:
Soule is AWESOME, I must admit. But now that I check out his Wikipedia article, you are right about how much he's done. I knew about Guild Wars, but I certainly didn't know about Morrowind, Oblivion, Warhammer, KoTOR, the Harry Potter games (strangely enough, why not Williams? lol...), CoX, and others.
I definitely think that Soule understands the type of music that is needed in each section of the game, which can be harder than doing that for a movie as a movie is all scripted whereas a videogame isn't necessarily as much. I think that's why not many big-name movie/TV composers do games.
Benjammn
grundlesnatch
Posted 2:47 PM 27/9/08
@stupid_mcgee: Did you ever play Warhammer: Dark Omen?
grundlesnatch
tmoney1492
Posted 2:30 PM 27/9/08
I'm only looking forward to one Games Workshop property and that is Blood Bowl. The original game was rather generic, too bad to hear this one didn't really step it up all that much.
tmoney1492
kazemizuhi
Posted 6:19 PM 27/9/08
Had you plugged in a wii-mote, you'd only have to shake it to the left to return your camera to default.
kazemizuhi
macintosh3000
Posted 9:30 PM 27/9/08
Anyone else noticed that the orc looks like Diablo with that Helmet?
macintosh3000
outofreach
Posted 11:20 PM 27/9/08
At least it's not as bad as the mmo.
outofreach
Solaricide
Posted 1:31 AM 28/9/08
This game would have been so much better if Relic had thrown it together. It wouldn't have to be a clone of DoW, just a better playing game than it is.
Solaricide
FTH
Posted 8:26 PM 28/9/08
Wait, Supreme Commander on the 360 was good? Everything I read about it said it was very, very horrible on that platform so I happily skipped it...
FTH
Salt_The_Fries
Posted 11:03 PM 28/9/08
@Salt_The_Fries: The Mark of Chaos itself was worthy a note of 7.0-7.5/10, I forgot to add.
Salt_The_Fries
Salt_The_Fries
Posted 11:01 PM 28/9/08
I played original Mark of Chaos on PC, and to be honest, it was decent, but flawed. Nevertheless, I agree that the game is rather simplistic and the story isn't that interesting.
Salt_The_Fries
Wildheart
Posted 2:15 AM 30/9/08
@grundlesnatch:
Evidently not or he wouldnt have said what he did!
Classic,classic game...Shadow of the horned rat was also awesome, if bloody hard...
Still play Dark Omen online over Hamachi with some other bods, its stood up quite well for a ten year old game!
Wildheart
SmitaAutesion
Posted 6:01 PM 28/9/08
After Relic's success with the Dawn of War games, I didn't think anyone could screw up an RTS based on Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but Mark of Chaos and the expansion proved us wrong. It was one of the biggest disappointments of that year and now Goat knows how many years we have to wait until someone takes another stab at it.
SmitaAutesion
soso5432
Posted 7:26 AM 28/9/08
cant play
soso5432