CONQUER THE MORTAL REALMS!
Become the commander of one of
the extraordinary factions of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar,
a dark-fantasy universe where immortal knights
ride heavenly stardrakes to eradicate Death
across a multitude of realms.
Hello one and all and welcome back to The Art of Caesura,
I hope you are all well, and that if you're on the west coast of Canada (like many of my friends and family) you haven't melted yet, and that if you're in London (like other friends of mine) you haven't blown away yet, and that if you're in Ireland (like me) you're enjoying the normal temperate climate.
Over the past two weeks we've been looking at some of the recent Warhammer licensed video games. As I said at the time, I don't really like just writing reviews about videogames because there are many large websites devoted just to that. Instead I like to look at how these games intersect with my hobby of painting miniatures. We saw me remake The Unkindness in virtual format in Necromunda: Underhive Wars and looked at some of the Hired Guns that I have painted while talking about aspects of the new Necromunda videogame where you take on the role of one of these eponymous characters.
Today we're keeping it digital, but shifting our focus to the Mortal Realms, to the game Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground.
I followed Storm Ground's development quite closely. It was created by a small new studio in Vancouver (near my hometown) of about 20 people called Gasket Games. The exciting thing about Gasket Games is that some of the members are ex-Relic employees. Anyone who's been around the Warhammer videogame block, will recognize Relic as the studio behind the fantastic Warhammer 40k RTS franchise: Dawn of War (man I played Dawn of War and all of its various expansions so much...except Dawn of War III...we don't speak about Dawn of War III).
Relic were known to be genuine Warhammer fans and that has come across in their new game, Storm Ground.
As before, I'm not just going to regurgitate one of many reviews of this game that are already out there, instead I want to talk about the portrayal of the factions in this game, but I will start with a few brief general thoughts about this game.
Having read many reviews about this game, the reviewers all comment on it's genre (or primary mechanic) as being roguelike. This is a term that I was unfamiliar with but describes games where (similar to an old game called "Rogue") if you die, you lose a bunch of progress and maybe some items. The supposed draw is that you do get to keep some items between "dies" so that when you play through it again you're a bit better equipped.
This roguelike structure really doesn't work for me as a busy dad. There were two times when I was on the final mission of a 12 mission campaign (each mission taking 20-30min) when I was getting called away, rushed and lost, having to start back at mission one. Some people LOVE this punishing gameplay - Dark Souls has created a very popular franchise around it! And admittedly at a different time of my life (when I would have had much more time to game) it wouldn't have bothered me as much, but now I would love some "checkpoints". Yes I am getting old and soft.
Now, onto what I really like about this game, and what has prompted me to persevere through my hapless restarts: the feel of Age of Sigmar!
Like the Warhammer Underworlds videogame, the models in this game are rendered to be very faithful to the tabletop models. It is surprisingly satisfying seeing a Knight-Incantor zap fools with lightening just the way you imagined they would on the tabletop, or seeing Nurglings merrily capering about or feeling true fear as a swarm of Bladegheist Revenants float towards your hero with their massive claymores raised...
I actually went and grabbed some of the Age of Sigmar miniatures that I have painted from the various factions featured in the game and just sat them beside me while I played, to hold and look at during loading screens (and admonish when things were going poorly - just joking, I haven't quite gone that crazy yet...).
Click on their titles to open a Realm Gate back to their original posts.
The environments, though very small, give us one of our first virtual tastes of the worlds of The Age of Sigmar. The battles take place in several different realms and the environments give just enough to pique our interest without revealing too much.
I got quite a kick out of most of the voice-acting. It ranges from really quite awesome (Freya Skyhelm) to a bit campy but still great (Ichorian Cankerscorn -he's actually my fave!) with only a few duds (the Putrid Blightkings North American accent). But across the board you really get the sense that the voice actors were genuinely throwing themselves into it and that passion was a bit infectious.
Through the animations, environment and voices, I did find myself quite immersed in factions that I did not previously feel a huge connection to. This was one of the game's greatest successes for me. I found myself wanting to learn more about Grandpappy Nurgle's philosophies, about the motivations of the Night Haunt and the general badassery of the Stormcast Eternals.
And I must admit, that blasted roguelike structure did keep me coming back for more..."maybe I'll get it this time..."
Thanks for popping by The Art of Caesura, I'll see you back here next week!
Reading: Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
Listening: Alberto Balsam - Aphex Twin
Next Week:
Droning on...
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