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start their domination of the Old World. More
importantly, depth hasn’t been sacrificed on the
altar of the Blood God to make way for it. Your
path forward is customisable, your strengths
and weaknesses decided by the technologies
you research, the
troops you favour, and
what Lord you choose
to lead your forces.
But the main
concern of fans isn’t
the overworld and
army management.
Since the rather
disastrous launch of
Rome II,
with its pitiful
AI, the player-base
wants to know what happened and whether
Total Warhammer
will suffer the same fate.
“It’s an ongoing process with AI. When we
release the game, that’s the kind of thing we
stick in patches as well,” says Winston, recalling
the desperate fixes made to
Rome II
. “There’s
obviously been a large amount of work to plant
for the AI to do with all these new things and
developments as well, so you’ll see nice little
touches. For instance, there’s a ‘raise dead’
spell Vampires can unlock, and you’ll quite often
see situations in a battle where a unit of cavalry
are charging towards an enemy undead caster
and he’ll actually raise zombies or skeletons
in front of himself to shield himself. Although,
again, yes there are problems present, but it
gives us an opportunity for our AI guys to offer
new challenges to the player.”
To our eyes, the AI is performing far better
than its closest contemporary. Playing as the
Empire against the Vampire Counts, you’ll
notice that the latter’s lack of missile units
sees them relying on disposable, cheap flying
bat units to harass your gunline in order to
stop you from tearing apart their shambling
lines with shrapnel. Enemy cavalry race up
the flank looking for the chance to disrupt your
formations, and the opposing commander will
do everything in their
power (their literal
power, with spells and
everything) to crush
your army.
This game is the
only place where
Warhammer fans will
be able to see their
spells mean more
than just a roll of the
dice. This game is the
first place Total War fans will be able to control
armies that play completely differently from
faction to faction. It is a wonder to behold, a
spectacle to be enjoyed, and easily the best
TW to date.
And it’s come at just the right time,
too, because no-one wants to play
Age of Sigmar.
Vermintide
Left 4 Dead
but with giant
rampaging rats and unabashed
fantasy slaughter. Great to play
with friends, and infuriatingly
delightful to play with people
online.
Dawn of War II
The perfect video game version of
the 40K franchise, and the only title
to perfectly capture the sound of
the Bolter – the dull, solid thud of
hitting Arnold Schwarzenegger with
a frozen steak.
Bloodbowl II
Like football, but with way
more death, and thus more
entertainment. Easy to play, hard to
master, and impossible to predict
with those goddamn dice rolls
deciding everything.
Space Marine
Glory for the Emperor and a
button-mashing masterpiece,
Space
Marine
is a gory chainsword delight
that lets you find your zen between
buckets of spilt Ork blood.
•
Total War:
Warhammer
is out May 24
...he’ll actually raise zombies
or skeletons in front of
himself to shield himself.
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FEATURE
GAMES
GAMES
Four
Warhammer
games you
must play: