If you're not too fond of moving miniatures back and forth on a table top board and occasionally rolling the lucky dice, you can always experience the drive for strategic manoeuvres and successful conquer with a well produced computer game adaptation. This way, you don't have to imagine it, as it's all happening in front of your eyes in full rendered 3D. It's a shame though that the experience has only been really gratifying with Relic's Dawn of War, as the very few other adaptations haven't quite made it up to gaming standards. The Warhammer universe so far has seen a few games in its library, definitely not as much it could have, but there are a couple of fairly well known titles. Firstly, and almost definitely being the most popular, is the good old Dawn of War and its many add-ons that came from Relic. The second title has only just been released - yet strikes to be just as big - is Warhammer online: age of Reckoning; of the original Warhammer universe which takes its form as an MMO. It's quite possibly not a coincidence that a title of the same universe has been released in the same month, and that is a game called Warhammer: Battle March, the merged strategy game for the Xbox 360. Warhammer: Battle March isn't to be confused of being separate from its predecessor PC version ( Warhammer: Mark of Chaos) as they're initially the same game, it's just Battle March is the original game with some minor additions to the title, and of course placed on the console. You'll be seeing a couple more races than the original, a new campaign and a few new multiplayer additions, not like this will make any difference to the Xbox 360 owners, but it's nice to know what you're getting extra for your money... even if it isn't exactly worth it. Now, although the potential for a great Warhammer strategy game is huge and almost too easy in concept, I'm sorry to say that any often Xbox 360 player and strategy game lover will most likely cringe or cry at the experience which is offered by Warhammer: Battle March. So get ready for the rant and rave about why this game doesn't meet the expectations of the majority of current generation gamers, but how it could appeal to true Warhammer fans.

Gameplay:

Warhammer: Battle March has the right idea, but it just can't nail the creation stage, so bringing it to the console isn't going to make it any better. First things first, most of the strategy games that have been designed and even ported to the console have been put to the drawing board again with its controls and GUI, this has the designers restructuring the way you control your units and the way you view them. It's really hard to tell that Black Hole Entertainment have done this, I actually had to search for some of the new design features. As soon as you setup the game and access the menus you can tell something isn't quite right here, and even for someone who hasn't played the original PC version, you can see that the Xbox 360 controls have been just thrown together. You need to press A to add this unit to your army, B to view information, RT to automatically generate... I'd find it hard to believe that the developers had researched into what makes an accessible console strategy game. Keeping on the subject of menus, these obviously present you with the available choices, and admittedly there is a lot to do here. As this is an add-on plus the original "Mark of Chaos" game, there isn't a lack of options. There are three campaigns to traverse through, each allowing you to follow a different race, in this case the Empire/Elven forces, Chaos/Skaven and the newly included Orcs/Dark elves campaign. On top of the campaigns, you can play skirmish battles against the AI or other human players with up to three others in four modes; Normal Battle, Reinforcement Battle, Siege Battle and Custom Battle. All of the modes generally revolve around the same goal, and that is primarily eliminating the enemy army. There are a few exceptions in conditions, e.g. The siege mode where the attacker side has to obtain the "siege flag" before the time runs out, this has the defender in a castle in every case. Also, the reinforcement battle adds the condition of holding certain points for a specific amount of time. Although these modes are interesting in concept, in practice they're very tedious and cumbersome to play, and that's for the sole reason that they're not suited to the controls of the Xbox 360's controller. To give a bigger perspective of the problem, Warhammer: Battle March has a similar strategic genre as the Total War series, and if you have ever played a Total War game before you'd know that those games take a lot of micromanagement of individual units to be successful. Here, though stripped down considerably, you have to do the same sort of thing. You'll need to be constantly moving your infantry to different positions, setting formations, taking places all with the mobility of the analogue stick and the single click ˜A button. Then on top of that, the game has this in depth option of using items and abilities for your hero which you usually don't have time for. There are some nice little additions to this game, RPG elements and customisation options, but the time it takes you to configure them you've wasted valuable time, or the consequence isn't entirely worth it. A good example of this is the army editor which is chosen in the main menu. In here you can paint and logo each race, and each unit from that race, however, the way of which the editor is designed isn't completely straight forward, and to give quite a complicated editor to the console version of the game seems a bit disillusioned. By the time you've painted your entire army and having them look like camouflaged 18th century rifleman, the next game would've come out. It really doesn't add anything to the actual gameplay portion of the game. It was nice of Black Hole Entertainment to incorporate the add-on and the Mark of Chaos into one, but one of the more compelling new features of the add-on has been taken out in the Xbox 360 version, and that is the world domination mode for the multiplayer. Okay, it didn't exactly look like the next Medieval: Total War, but the fact you would have been able to play this online with other people makes it a favoured requirement. So essentially with the console version of this game, you're paying more money for fewer features. So that's controls and features, how about the actual game itself. Now, to give Battle March some credit, the actual gameplay if you give it a chance, isn't that bad. The first thing which may put you off is the dull and dark environments and poor lip syncing, but there is some good strategy to be found in this game. Such as upgrading your units and then watching them slaughter double the amount they had done last time around, that's always satisfying to experience. There are also twelve races, all with their own unique voices, characters and unit types and there's well over 100 different unit types, allowing you to have your own unique army nearly every time. This is unfortunately brought down by the ever so scripted and linear campaign mode, and unforgiving and strange behaviours of the AI in skirmish. So all you're really left with to provide a worthy challenge is the online mode, and good luck finding any games there, I'm afraid you're going to have to get a friend to buy the game.

Graphics:

The engine used from this game is a mixed bag, the environments are well detailed and so are the character models, but this is dragged down by a low polygon count and some seriously unsaturated colours. The effects are anticlimactic, definitely anything that's meant to be of a destructive nature such as cannons and other siege weapons. The effects of trolls and other large monsters you'd expect them to knock units flying, as you may have seen in the very relevant Dawn of War, here, you see them jump a little but nowhere near as over the top. Animations of units are rigid, some look like they float every now and again, and units when attacking don't actually hit each other. It just feels so dated compared to the majority of today's real time modern strategies. As mentioned earlier, there is some lip syncing issues, I kind of wish there weren't any in-game cinematic as they put shame on the pre-rendered ones. At the start of each campaign, you'll see a small clip introducing that race and campaign, they're relatively short, but very impressive to watch setting a very good impression for the rest of the game, then it jumps into the actual game and shows an in-game cinematic to set the scenario, and everything takes a turn for the worst. The units spin on the spot to turn, the camera takes some sketchy angle movements, and the mouths move up and down, up and down... it's pretty comedic for what's meant to be a "dark" and serious strategy game.

Sound:

The sound is probably one of the higher quality points of the game, which I'm making seem a little rare at the moment. But, I was impressed by some of the effects, voices and choices of music found throughout the game. As you may remember, there are 12 races/factions in the game, and although expected, they all have their own voices. But not only that, they all sound very convincing, none of its unbearably cheesy to listen to and they all sound like they should. This goes for the few cinematic clips and the unit voices. Yes, some of the units will repeat their responses more often than not, but when you remind yourself there are 12 factions all with about 15-20 unit types each, you give them a little sympathy. Sound effects with a good sound system are also great to listen to. There might be a lack of umph to the cannon shot, and monsters may not be as scary as they should be, but the screams of battle and the clash of swords when fighting are enjoyable at least. And last but not least, the musical score. This was a perfect match for the theme of the game, it has an expected orchestral soundtrack throughout, and it's all very fitting to listen to.

Longevity:

Going over what this game offers, you'll be experiencing three full length campaigns from varied factions, a skirmish options with four different modes, and the multiplayer with the same choices. There is much to do in this game, and within each mode there is quite a bit of depth. Once you've completed all of the campaigns from start to finish, you'll have all 12 races to try out in the multiplayer modes, and then inside that all the variations of armies you can combine. So this is in no way a short game, it's just that the actual experience probably won't last the length. What brings the replay ability down in this game is essentially the poor implementation which gives a very uninviting impression, and this is a combination of poor controls, layout and unfulfilling missions. A big chunk is going to be missing if you can't find anyone to play with either, and to be honest, I think you'll only find the huge Warhammer fans that don't have a PC playing, so it won't be very popular at all then. This, as well as a lack of world domination, questions the reasons why you'd buy the Xbox 360 version of this game over the PC one.

Overall:

Like the majority of ports of strategy games to the consoles, I'd stay clear of this title like the deadly measles virus. There should be some appreciation and respect for the developers who are starting to develop from the ground up, or who are taking the time to reinvent the controls and setup so the average console user can jump right into it, but if it's just a straight port with some thrown together buttons, then this isn't even worth a bargain bin buy. It's slightly regrettable to have to say this about Warhammer: Battle March, as the concept, what is offered and the actual game isn't that bad, any PC gamer with a love for Warhammer should maybe give it a try... on the PC, but unless in that unlikely coincidence you want a dampened experience and to spend more money, I'd wait for the next inevitable Warhammer title.