Total War: Warhammer (2016) by Creative Assembly

I'm not a classic fan of the Total War series.

The only game I've played in the series was Rome II, which is referred to by many of the series' longtime fans as the overall worst game in the series. I actually liked it quite a bit, but just couldn't get around the various glitches, bugs, and jankiness and eventually stopped playing the game in frustration of having battles stolen from me by units glitching out and getting slaughtered.

I decided to pick up Warhammer after seeing it on sale last week for $15, and boy am I glad I gave the series another shot because I'm really enjoying this game.

I have no attachment whatsoever to the Warhammer world. I'm such a neophyte that I didn't even realize a fantasy element to this fiction existed; I thought for almost a year that this game was a Total War based on the Warhammer 40,000 variety because I didn't know there was anything else. I believe that coming from such ignorance allows me to judge the game purely based on its merits rather than viewing it through the rose-shaded goggles of a Warhammer fan.

The things that ruined my experience most in Rome II are completely removed from Warhammer. The bugginess of combat and the convoluted way that some of the strategic layer worked are gone, all refined and streamlined into a system that's very easy to understand when compared to that game. I find myself greatly enjoying battles now that they aren't plagued by units bugging out on walls or geometry or getting themselves killed when they don't do what I'm telling them. The scale is also far longer here. In Rome II, you can only have units be so powerful when at the end of the day they're all just, at most, human beings riding horses. In a fantasy setting, though, you can go balls-to-the-wall. You've got nearly indestructible emperors riding huge winged beasts, wizards that can blast apart entire enemy lines by themselves, giant cannons capable of raining destruction upon enemies. Which is great, because you're going to be fighting some pretty terrifying, giant monsters on the other side of the map. It adds an entirely new level of flavor to the Total War system. It's fantastic.

A big change that I love is that the leaders of armies are now single units with upgradeable equipment rather than elite groups of spearmen, cavalry, etc. There is truly nothing more bad-ass than watching the Emperor swoop in on a giant, man-eating Griffon to save one of your infantry units that is about to rout by smashing half of the enemy's and routing it almost instantly. I also like that there is no concept of passing time in this game, as it allows you to become more attached to your leaders rather than levelling them like in Rome II only to have them eventually die of old age even if they're your best units. It's wonderful and the light RPG leveling system adds a lot of attachment to units that could otherwise remain pretty generic.

The different factions in the game operate so differently from one another that it's almost unbelievable. The way Chaos and Greenskin factions work is so different from the humans and dwarfs that it may as well be another game. It's really astounding just how much meat is on the bone with this game. I never had much desire to play units other than the Empire or Bretonnia, but the sheer variance in their gameplay styles provide literally hundreds of hours for somebody who wants to try them all. That is an amazing amount of value considering I paid $15 for this game.

But the thing I love most about the game so far is the incredible tense feel it has. You're told pretty much from the beginning that there is a Chaos invasion coming and that you'd better prepare for it. As a Warhammer noob, I had no idea what that meant. But holy hell did I find out. Your first campaign in this game is pretty much doomed to fail, and I kind of love that. Rather than leaving me deflated and frustrated as I would have expected, it left me feeling challenged. Could I play again and, knowing what I know now, succeed? It also left me with a completely different feeling playing through a second time, like there was a dark shadow on the horizon, and I better get my crap together and be ready for it. It adds one more additional quirk to what is already a very competent turn-based strategy/real-time tactics game and makes it a truly great one in my opinion. I've seen some people complaining about the Chaos Invasion mechanic, asking for an option to turn it off, and I can see how it would be frustrating if you're a fan of the series and are looking for not much more than what you've gotten in the past. But for me, it led to an extremely tense, dread-inducing experience, like the pressure was on and I was the only one on the map who could deal with it. It feels very much like Mass Effect 2 on Insanity; a creeping sense of being completely outgunned and wondering how the hell you're going to deal with the onslaught that's coming your way, and desperately trying to make the most efficient moves possible to tech up as quickly as possible and equip yourself for the great challenge ahead.. From a narrative perspective, it feels remarkably like the oncoming invasion of the Others in Martin's ASOIAF fantasy series, or Sauron's and Saruman's war in Tolkien's LOTR series.

I found the Warhammer fiction to be really intriguing as well, and far more inspired by reality than I expected it to be. While Tolkien's Middle Earth is not tethered to anything but his own imagination, and Martin's Westeros is loosely inspired by British history, Warhammer seems to be clearly inspired by the early Holy Roman Empire and its struggle with the Viking invasions of Europe, at least from what I see in this game. I'm lukewarm on fantasy but a huge fan of historical fiction, and Warhammer piqued my interest enough to make me want to pick up a few Warhammer fantasy novels and see what they're like.

I do have some complaints about this game, though. Though not as bad as Rome II, it still runs somewhat poorly on my GTX 1080, with most battles hovering somewhere around 50 fps at 1440p. Additionally, this game has some of the grimiest DLC I've ever seen. Blood and gore has actually been removed from the base game to sell at a $3 price point, which is just as ridiculous as it sounds. I've got a feeling that this is more on the publisher side rather than the developer side, but whoever is responsible for this reprehensible practice should be ashamed of themselves. That said, a lot of the DLC is actually really good, as the additional factions freshen the game after a few playthroughs.

I really enjoy the game despite having no attachment to its fiction. It's deep technically, well-balanced, and a whole lot of fun, with a great setting and an excellent, tense campaign. And if I, someone no real interest in RTS or Warhammer, am enjoying the game this much, then I can confidently recommend it to pretty much anybody. This game is worth paying full price for in my opinion, but if you find it on sale for around $30, you'll be getting a steal. There are potentially hundreds of hours here, so if you're a fan of turn-based strategy, real-time tactics, or anything in between, pick this up without a second thought.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Playtime: 96 hours

Total War: Rome II (2013) by Creative Assembly

Attempt to divide and conquer in Creative Assembly's thoroughly broken, poorly optimized strategy sequel

I'm a huge fan of history, particularly classical history. I spent my time in college studying Roman Civ, so the game was hugely appealing to me. But I'll try and take a step back here in order to review it from the point of view of someone who isn't completely infatuated with history.

I'm a big fan of the old tactical JRPG style games, like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. I haven't done much gaming with its cousins in the subgenres of military strategy and real time strategy, but I really enjoyed how this game seemed to blend both of those genres together, and I respect that Creative Assembly is basically designing two games in one, here. There's the overarching strategical game in which you're managing your cities and towns and moving your military and spy/champion/dignitary units, and there's what is obviously the meat of the game in the battle system that occurs once you engage in combat with an enemy unit. They flow together quite nicely, allowing you to build up the efficacy of your units via upgrades in your cities and towns. It scratches the RPG itch in that way while at the same time providing a great strategical and tactical experience. You can easily find yourself dumping hours upon hours into this game, thanks to the patented "Just One More Turn" addiction technique made famous by the Civilization series. It's quite enjoyable, and there's quite a lot of it -- One campaign can take nearly 100 hours to complete.

There are some really cool features to the game. I got the most enjoyment out of it simply due to the fact that it strives to be historically accurate, and it does a great job of it. The Roman military is clearly split between the Manipular system of the middle Republican era, and the Marian reforms later on that transformed the army from the group of levied farmers it classically was into the group of professional, disciplined fighters that would eventually conquer most of Europe and all of known Africa. The historical accuracy of the military units also extends to the Celtic tribes of Gauls and Britons, the Iberian tribal fighters, African and Asian horsemen, etc. It's all really enjoyable given my interest in history.

There are numerous little touches that are really nice, as well. The art on the unit cards is really awesome. It's clear they went for an antique style with them, and it really works well. The Celtic tribes look particularly cool. Another thing I found really enjoyable was the pre-battle speeches that the general can be heard giving his troops. They're phenomenally well voice acted, and they make accurate references to religion and state. It's enjoyable down to the cornua that the centurions blow whenever you tell a unit to move. It matters a lot that they get the little things right here, as they do a lot to immerse you in the time period, and Creative Assembly has absolutely succeeded there.

An historically accurate depiction of Caesar vs. the Gauls

The actual combat, and being able to zoom in and out as your units go to battle against others, is absolutely phenomenal. You can zoom in and see each unit, in great detail, fighting against the enemy. Or you can zoom out and take in the entire battle from a colossal scale. Watching your cavalry charge the rear of an opponent is immensely satisfying. I had one situation where one of my legions was caught in enemy territory. I had had the foresight to send my units into a defensive stance, so the battle began with them entrenched in a wooden fortress. I was heavily outnumbered, and didn't have many units to do anything with other than just station them in the doorways of the fortress and hope they could hold off the enemy. They ended up succeeding, breaking the enemy waves at the entrance in true Roman legionary fashion. It was awesome, and easily my most memorable moment in a game filled with them. The problem is that about half of the most memorable moments are due to terrible bugginess, and those memorable moments always caused battles to end in disaster for me. Imagine fighting a battle for close to 40 minutes, and having it suddenly turn because one of your key units got stuck on geometry and slaughtered since you could no longer maneuver them. It's just as infuriating as it sounds.

I've gotten into this game somewhat late, playing it a full year after it originally released, and I've read quite frequently that people say it's become way better, that it's been fully patched and is now recommendable to everybody, but my experience with it has not proven this to be correct. I've had units refuse to enter a breach in a wall literally a dozen times, which has caused me to stop knocking down walls altogether and just use siege ladders. But then I had units get stuck on a wall and do nothing but continue to climb up and down the siege ladders, which caused me to lose an extremely important battle. I've also experienced a bug where my cavalry has run in the completely opposite direction from which I've ordered them. There are numerous other things like this that really destroy the experience for me, but it's also incredibly poorly optimized, even after Creative Assembly has patched the game several times and repackaged it into the "fixed" Emperor Edition. I'm running 780ti SLI and I see dips down to around 20 fps at times, which is absolutely ridiculous.

It really hurts me to give this game a thumbs down, because I did enjoy it quite a bit. But the frustration from dealing with its bugs and its poor optimization make it hard for me to recommend to anybody outside classical history buffs and hardcore Total War fans. If you fall into either of those groups, then by all means, take the plunge, because you'll get quite a bit out of this game. I surely have. But if you're not, then you should probably just pass it up altogether, because the frustration will likely outweigh any enjoyment you'd get out of the game.

⭐⭐