Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate

Game works fine, good blast from the past.

If you are into the Warhammer 40,000 universe this is a great addition to the grimdark setting with some features that are pretty advanced for its time in the 90s. Permanent death of your marines makes for an interesting strategic decision making as well as the optional missions along your path being an extra risk. You battle your way through the campaign commanding squads of Ultramarines; very familiar to any currently giving Space Marine 2 a try. With a variety of weapons and elite units gained along the way. The game has a good feel similar to the scale of the tabletop game. It's not without its flaws. It has some of the buggyness of other games from the 90s, and the ability to understand line of sight on the isometric 3D view leaves a little to be desired. From time to time the AI makes some questionable decisions and there's maybe not quite the variety of enemies and maps I would like. But none of this is too bad and is understandable for a game of it's era so overall this is a great blast from the past that feels just different enough from other strategy games like C&C or Age of Empires to be a great addition to your options if you're a fan of the genre. And I contine to be surprised by how many hours of play I am getting out of the campaign without even messing with custom battles etc.

No preformance problems but it does seem the enemy has an edge even in easy mode. So you new kids would say its a souls like game. I only played a demo of this back in the day and had no idea what warhammer was or how to play it. At the time the graphics were awesome. For its time, this has a lot of customization. While it can break the table top rules of mixing weapon types. The UI is clunky but its at least legable and it makes sense after a few turns of combat so you don't need to reach for a manual on how to play, maybe get some of the finer points. Enough clicking around and I was ok, but I'm also from that time. Idk if you youngsterrs will like it, as their is only one song for battle and it loops, but that midi track be slapping! The biggest irritant I have is when your guys are attacked at best they say 'im hit' or make a reaction, but you don't know untill they are dead or click on them. That's just something of the time tho. Also, I think it was designed to be played on harder difficulties where one shot will kill a guy. Yet playing tacticly enough, it gets mitigated. Suprising amounts of depth for its time. It takes me back to jagged alliance.

I went into this without any prior knowledge, or expectations, and I am pleasantly surprised by how it runs and plays for an 1998 game. UI is relatively intuitive and the hotkeys are reliable.

Windows 11 Home pro, working like a dream! Music / Soundtrack is wonderfully gothic and actually sets the tone nicely. All the little touches from the Tabletop are nice, and Cultists are annoyances as they should be, unlike in the New one. Game is always hard, limited troops, resources and wargear makes you extra careful straight away.