Warhammer 40,000 Regicide review, by Rick Moscatello

[Doom]

[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Sort of clever, not sort of fun





Chess is an awesome game that’s stood the test of time.

Warhammer 40,000 (more like “Warhammer 40k” to fans) has also stood the test of time. While not nearly as enduring as chess, hobby shops have been filled with 40k players for decades now, with little reason to think it’ll end any time soon.


The Space Marine, the epitome thousands of years of human technology and training...is a pawn.

Warhammer 40,000 Regicide is the mixture of both these great games. The end result is mighty space marines and space orks duking it out on a chessboard. Half the time you’re making chess moves with chess pieces, and when you’re not doing that, you’re lobbing grenades, firing lascannons, and using weird psyker powers to destroy your enemies pieces.

Some things that are pretty good individually can go together even better, like peanut butter and chocolate. Sadly, chess and Warhammer 40k, while great individually, go together like peanut butter and boxing gloves.


Behold...the king.

Chess is all about strategy, making the perfect move to trap and eventually kill your opponent’s king, while preventing him from doing the same—I know, there’s more to it than that, chess is such a deep game that there’s no way to do it justice in a single sentence.

Warhammer 40k likewise, cannot be fairly described quickly, and for the fairly uninitiated, I’ll try a brief overview: the universe is in a state of perpetual war. There are various factions, but the two in this game are the space marines, elite soldiers of a human race that’s spread over a thousand worlds, and the orks, hyperaggressive greenskin warriors bent on warfare on destruction for the sake of warfare and destruction. There can never be peace between these to races, which seldom fight in space or in the air despite the general sci-fi setting of the game, but instead fight on the ground, in bloody battles than can easily turn into melees.


The deaths are epic, for what it's worth.

The graphics are top notch—pieces don’t get removed from the board sedately; even doomed pieces fight as best they can before being exploded into gory giblets, among other horrific deaths.

But, the game? It’s tough to like. If you’re a chess player, you’re going to want to, well, play chess, so you’ll find all the random powers in between the chess moves a little annoying (there is an option to play the strictly as chess, however). If you’re a 40k player, you probably won’t enjoy having your elite pieces blown to bits by a minor trooper with a bolter (small handgun). Besides, Warhammer 40k plays best with a mix of units, or at least with a lot of infantry. Where are the Lehman Russ, Ork Mechas, and all the other pieces of equipment from the extensive Warhammer universe? Not here, I can tell you that much. Even a $20 box set of Warhammer 40k miniatures will probably provide more of a feel for the game than this.

There are some multiplayer options (head to head, because, hey, this is a chess game), and there is a short-ish campaign that’s as much tutorial as anything else, but, bottom line, this game has no chance of satisfying a chess fan, and there are quite a few better Warhammer 40k computer games out there.

[Kanati]

Having JUST published a couple, this one will probably be published later this weekend. Keep em coming though. Much appreciated.

[Doom]

No problem, i just developed my l33t screenshotting skillz so I don't have to wait for PR to help me anymore, speeding up the process quite a bit.

Feel free to take a week or two.