Sleeper Hit
It might be just me not played too much total war (40+ hours), but seeing Warhammer: battle march getting 6 for the score feel bit shameful from the press. Here is my break down pros and cons
Pro:
New stuff is a welcome addition.
If you like Green skins(orcs and Goblins) or the vile dark elves, then you need not search no further. This game comes with new beginning Intro cut scene unlike other expansion, and has all the cinematic just for the new races. So you can expect to see some great cut scenes plus new mission for the new races. Considering most expansion never come out with new intro this is a extra plus in my book, and hopefully other gaming dev team can learn from this game.
Visually Stunning!
I really enjoy games that have eye candies and are beautiful to watch. This games has one of the best looking visuals to date for RTS genre. When you zoom into your squard, you can clearly see units are varied and detailed. Grass in close up looks lush and vast, while water looks good enough to drink from my monitor. Buildings are modelled in medevil or renaissance architechture, and they seem grim and dank like the true warhammer fantasy should look like. Everything in the visual adds to the realism of the Warhammer fantasy universe.
Sound like a true winner!
I am one of those critics who must have good sound in his movies and games. A poorly made sound is a half asses job in any commercial or fine art of our digital age of mediums. I'm going seperate sound in 3 categlories.
-sound
every arrow, gun fire, thunder clash, and scream sounds fitting and the artistic value is heard when played in the game.
-music
When I hear music for this game it actually adds to the suspension of disbelief. It has a fitting orchestra to the grim universe of warhammer fantasy
-Dialogue
Every spoken speech and spoken dialogue feels right on the mark, and nothing feels wrong or mis spoken. Expression of speech is well woven with political and carnage of warhammer realm. The script writer/s real did awesome job of Green skins cunning and dumbing of their ilk. every spoken words felt believable.
overall quality sound
Sound, music and dialogue is the very core of gaming and battle march did more than hit my expectation of conveying it's story and action of the world of warhammer.
Single player is facinating with stories, while retaining some element of RPG!
Through out the whole game you control few sqaud and a hero or heroes, but can gain armors, weapons, and more squad in villages after the campaign. Most of the campaign starts out with simply destroy your enemies, but the stories make the campaign worh while, and makes me want to progress to the next mission or objectives. While the mission feels simple minded, it is a welcoming to the ever growing complexity of RTS genre. While the mission objective seem linear, you can diverge to other unknown location to find more allies or secret location to get healings. One thing I didn't understand about the review critic of gamespot was "everyhing was linear." When there are optional location to play or avoid in some campaign, how is it really linear? I almost get the feeling the critic just whimsed this game just for the sake of reviewing.
Cons
My only complaint of this game is that I was hoping to see all 6 campaign for each factions rather than empire with highelf, choas with skaven or green skin with dark elves.
While simple mission objectives like defending castles or camps, razing the enemy territories or killing off enemy leader in a duel. I still think the simple manner of the game is a plus to this game, not a con in my opinion.
I hope people who like RTS would give a chance to Battle March, since it does come with original and the expansion together, and it is a great bargin with $40 dollar price tag. Hopefully mark of choas will have all the races of warhammer fantasy universe!