Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Gold Edition

I have both Mark of Chaos and the expansion DVD, unfortunately neither works on Windows 10, well that is until I found it on GOG. It runs fine on my Windows 10 (latest updated version 19042.928,which was 01/05/2021, or 1st May 2021), with a top end GPU (RTX 3090), with no real difficulties. The game itself brings back lots of memories, it does feel a bit like Total War, not quite a smooth though, the graphics are still reasonable by todays standards, some of the programming is showing its age and its not as easy to use as some of the newer games, though you can overcome these with a bit of practice and it is more than playable. There are 3 campaigns in this game, The Empire, The Orks and Chaos, all of which should keep you happy for a considerable time. It can get a little hectic on the map at times as it can feel like too much is going on, again, a bit of practice and you get use to it, the cut sequences are showing their age more than the game (I am using an ultra wide 1440 monitor so this probably does not help), but on 1080p you should not have any difficulties (though I am yet to test this out). Overall its a fun game, it leads you to a final desintation rather than having the ability to do that yourself (as per Warhammer, Total War), so it brings different challenges with it, but if you like Warhammer Total War and just want a change, go for this, it is more table top but for the price it will bring you hours of enjoyment.

Im going to be honest: this game is boring. Its weird design essentially corners itself into monotonous gameplay in a way you cant really fix. Its looks and atmosphere is great, mechancs are functional, hero system is perfectly fine and its all let down by it being a persistent army dragged through a linear campaign. Because theres virtually no macro like in total war games (on an empire level) the game is extremely static. You're expected to run through the entire campaign with the same units that you gradually upgrade so the game cant put you in a tense situation because even a phyrric victory is essentially a game over because you dont have the resources to build up again. Every single mission is you moving your entire army block slowly forwards in the same manner while dealing with a small trickle of enemies that you always overpower. Add the fact that ranged weapons have unlimited ammo and you're in a situation where the game is just a dull crawl. The chaos campaign is a bit better but only because you dont have reliable range. If you're a fan of Warhammer fantasy you might wanna check it out but honestly Id just reccomend Total War Warhammer or even Dawn of War (dark crusade). Both of these do the dual gameplay aspect way better and more interestingly.

The game itself is fairly good. It's reminiscent of a Warhammer version of Myth The Fallen Lords in a few ways, although not as good as that game. The gameplay itself is not the problem, however, it's the other aspects. I had no problems getting it running on windows 10 like some others did here, as that appears to be an issue with intergrated graphics cards rather than the OS itself. It also has key rebinding on the options menu, but it doesn't really work. Trying to set up WASD camera control doesn't work at all, and I set Q and E to rotate the camera, but that just results in some conflict with the former use of Q that sets the camera permanently rotating until you hit the Delete key (which was the previous keybind for that function even if you've removed or changed it). So basically, don't expect to rebind your keys in any useful or consistent way, and unfortuantely it has a fairly archaic system involving page up, end and so on for camera controls which really doesn't suit a lot of modern laptop keyboards. It may seem like a minor thing, but it actually seriously hampers my ability to enjoy the game, constantly having to fight muscle memory and use illogical keys to see what's going on. Still, I reccomend it overall, especially for anyone with fond memories of Myth and the more linear, non base-building types of tactics games.

I didn't expected that the gameplay is so great for 2020 year and current game industry has nothing better than that at the moment

Gameplay is fun and feels like babys first Total War Warhammer or the precursor to what this type of gameplay will become in the now arrived future. It is more fun to focus on the fights on a smallerish scale where you do not command like 2-3 full 20 stack armies at once and you have more time to micromanage. The game is quite slow and has no fast forward button so you have to have some patience. On the technical aspect the game doesnt seem to be able to handle modern graphic cards. The second you tab out of the game or you close it there is a 50/50 that the graphics card cannot switch the mode and the screen stays black and for some reason it likes to lock down the windows key for me and i have to manually untrigger the windows key via osk