Warhammer: Battle March (Xbox 360)

Console RTS swings and misses, again.
9/15/2008 6:50 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Warhammer: Battle March is yet another example of a decent real-time strategy game born on the PC and made into an abomination due to a ridiculous console control scheme. Every improvement made in this standalone expansion to 2006's Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is ruined by controls that are so convoluted that it takes a true finger ninja to operate successfully.

Battle March isn't the first RTS to fail due to its controls, but it stands out as one of the most frustrating. You organize units into four assigned groups by using the right bumper. In large-scale battles -- especially when in skirmish mode or when playing over Xbox Live -- four isn't nearly enough. Instead, you're left to manually maneuver your units, which is a huge pain.

Most commands require you to perform a rain dance to get your units to quickly do what you need them to do. Combined with the fact that the battles are over pretty quickly, especially once the arrows start flying and the swords start swinging, this makes controlling your army much more difficult than it needs to be. This is a game about tactics and using special unit abilities, and it is nearly impossible to carry out multiple orders as quickly as you need to.

The campaign structure is the same here as it was in Mark of Chaos -- that is, it wastes the beautiful overland map of the Old World thanks to the linearity of its missions. There are a few cases where you are presented with an "optional" mission, but it's still too straitjacketed. If you are unfamiliar with the PC game and think this might be like Rome: Total War inside the Warhammer world -- as the combat does have that Total War vibe -- you're going to be disappointed.

The cool thing about the Battle March campaign is that your core units stay with you, earn experience and rank, and become battle-hardened vets -- as do your hero units, which you can customize via experience points to be great commanders, duelists or powerful one-off heroes. But then the game turns around and doesn't allow you to switch magic items found on the battlefield between heroes. What good is a staff if your warrior hero finds it? You should be able to toss it right over to your Bright Wizard, but you can't.

The Warhammer atmosphere is the best thing about Battle March. This alone obviously doesn't make it a great game, but Warhammer fans will appreciate the fact that Black Hole Entertainment clearly did its homework in researching Warhammer's grim world of perilous adventure. The voice acting can be over-the-top, but this is a very authentic adaption of the lore for the most part. Unfortunately, you might be utterly lost if you're not familiar with the setting, because there's no unit info aside from flavor text. Do you know the difference between a Great Imperial Cannon and a Hell Cannon? How about Night Goblin Fanatics? Do you know why they're special?

The artwork is a tad on the drab side, but this does fit into the theme. The models look great when you zoom in on them; it's when they start moving that they get a tad shaky: The marching animations aren't very good, and the combat animations are even worse. If you take the time to watch your hero battle up close, he turns to face and swing at his opponent in slow motion. It looks tedious. The frame rate also tends to drop like a stone during heavy battle sequences, which doesn't help matters.