Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector

while i'm playing it, i keep having the feel that the developer are messing with me. all the inputs are quite the opposite you would expect! to do actions you use the right mouse button. to save, the cancel button is before the save button. every time i want to attack in melee with my melee units ( that happens to have a puny pistol ), i have to remember to re-select the melee weapon. the game itself is nice, but i think in the end i will remember more of the challenge to my muscle memory than the actual game.

Played through on Xbox gamepass, and it leaves me without much to say; which is worth saying I think. It's nothing special, but it's not bad either. It's a game where the ip carries the gameplay rather than the other way around. Total Warhammer 2, Mechanicus, Dawn of War, Space Marine; these are all games that people who aren't fans of Warhammer should check out and can enjoy. Battlesector on the other hand will only appeal to Warhammer fans and anyone looking from the outside in for a jumping on point, Battlesector will most likely leave you feeling bored.

As it stands, this is pretty much a more polished version of Sanctus Reach, with a different selection of factions. The graphics are better, the controls feel more intuitive (and you can now rebind keys, which is a very welcome improvement), fewer units feel so weirdly balanced as (e.g.) the Killa Kans in SR, and the campaign missions don't stick you in a winding canyon that violates the laws of geology. I like the Momentum mechanic they added a lot, since it rewards playing actively rather than just sitting around on overwatch waiting for the enemy to make a mistake like some games. There are some downsides. The Skirmish and Planetary Supremacy modes have pretty boring missions compared to the campaign, so there's not a whole lot of replayability. Really needs some more proper campaigns with specifically designed scenarios (which, as far as I can tell, the added Factions aren't getting). There's still no brightness control in the settings, which seems like an incredibly bizarre choice to me. At certain times of day, the game is unplayable for me because everything on the screen is too dark. It still has some of SR's issues with not being clear which areas are or are not available to move on, and there's no way to highlight interactables, which is really obnoxious in one mission in particular. Also, and I know this is a tiny thing, but it still bugs me, there's no way to assign an "End Turn" key. You can only do that with the mouse. As with SR, the soundtrack and voice acting are perfectly serviceable, but nothing special. I got bored of them after a while and just muted the game and put something on the stereo.

Game designed to be as much frustrating as possible, since first 1/3 of the game, each mission is more and more annoying than previous, often piting player against obstacles that cannot be dealt with and forcing player to lose units. For example, one of missions require saving allied units, placed more or less at the other end of the map. If player plays it slow, they die. If they rush it, most of them (but not all) die and player's units die as well. And unlike Sanctus Reach, attack animations cannot be skipped.

I really like the game for what it delivers, as I state in the title it has a tabletop-like feel but with an easy to use interface and a good variety of factions provided you have the dlc. I hope they keep adding to them. The graphics are a great improvement over Sanctus Reach as well, in fact when looked at in stills it reminds me a lot of looking at well painted figurines over a well made diorama. There are a lot of gameplay modes too and customisability to make the campaign easier or harder. The main campaign which is based around the blood angels seems quite interesting but my favourite mode is actually skirmish, allowing me to indulge in a tabletop like experience in a casual way. I do hope to try the multiplayer some point down the line as well and get more into the planetary campaign mode.