The Clayton Awards 2022

Game of the Year 2022 – Bayonetta 3

Honestly, I could talk all day about how much I love this game (and its banging soundtrack) but I don’t want to spoil anything and I think it’s best enjoyed and discovered by yourself. Bayonetta 3 is an incredible achievement that should (but likely won’t) get the recognition it deserves, at least not from more ‘mainstream’ gaming press / audiences. It’s too much of a video game for their liking.

Bayonetta 3 is f**king amazing and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a video game. It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted and more. It’s the perfect end to a perfect trilogy and one of the greatest games ever made. (Full Review)

Most Disappointing Game of 2022 – Resident Evil Village

I’m glad I played Village because I did, overall, enjoy the game, but I’m also glad I picked it up on sale – I finished my first run in 8 hours and my second in 4 (on Hardcore). It’s pretty short and that’s largely due to how linear the experience is. I’m sure you can argue that’s in line with other RE games but I guess I was looking for something a little different from Village. Something new.

Instead, I got a game that begins strongly but squanders its potential and descends into silly action schlock long before you reach the end. Overall, despite suffering similar problems, I’d say RE7 is the better game and that’s pretty disappointing because Village, as a sequel, should have identified and fixed those problems, not amplified them.

It’s also disappointing because Village had the potential to offer far more variety in terms of characters, locations and monsters than RE7 in addition to new gameplay twists. It just doesn’t fulfil that potential to any degree that I’d like. (Full Review)

Now Playing: Into the Radius (VR)

I’ve started so many VR game reviews by saying ‘it’s like X game, but in VR’ and I’m going to do it again. Into the Radius is like STALKER but in VR. You play as an operative sent into the ‘radius zone’ which is a contaminated area full of dangerous anomalies, mysterious artefacts and hostile creatures.

You start at a home base with a single pistol and a handful of supplies. By completing various missions you’ll earn money and increase your ‘security’ level which allows you to purchase more supplies and more powerful weapons. But the increase in security level also increases the danger as you’ll be faced with tougher foes as you traverse the zone.

The basic gameplay loop works like this – you select your missions from a computer, gear up, and then head into the zone. The zone consists of five connected maps and you can unlock a couple of shortcuts to some of these maps as you progress. You head out, complete your missions and then head home to get paid. ‘Regular’ missions reward cash, whereas the 9 ‘priority’ missions reward cash and a new security level (up to level 5).

The priority missions are, more or less, the ‘main’ story missions of Into the Radius. A few of them are a little more elaborate than the regular missions but for the most part, they’re still just a case of travelling to a location and retrieving an object. You will face a lot more (and tough) enemies in these missions though so you really need to go prepared.

For a gameplay loop, this all works quite well. It’s pretty satisfying returning home with 4-5 missions completed. You get paid, sell any items you scavenged in the zone you don’t need, re-stock the supplies you do, and then you do it all over again.

Where Into the Radius really shines is the level of VR interactivity. Weapons and equipment will degrade over time, but you can manually clean and maintain them. You can pay to have it done automatically, but there’s something quite satisfying about taking the time to do it yourself. In fact, the way all the weapons work in terms of loading ammo or equipping modifications feels really good in VR.

I also like the backpack system in which you can organise everything you’re carrying. It’s simple, but effective. There is a weight system in the game, so that’s something to take into consideration as you prepare to head into the zone. A longer excursion will require more supplies, but that means carrying more weight which impacts your stamina.

There’s a lot of other little touches I like – the way you eat from tins with a knife, the way you can light a cigarette and smoke, the way you can play a guitar . . . it all builds a more immersive and interactive VR experience.

So far, so good right? Unfortunately, Into the Radius has a lot of problems holding it back. The missions are pretty repetitive, often sending you to the same place to do the same thing multiple times. They are nearly all of the ‘go to X and retrieve Y’ variety aside from a few that involve clearing an area of enemies or taking pictures of specific enemies.

And some of these missions can be bugged such as a critical item not spawning or (the most common issue I encountered) enemies not spawning in an area you’re supposed to clear. Fortunately, you can abort a mission that’s bugged and select another back at home base, but you’ve now wasted your time and resources travelling to that location and it’s pretty damn annoying.

Also annoying is the way items you drop can fall through the floor. You can usually retrieve them using the ‘teleport’ grab, but sometimes they just get lost forever which is pretty infuriating if it’s an ammo clip you ejected in a tense moment.

As I played Into the Radius and explored the zone I encountered numerous areas where the map geometry was just ... missing, such as holes in rocks through which I could see the void below. Or I’d be running along a path only to realise I was now stuck half-way in the floor, forcing me to carefully backtrack my steps so I didn’t fall through entirely.

And the maps in terms of visuals could really use an overhaul – they’re all very grey and drab with no variety. There’s a lot of empty space to traverse with some really bad looking trees. The interior locations are nice and it’s in these (particularly at night) where the game really shines and leans more into the horror aspect that I was hoping would be more prevalent.

Shadows on the ground frequently glitch in and out. Enemies get stuck on terrain. Your VR ‘body’ is sometimes more trouble than it’s worth as you crouch down to open a drawer and your legs get in your way – your shadow though is pretty damn hilarious. Cupboard doors and desk drawers often bug out and detach from the unit, floating in the air above or to the side.

Some enemies can shoot you through walls. Sometimes they can hide behind a metal rail, but even though there’s holes in the rail you should be able to shoot through, the game treats the whole thing like an invisible wall so your bullets just ricochet off nothing.

I find this really disappointing because, if the game wasn’t quite so rough around the edges, I’d be happy giving it a higher score. The core gameplay loop and the VR interactions are really quite fun. But the game has a serious lack of polish when it comes to the environments and a serious lack of variety when it comes to the missions.

Into the Radius really needs to give the player more interesting stuff to actually do, in more diverse and more dense environments. And it needs far more polish because there’s far too much stuff that’s either bugged or broken spoiling the experience.

Despite my issues with it, Into the Radius is still some of the most fun I’ve had in VR and it’s a game I want to play again. I actually think it’s a game that’s best experienced on the hardest difficulty, but I don’t think I’d want to try that until some of the issues I’ve raised are fixed. Overall, I’d still recommend Into the Radius even in it’s current state, but I really hope the developers continue to work to polish, expand and improve upon it because, if they do, it really could be quite special.

6/10

Half-Life 2 VR (Mod)

It’s been 18 years since Half-Life 2 released. It was the first game I ever purchased on Steam. I believe I bought it as part of a ‘Silver’ bundle deal. This was in the days when Steam was all green and rather basic compared to the platform as it exists today.

I wrote a review back in 2014 (including the two Episodes) in which I said ‘Half-Life 2 is a fantastic game, one of the best of its genre. It’s tightly paced, brilliantly designed, exciting and engaging to play.’ And now, another 8 years later I’m playing it again – but in VR.

Yes, it’s a VR mod for Half-Life 2 and it’s pretty damn fantastic. I’m genuinely surprised at how good this mod is and that’s why I wanted to cover it on my blog. First of all, Half-Life 2, despite its age, still holds up pretty well from a visual point of view, even in VR. It’s sharp and it’s clean and the character models / animations are still better than some games released today.

It’s quite remarkable how well Half-Life 2 translates into VR. A big part of that is thanks to the updates the mod team have made but, ignoring those, purely from a design perspective in terms of level layouts and scale, HL2 feels surprisingly comfortable within VR. Even the vehicle sections work well although these are, admittedly, the most awkward part of the VR experience, especially if you’re prone to VR related nausea.

It’s important to note that – at the time of writing – this mod isn’t finished and there’s further improvements planned, but even in its current state, this mod is a real blast to play. And what’s really impressive is the range of VR comfort options and gameplay updates that make HL2 feel like an actual VR game.

In fact, I’d say this (free) mod does a better job of converting HL2 to play well in VR, than some (paid) VR conversions – I’m looking at you, Skyrim VR you absolute disgrace. And it’s certainly better than some of the VR ‘support’ I’ve seen for some titles, where it feels like practically no effort was put in to make the VR mode comfortable and enjoyable to play – most recently, Project Wingman.

The weapons have all been converted to work as you’d expect in a VR game. You manually reload, and you can even use (some) weapons either one handed – if you like to spray and pray – or two handed for more stability. Melee with the crowbar works remarkably well too. I’d recommend setting the difficulty to easy because there are sections where the game throws a lot of enemies at you and you’re never going to be as fast in VR as you are with a mouse.

The way they’ve added the UI elements of health and energy onto your glove is neat, as is the weapon selection UI which works a lot like it did in Half-Life: Alyx. Oh, and you can now flip people off in HL2 the way you’ve always wanted to because they also added finger tracking.

The game itself is still great to play with a diverse selection of levels, enemies, weapons, puzzles and action. And now you get to experience it like you’re really there, which isn’t something I ever imagined when HL2 released all those years ago. If you’ve got a VR set then this is a must play.

Now Playing: God of War

My initial impressions of Dad of Boy weren’t great. As much as I appreciated the impressive visuals and music, and as much as I liked the mythological aspects, the gameplay both in terms of exploration and combat was struggling to win me over. The question, I suppose, is that now I’ve completed the game – including all additional side content and post-game challenges – has my opinion on the game improved?

My answer is: yes . . . but not by much. God of War did get better, but not significantly better. I’m pleased to say that the game does open up and the exploration becomes more enjoyable, but only when you unlock unlimited fast travel and can avoid the tedious boat rides. Oh, and also once you’ve unlocked all of the necessary skills that were preventing you from fully exploring each area.

It took me around 14 hours to reach this point, although I probably could have reached it quicker if I’d skipped all the early side content and only focused on the core story – and that’s how I’d recommend playing God of War. Don’t bother with exploration until you’ve unlocked all of the skills you’ll need to access everything on the map, otherwise you’ll only have to backtrack to areas you’ve already been to in order to open the odd chest you weren’t able to on your first visit.

Spoiler: the chest probably won’t be worth the time or effort for the return trip, but if you’re like me, you really need to know for sure. God of War is a game obsessed with opening chests. Treasure chests are everywhere in God of War, and I mean everywhere. This is a problem that persists throughout the entire game. It’s a problem because a) there are so many of these chests that none of them feel like a genuine reward b) the ‘treasure’ is never anything that interesting and c) the animation for opening and claiming the treasure is identical for each chest type (there’s like 4 different chest types) regardless of what the chest contains.

Chests in God of War are boring. There’s zero excitement to opening them because you’re opening them every 5 minutes watching the same repetitive animation and the treasure is never anything unique.

The environments of God of War offer a decent variety of locations to explore. They’re all largely linear with the same kind of simple branching / looping paths, but they’re not . . .you know, bad. The environmental puzzles are all very basic but . . . fine, I guess. The climbing / jumping system in the game is also rather basic and more than a little tedious – Kratos is pretty slow, and you just press the A button when prompted.

The story is okay but I didn’t find it particularly engaging and I don’t think I ever really came to like or sympathise with Atreus. I did like all the mythological stuff, but the personal aspects of the story never quite won me over. Christopher Judge is great as Kratos though.

With regards to the combat, it does get better once you unlock a second weapon and essentially double your combat options. Being able to switch weapons on the fly and mixing up two sets of special attacks (fire & frost) suddenly makes combat far more engaging and enjoyable. Why? Because you can finally begin to chain together your moves and kills in a way that feels creative and satisfying.

The big problem with the combat though is the absolutely piss poor enemy variety. I’m not joking when I say you’ll have seen every enemy type that God of War has to offer within the first few hours of play. The game likes to play with the ‘elemental’ variations of the same enemy types – fire, ice, poison – which is absolutely fine, but there’s simply not enough of the base types.

The first time you fight a troll it’s a pretty cool mini-boss type encounter – until you fight a dozen more of them and they all end with exactly the same kill animation. In fact, every enemy type only seems to have a single kill animation which adds to the repetition when you’re fighting what feels like the same 4 basic enemy types throughout the entire game.

But there’s unique enemies to fight, right? Well . . . not really. There was one story based boss that I was expecting to be a unique creature, but it turned out to just be another f**king troll with a couple of unique attacks. Hell, the kill animation was the same for it, too. The most unique and I would say memorable fight in the game is when you fight two Gods at once – although even this fight is blighted by the ‘cinematic’ camera.

The ‘main’ boss is a guy you fight at the very beginning of the game, but half of this fight is a (admittedly impressive) cinematic that cuts seamlessly into the gameplay. Your next fight with this boss isn’t really a ‘fight’ at all – it’s a long cinematic in which you’re required to press the occasional button. And the final fight also suffers from the same problem as the first – just when you’re getting stuck in and trying to enjoy it, the camera wheels away and you realise you’re no longer in control. You’ve just got to sit back and wait for the ‘cinematic’ moment to end.

The optional Valkyrie fights are pretty okay, but nothing special. And as far as post-game content goes, you have two additional realms to explore – one of which is just a series of combat arena challenges with imaginative objectives such as ‘survive for 5 minutes’ and ‘kill 100 enemies’ which just means fighting waves and waves of the same f**king enemy types over and over again. None of them are particularly difficult. And then we have another realm with a somewhat randomised dungeon in which the objective is to collect a resource without being killed by enemies, traps or a toxic mist. It’s pretty simple and repetitive to run, but thankfully not as much of a grind as I’d first feared.

Oh, and before we wrap this review up, I have to talk about the absolute worst part of God of War in which you’re stuck on a flying boat and waves and waves and waves of the same enemies just keeping spawning in for what feels like forever. It’s excessive and irritating and not at all challenging – just really f**king tedious. GOTY? What the f**k are you smoking?

I said in my first impressions post that I didn’t understand why God of War was so highly praised. But I do now. I get it. Are you ready? It’s because God of War is casual as f**k. It’s easy and accessible and constantly rewards you even when you’ve done nothing to earn it.

It’s streamlined and linear and doesn’t require any real thought or strategy. You don’t need to learn anything new as you progress. You never need to adapt. And you know what? That’s fine. It’s an incredibly polished and undeniably ‘cinematic’ experience and I’m sure many other people will enjoy it. But me? F**k that.

God of War has some good stuff in it. The fact that I played all of it should tell you that. But it’s not a great game. Far from it. I can’t ignore the simplistic combat, repetitive animations and the absolutely terrible enemy variety. Or the bland as f**k UI and weapons / armour upgrade system. It’s a game I have zero interest in revisiting, and not just because I don’t want to have to sit through all those unskippable ‘cinematic’ moments again. I really hope the sequel isn’t just more of the same because if it is, I have no interest in playing it.

6/10

Gallery: Bayonetta 3

 

 

 

Now Playing: Bayonetta 3

We’re done. It’s over. Everyone go home. Video games just peaked. In all the years I’ve been writing this blog and reviewing games I’ve never given a game a 10/10 score. A few came close, but now it’s finally happened. Bayonetta 3 is a phenomenal masterpiece. If this game doesn’t deserve it, nothing will.

I don’t think I’ve sat, open mouthed, not believing what I’m seeing so much since the original Bayonetta. There was a moment at the end of Chapter 12 when I wanted to put my controller down and clap like an American in a movie theatre. And then I got to the ending that takes you from feeling sad, to bittersweet, to grinning from ear to ear and pumping the air with your fist.

Bayonetta 3 isn’t just a fantastic game in its own right, it’s a fantastic sequel and a fantastic conclusion to this incredible trilogy. It’s both a unique entry playing in its own unique way with new mechanics, new weapons, new enemies and characters, and something of a greatest hits collection reflecting the best of the previous games. It’s a joyous celebration of Bayonetta as a series and a character, but also of video games in general.

There’s a real, genuine, unashamed love for the medium here that’s so rare to see these days. Bayonetta 3 is a game that celebrates the past but also sets up a potentially wonderful future for the series. I’m going to keep this review as spoiler free as I can but what I will say is Bayonetta 3 isn’t the end, but the prologue to a new beginning. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to see it but if we don’t, Bayonetta 3 is the perfect way to bow out.

There’s always been a debate about which game is better – Bayonetta 1 or 2. Whilst I lean more towards Bayonetta 1 in terms of combat mechanics, I love both games almost equally. I love the fact that they do play differently and explore different mechanics. So I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that Bayonetta 3 also plays quite differently to the previous games and that’s another reason – to me, at least – why it’s so damn good.

Bayonetta 3 combines the incredible creative depth of Bayonetta 1, with the over-the-top flashy style of Bayonetta 2. There’s so much potential within the combat system that even after 30+ hours of play I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. With so many new weapons and demons to play with, and the ability to combine them all into stunning combos, this is a game you can easily sink endless hours into testing different variations.

The big new mechanic of Bayonetta 3 is ‘demon slave’ in which you can summon a demon (for a limited time) during a fight. At its most basic, you use the demon to attack your foes and inflict heavy damage. But each demon you unlock has it’s own unique style and attack pattern in addition to a special attack. You can also queue up attacks for your demon and continue to fight alongside them.

You can even combine different demon attacks in ways I’m still figuring out. Weaving the demons into your play, using them to add to your combo – there’s so many possibilities it’s kind of ridiculous. And then we have the weapons – you’ll be unlocking new ones practically every other Chapter.

Each weapon is related to a specific demon which changes not only how you traverse the environment but also has a unique, special attack. You can’t set different weapons to hands or feet in Bayonetta 3, but you can still switch between two weapon sets and combine them in some incredibly creative ways. And that’s what lies at the heart of what I love so much about this game – it gives you what feels like a never ending box of toys to play with. It lets you be creative. It gives you control. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to play. You play the way you want to.

Bayonetta 3 is a game that just keeps on giving. Every single Chapter introduces new enemies, new weapons, new demons and new gameplay mechanics. There are unique action set-piece moments all throughout the game. Whereas in Bayonetta 1 & 2, moments like this were confined to a handful of Chapters, in Bayonetta 3 these moments kick in regularly throughout the game and offer smaller, but far more varied experiences.

These moments, the majority of which are singular, one off events, offer unexpected and fun variations to the gameplay and pay loving homage to other games and genres. These are moments that other games would just treat as a non-playable ‘cinematic’ cut-scene. Not Bayonetta 3, son. No. You get to play that shit.

And then we have the ending which I absolutely love. I think it’s f**king amazing and yes there’s dancing – so much dancing. Certain aspects of the ending are a little ambiguous which I’m sure won’t sit well with some players who may mistakenly interpret things in the worst possible way but honestly, I like the fact that Bayonetta 3 isn’t so overt when it comes to the more emotional aspects of its story.

And I’m sure there will be those who also won’t like the new playable character – Viola – but I think that will mostly be a case of them struggling to score well with her and they just need to – I hate to say it – git gud. Viola is only playable for a handful of Chapters and works a little differently to Bayonetta.

Whereas Bayonetta dodges to activate witch time, Viola has to parry – and the better the parry timing, the longer witch time lasts. But the parry ‘window’ isn’t quite as generous as the dodge window for Bayonetta, so she’s certainly a character you need to perfect your timing with if you want to parry successfully and consistently.

You don’t have to parry every attack though – Viola can still dodge and use her personal demon summon to help her in a fight. It might take some practice but if you’re willing to properly learn how she plays, I think you’ll find that she’s an extremely rewarding character and a fine addition to the game. Oh, and then we also have Jeanne who returns in Bayonetta 3 in a series of 60s spy show themed 2D side scrolling action / stealth side missions. Because why the f**k not?

Every Chapter is packed with stuff to find including 3 Umbran animals that unlock a bonus mission relating to each Chapter. There are collectibles. There are alternate costumes. There are post-game trials. There’s more content here than the previous games and I like the changes to Chapter replays in which you can load in at multiple points – it makes replaying specific sections much more accessible. It also only updates each verse with your best score and medal, so if you want to skip a verse or two and just focus on one, you can do that without fretting about your overall ranking.

Honestly, I could talk all day about how much I love this game (and its banging soundtrack) but I don’t want to spoil anything and I think it’s best enjoyed and discovered by yourself. Bayonetta 3 is an incredible achievement that should (but likely won’t) get the recognition it deserves, at least not from more ‘mainstream’ gaming press / audiences. It’s too much of a video game for their liking.

But I don’t want to end this review on a sour note. Bayonetta 3 is f**king amazing and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a video game. It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted and more. It’s the perfect end to a perfect trilogy and one of the greatest games ever made.

10/10

Now Watching: Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor: Love and Thunder may just be the worst Marvel movie I’ve seen and I’ve seen The Eternals. I can’t think of a single thing right with Love and Thunder. Not a single thing worth keeping if they were to take another crack at it. No. It’s all got to go. It’s all terrible. Scrap everything, and start over.

Love and Thunder doesn’t even feel like a real movie. It feels like a series of cheap, unfunny Saturday Night Live skits. Nobody seems to care. It’s like the whole thing is one big joke. Do you remember those spoof movie clips they’d do at the MTV Movie Awards? Where’d they’d insert a comedic actor into a serious scene? Do they still do that? Are the MTV Movie Awards still a thing?

I don’t know, but that’s how I felt all throughout Love and Thunder. Like I was watching a spoof movie skit. And not a good spoof movie skit. A really, really bad one. Love and Thunder is a farce. A complete and total farce. Whereas Thor: Ragnarok struck the right balance between comedy, drama and action, Love and Thunder suffers almost immediately from tonal whiplash.

The movie opens with a sombre, serious scene but then transitions into a completely ridiculous, MTV level spoof. ‘Haha! I’m an arsehole God and I will throw fruit at you, you pathetic mortal! But please don’t pick up that God-killing sword that’s on the ground right next to you, haha!’

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Christian Bale as Gorr (who at least tries, I guess, to give a somewhat nuanced performance) and the stupid God weren’t actually in the same scene. It was like watching one of those MTV spoof clips. I had a similar reaction to the Thor confronts Zeus scene. It was like Russell Crowe was in the cheap, MTV sketch spliced into the real movie.

Chris Hemsworth has shown he’s great at comedy and Thor can be a funny character – with the right script. Ragnarok was comedic, but it didn’t lose sight of who Thor is. Even ‘fat Thor’ in Endgame wasn’t just played for cheap laughs – we saw a hero struggling with guilt, loss and remorse. In Love and Thunder, Thor is written like Homer Simpson. He’s a complete f**king idiot.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, I’m pleased to say, f**k off out of the movie almost immediately – they’re far too good for this steaming pile of trash. And after another total farce of an action scene, we’re back to sombre and serious with Jane Foster on a chemo ward.

The movie, structurally, is a complete mess with a series of disconnected scenes that all feel like individual spoof skits, none of which are funny. I’m not sure of the exact moment I realised how bad Love and Thunder is – it was either the moment Valkyrie (who feels like an entirely different character) pulls out a portable speaker or the so f**king terrible effect of Heimdall’s son (?) contacting Thor as a floating head.

That kid’s name is Axl, by the way, because Love and Thunder also seems obsessed with playing Guns N’ Roses tracks all throughout the movie. I guess that’s one way to try to cover up your terrible script and trick idiots into thinking your action scenes pack any kind of excitement or emotional stakes. Nah, just slap some Guns N’ Roses over it, that’ll make it look cool, right?

Love and Thunder feels like a movie where they came up with the title and the soundtrack and just worked backwards from there. It feels like a movie that nobody wanted to make, so they made it as bad as possible to see what they could get away with. Is that what Taika Waititi was doing? Intentionally sabotaging his own movie?

Maybe. Or maybe Love and Thunder is a perfect example of a director who’s gotten high sniffing their own farts and desperately needs to be reeled in. Did nobody at Marvel Studios read the f**king script? Did nobody realise how f**king bad this was before they started shooting? Some of the CGI is bad but I don’t really care about that because that’s not what’s wrong with the movie.

The characters are terribly written. The tone is a complete mess. The structure and pacing is awful. The action sucks. The jokes aren’t funny. I can’t believe how bad this movie is. The Marvel movies, at their worst, are at least still somewhat competent. This doesn’t even come close to competent. It’s a joke of a movie. I’m going to try to erase it from my memory. I’d rather watch Thor 2 again than this garbage.

3/10

Now Playing: Bayonetta 3

10 / 10

(Full review coming soon)

The Future of Total War

AKA Why I hope the next historical TW is more like Three Kingdoms than Warhammer.

After completing my Empire campaign in Immortal Empires, I decided to jump into a Three Kingdoms campaign to compare the experience and some interesting stats emerged that I wanted to discuss. I completed my Immortal Empires campaign in 120 turns – at least, I completed my short and long victory conditions. I decided not to play out the end-game scenario.

In Three Kingdoms, I also halted my campaign on 120 turns. I didn’t complete the campaign, but I did reach a point whereby I would soon (within 20 turns) trigger the end-game and the battle of the Three Kingdoms would commence.

Three Kingdoms obviously can’t compete with Warhammer in terms of faction or unit variety. That’s the strength of the Warhammer series and Immortal Empires. And Three Kingdoms also lacks the spectacle of magic and monsters in its battles. In terms of campaign, however, Three Kingdoms offers a far more engaging and complex experience.

From region, faction and character management to diplomacy, Three Kingdoms makes Warhammer seem rather lacklustre in comparison. Of course, Three Kingdoms was released after Warhammer 1 had already established the core campaign systems that the Warhammer series would follow. As I said in my Immortal Empires impressions post, all of the Warhammer content from Warhammer 1 to Warhammer 3 needed to connect together so the campaign, as a whole, hasn’t really evolved much since Warhammer 1.

The fact that Three Kingdoms has a superior campaign in terms of features and mechanics wasn’t a surprise to me upon playing an Immortal Empires campaign and a 3K campaign back to back. What did surprise me, however, was the battle stats at the end of those 120 turns in each campaign. Remember, Warhammer is a game that’s very much focused on those spectacular battles – those clashes of massive unit, faction, magic and monster variety. And the Immortal Empires campaign, as a whole, exists almost purely to facilitate those battles.

But when I looked at and compared my battle stats, I discovered something quite interesting. In Immortal Empires after 120 turns I had fought 121 battles, but I had only personally fought 29 of these. 29 battles out of 121. That’s 92 battles I chose to auto-resolve. And Three Kingdoms? A game that simply can’t compete with Warhammer when it comes to variety? 84 battles after 120 turns, of which 49 were fought personally and 35 were auto-resolved. That’s 23% (Warhammer) versus 58% (Three Kingdoms). So what’s going on? Why did I choose to fight far more battles personally in Three Kingdoms than in Warhammer?

First of all, Warhammer may be all about the battles, but you can have too much of a good thing. 121 battles in 120 turns is just too many, especially when so many of these battles feel entirely inconsequential. In 3K, I only fought 84 battles over the same turn period but these battles, overall, felt far more important in terms of progressing my campaign goals and as a result, I felt far more inclined to oversee them personally.

And this ties into campaign pacing. The Warhammer campaign has a faster pace than 3K. This means you’ll be rocking multiple full stack armies within the first 20-30 turns whereas in 3K, you’d be hard pressed to afford a single full stack within the same period. It’s not impossible, but you’re more reliant upon smaller armies.

In Warhammer, you tend to skip tier 2 units and move as fast as you can to tier 3. Within 50 turns you’ll likely be fielding multiple stacks of the best units you can recruit – and these stacks won’t evolve as the campaign continues, because they’re already as good as they can be. Now, the way armies work in 3K and Warhammer is quite different so the comparison isn’t exact, but the point is – it takes much longer for you to field a tier 3 or equivalent full stack army in 3K than it does in Warhammer.

This means that battles in 3K take more turns to grow in scale and there’s a more extended period of unit progression (from tier 1 to tier 3) and as a result, the battles never really fall into a repetitive pattern because your army size and unit composition is constantly evolving across the entire campaign.

In my 3K campaign, for example, even by turn 120 with 5 full stack armies (compared to my 11 full stacks in Warhammer) I still hadn’t upgraded all of my units to tier 3 equivalents. I spent over 50 turns in Warhammer expanding and fighting with armies that never changed. In 3K, on the other hand, my armies were changing fairly regularly, right up until the end of my campaign.

And less armies means you care more about the ones you have. They become far more important and the battles they fight also become far more important. In Warhammer, losing a full stack of tier 3 units is annoying, but I can easily recruit an entirely new stack within a matter of turns. In 3K, losing a full stack is a serious blow that takes time to recover from, especially if you lose the characters commanding those units.

In Warhammer I can just recruit a new general and drop 20 tier 3 units into their stack in a few turns. In 3K, due to the way replenishment, redeployment and mustering works, that’s simply not possible, at least not until you hit the very final stages of the campaign and you’ve unlocked all of the various possible bonuses to these systems via research, character perks or regional upgrades. But even then, character level also factors into unit recruitment – so a new ‘general’ won’t necessarily be able to recruit the same tier 3 units as the higher level commander they’re replacing.

And finally we have battle types. The majority of battles fought in both campaigns were for minor settlements. In Warhammer, minor settlements, despite the faction, all share a small number of template maps that never change. In 3K, however, every minor – or resource, as they’re known in 3K – settlement has a unique map for each settlement type and this map expands and evolves as the settlement grows.

And this expansion based on settlement level also applies to the provincial capitals which grow from small towns without walls to massive, sprawling cities. In Warhammer, a provincial capital always has walls and doesn’t really expand at all so there’s nothing really new to see from Turn 1 to Turn 120.

So let’s sum up, shall we? I fought more battles in 3K personally because 1) there were less battles to fight 2) these battles more were far more important to progressing my campaign goals 3) battles were far more decisive in terms of unit / character losses for myself or my opponent 4) battles took more turns to grow in size 5) there was a regular introduction of new or upgraded units to fight with as I progressed 6) the settlement maps (which make up the bulk of the battle types) are far better in terms of variety, scale and expansion as the settlement upgrades.

It’s not just one thing, but a combination of things that makes the battles in 3K more compelling to actually play throughout the entire campaign – despite lacking the variety and spectacle of Warhammer.

And that’s why I hope the next historical Total War game is more like Three Kingdoms than Warhammer. Warhammer has been massively successful and is massively popular, but I hope CA doesn’t believe that the Warhammer formula is the one to adopt going forward. Three Kingdoms shows us what the future of Total War can be.

Oh, and no more f**king campaign map agents / heroes in the next game please! If you take anything from 3k going forward, make it that.