Hey, everyone! This week, I review the third entry of The Creative Assembly's collaboration with one of the U.K.'s premier tabletop game makers. Could this game challenge SNK's King of Fighters XV's 103.75%? Or is it a case of Goodbye Esaka?
Let's find out!
UK-based tabletop games designer, Games Workshop started out with nothing more than the company CEO, John Peake, Ian Livingstone, and Steve Jackson, selling wooden boards for various tabletop games, including backgammon in the year 1975. Today, the business is raking in a massive £353.2 million in revenue in 2021, while partnering with other independent retailers to keep British business alive in a post-COVID19 environment.
The business best selling, tabletop gaming franchise they have in their portfolio is WARHAMMER, which is based around fantasy battles on a tabletop environment, similar to chess. The franchise started in 1983.
In 2016, Sega acquired the rights to make video games based on this, highly successful tabletop gaming franchise, and in May The Creative Assembly released the first entry based on the collaboration of the highly successful Total War series, and Games Workshop's highly successful tabletop gaming franchise, that is WARHAMMER was released exclusively for the PC, on Valve Corporation's Steam platform.
In 2017, the second entry of this franchise got released, again, exclusively for the PC. On 20 September. This particular entry of the series was probably one of the best entries of the hall, the entire series in my honest opinion. Firstly, it had the Mortal Empires campaign.
If you own the original game in the series, along with the second entry of the series, you have access to the largest total war campaigns in the franchise. The campaign map itself combined the worlds of both entries of the franchise. In a single campaign map. This would mean you would have a whole lot of settlements to conquer! Earlier this month, the third, and final entry of this collaboration got released.
This particular entry of the series is set in the exact same timeline as the previous two entries. This time, it is said in the third continent of this war-ridden, fantasy world. The Realm of Chaos. You take control of one of the various factions who are battling it out to become the Lord of Chaos.
The accessibility scores are as follows
Visibility 11
Similar to the majority of the entries of the franchise, you can switch on alliance colours. When this feature is activated, the colouring of the soldiers' uniforms, banners, and HP bars are relative to that particular faction's diplomacy towards you.
To make this even sweeter, you can add a colourblind mode to this feature to make this game a lot more accessible. For a player with a visual impairment. This can be a lifeline, as, I split-second decision can bridge the gap between victory and defeat.
In a Total War game, you can't simply withdraw your army to your base, then use your military buildings to create your units to replenish your army. Nope. You will have to fight with whichever troops are deployed when a battle starts.
Settlements, and armies in the campaign map have their own unique icon on the banners. However, this colour scheme is reflected by the bar that usually indicates an armies' strength (The higher the bars film, the more troops that are assigned to that particular army) is reflected whichever colour blind mode, you have selected. Also, if you were to hover your mouse cursor over a particular settlement, battalion or army, the faction who controls it is shown in its tooltip, the faction's diplomacy towards you will also be shown here.
So, a visually impaired player will find no issues when playing this game.
Audibility 10
This game is quite dialogue-heavy, however, the dialogue in this game can be subtitled. For example, if an adviser is giving information about a particular race as they have been encountered, or other pieces of advice during the course of a campaign, subtitles will appear in a text box located on the top left of the screen. This text box will appear. Until you decide to close it.
The only downside is the standard battle chatter that your units would say during a battle, for example," Die traitor!" or "The gods have abandoned us! Retreat!" Is not subtitled, but it is not important as if significant events happen during a battle, for example, a unit was to flee or a general was to be wounded, or killed in battle notifications will appear on screen as an icon will appear on top of the exact location on the battlefield where the event took place.
So, a player with hearing impairments will find very little to no issues when playing this game.
Mobility 10.5
As par for the course, the game is primarily controlled by the mouse. Less clicks select settlements, units, or armies, right-click issues commands to them. For the more competitive players, there are hotkeys. The shortcuts can be redefined to whichever key, or mouse button you want via the games options menu.
So, a player with a mobility impairment can issue commands to his or her troops during the heat of battle as the game progresses.
However, support for additional input methods, for example, controllers could make this game more accessible. I understand that controllers and strategy games are like petrol and water – they just don't mix! But, for a player with a mobility impairment, using a controller can make a game more comfortable to play.
Halo Wars is built for controllers for the ground up, city builders, for example, Tropico, Starbase Startopia, Surviving Mars all having native controller support, hell, even Pyro Studios'hit RTS, Praetorians of jumping on the full controller support bandwagon, why not this game?
So, a player with mobility impairments will be able to play this game very easily
Gameplay 10
This game sends the trilogy out with a bang.
The developers have already said that they will expand the mortal empires campaign, incorporating this game's map, and races will be coming in the next few months. The game runs a lot smoother than other titles from the series, for example, ROME 2. The quest battles are challenging, and fun. The gameplay is a lot more streamlined, as additional units can be recruited by generals while on the campaign map, rather than using settlements to train troops, in the classic entries of the franchise.
Although the amount of factions that are currently available within the game is somewhat limited, more and more will be added over time (they normally do this).
The game is also well optimised. This game runs like a dream on my mid-range GTX 1060. In my honest opinion, the WARHAMMER trilogy is probably the best games of the franchise.
If you are into the total war games, hell, strategy games in general, this game is free on Game Pass for PC. Don't knock it till you try it!
OVERALL SCORE 103.75%
this engagement between strategy, and fighting games Total War WARHAMMER 3, and KoF 15 ended in a stalemate.
See you guys in the next review!
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SpartanCommander1990 out!
Speaking of which, I've this video gives uploaded to YouTube, the poll for next week's review will be officially open.
You have three options this week!
Elden Ring, the RPG, running itself on difficulty, from Dark Souls creator FromSoftware
Up against it is to classics in their own right –
One of most recognisable, famous, survival horror first person shooters of the 90s, DOOM
Or, take a trip to Middle Earth for some classic RPG action with Lord of the rings: The Third Age.
Again, the polls will close on Wednesday midnight. As usual, get voting guys!
SpartanCommander1990 out!
Roll out, Spartan Legion!
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