Genre: 4x Strategy
Developer: Creative Assembly
Publisher: Sega

Total War: Warhammer's tactical view is ho-hum, in a contemporary-Civilization kind of way, with simple terrain geometry and little polygonal castles and towns, wrapped in a basic, albeit eye-pleasing and contextually appropriate Diablo-like user interface. But then, the first battle encounter, and-- behold: thousands upon thousands of individual troops, whose amorphous and often times desperate flanking manuevers can be viewed at a bird's-eye level one instant, then zoomed all the way down to the almost microcosmic skirmishes between two individual units the very next. It's at this low view that the game's shambling treants, fiercely galloping cavalry, and lumbering zombies can be enjoyed.

Timothy Michael Wynn, known most recently for his work on 2015's XCOM 2, once again produces orchestral Hollywood-style work with memorable melodies that tend to stick in one's head after play sessions. It's not the kind of music one would listen to outside of the game, but it fits the title's mood and universe well enough. Battle sound effects effectively convey the sensations of war, while the game's voice acting is reminiscent of classic titles such as Warcraft II.

As a sort of amalgam of Sega's classic Saturn game "Dragon Force" and the venerable "Civilization" series, the Total War games see the player managing fortress construction while assembling general-led armies, with the ultimate goal of dominating the world map one real-time, castle-conquering battle at a time. But despite the cleverly-designed user interface and customizable advisor pop-ups, the series' learning curve is immense; the battle portion of the game alone is very much a learned art, with a spate of information available to the player, and with each arrow trajectory and sword slash calculated individually! It would be one thing if the campaign opponents stayed mostly idle-for-the-taking-- but they are constantly federating. To compound things, nomadic raiders and uprisings are constantly spawning hostile armies as well.

Total War: Warhammer's bright spot is its real-time battle engine, which is phenomenal at replicating the fluid nature of armies. Storming a castle with battering rams, siege towers, and forty units is a sight to behold! The Civilization portion of the game is every bit as addicting and, occasionally, chaotic-- when attacked on all sides-- as Sid Meier's classic. The problem is, the campaign-- which is the primary way of playing the game-- is clearly designed for series veterans or strategy prodigies; for this reviewer, who has been playing and beating strategy games for nigh-on thirty years to boot, trying to make consistent headway in it feels like trying to play a game of Jenga while on stilts. And that was before this poor sap hit the inevitable doomsday counter "chaos invasion"!