Warhammer: Mark of Chaos

"One big mistake, but only one"

How much can you punish a developer for making one mistake? One big one, mind, but only one. Mark of Chaos is in many ways a superb game; almost a complete package RTS; but for thinkers rather than frenetic action players. But, it is the one mistake that drags the score down drastically. I am referring to the horrendous load times. Levels take 2 minutes to load on my rig and that is simply way too long. We play games to be "immersed" in another world and the sense of immersion in Mark of Chaos is almost completely spoiled by the loading times. If the developers had integrated a decent mini-game in with the loading screens then we might have been satisfied, but no. It might be an issue with un-optimised code, as levels don't seem that big or complex. Either way, immersion is sadly missing from Mark of Chaos.

Introduction - The developers of Mark of Chaos (Black Hole Entertainment, based in Hungary) have attempted to recreate the Warhammer world in a computer game and have largely succeeded in their task. Well, I'm impressed, anyway! The game is the equal and opposite of Dawn of War as it plays mostly in a slow strategic way. Like the Total War games, there is a "overland" map and battles are played out as separate levels. The game feels like a Total War lite game, but with a decent and compelling story-line injected to replace the world domination theme of the Total War games. RPG elements for heroes is well thought out and the fact that units can stay with you for the whole campaign is also a cool feature. In may ways, the developers have integrated many features that we want to be present in the "perfect" RTS and deserve respect for getting the mix pretty much right.

Gameplay - 9 out of 10. The absence of the ability to issue instructions to your troops while the game is paused is a bummer, but otherwise a job well done. You save your game progress on the overland map, but the battle levels are small enough to be completed on the first or second play through. If you are not happy with you first attempt, the game auto saves progress just before a battle is fought, thus you can have another try at any time. Black Hole Entertainment deserve much respect for almost perfectly judging the difficulty curve (for the good campaign, anyway) and battles sometimes finish even before you think that you have completed them; another plus in my book. The game crashed only once during 15-20 hours of game play so I can say that it is a stable game. The sound occasionally glitched, but, as my system uses on-board sound and the game is optimised for an Xi-Fi sound card system, then I don't think that I should complain about that.

Story - 8 out of 10. Sure it is cliched and hackneyed but there IS a story (for each campaign, anyway) and it drives you on to fight the next battle. The question of story in games is still an unresolved issue, with many gamers wanting game play over story every time. Me, I like games to have a story and Mark of Chaos satisfies in this regard.

Graphics/Sound - 9 out of 10. The voice talent is top notch and the classical battle scores are nothing less than rousing. Unit responses are original and I never tired of their comments. The graphics are demanding even though the levels look like they were designed for a much older game. I have heard that the unit fighting animations are poor, although, as the game is usually played from a "birds-eye" view, you hardly ever notice this fact. There is no blood or gore on display, which is strange for the world which the game is based in.

Play Time/Replayability - 9 out of 10. There are 2 campaigns to tackle and the usual skirmishes to try out. Each campaign has 4 chapters, with 5 or so battles in each chapter, so no shortage of entertainment there. You might want to try a campaign over again with different choices as to how you develop your heroes, but I doubt it. I might well add that my review is based upon a full playthrough of the Empire campaign. I have unsuccessfully attempted the Chaos campaign (but played through 4 missions of it) and feel that it is too hard for anyone but an RTS expert, with a strong stubborn streak to attempt! Tough missions, with a "critical" path through them are a hallmark of the Chaos campaign missions. This spoils the game somewhat, so you have been warned.

Final Recommendation - 8 out of 10. I ask you once again; how much can we punish Black Hole Development for giving us a game with such long level load times? How much can we punish them for ruining the sense of immersion that we play games for in the first place? I had this same quandary to resolve when I played Far Cry. I played Far Cry on normal difficulty and found some levels almost impossible to complete and, to this day, I have never officially beat the game. The mixture of an unmarked checkpoint save system and a ruthless level of difficulty spoilt Far Cry for me and I have never regarded is as deserving anything more than a 75% review. You will disagree with me, of course. Far Cry, like Mark of Chaos suffered from an immersion issue that could not be resolved or overcome by my effort and had to be marked down accordingly. Sadly, official "industry" reviewers glossed over the problems that Far Cry had and gave it really high scores. I maintain that Mark of Chaos deserves to be cut some slack as you can at least complete the blessed thing! Nuff said.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/08, Updated 09/15/08

Game Release: Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (EU, 11/24/06)