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.

As cool as this battle scene looks, controlling that army would be impossible.

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.

Dark Elves march into battle.

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 models look great ? they suffer when they start moving, though.

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.

The Orcs have enlisted a Giant ... yikes.

A new skirmish mode against the artificial intelligence allows you to play around with the nifty army builder, which is a little like playing with the Warhammer retinue books. This time, you can even add mercenaries to your legion. For example, rather than getting "Chaos," you can build your army from Undivided Chaos units or from the specific armies of Khorne or Nurgle (sorry, no Slaanesh or Tzeentch). The same goes for the Empire -- you can either build your army from the city of Nuln or from a specific Greenskin clan. This detail will be lost on Warhammer newbies, but diehards will appreciate it. You can also customize color patterns and add unique items to heroes. If only playing with your army was as much fun as building it.

Playing online over Xbox Live doesn't remove the silly control scheme, but it does allow you to play against a real person and not the predictable AI. This is the best way to enjoy the game. The problem is, very few people are playing the game online -- so unless you have a buddy to play with, you might be out of luck.

The PC version of Battle March is a better buy, as it keeps all of the new goodies and wraps them up inside a saner, mouse-driven control scheme. Console fans are left once again holding the short end of the stick. As steeped in Warhammer flavor as the Xbox 360 version is, it's just too unwieldy to recommend.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game bought by Crispy Gamer.