Total War: Warhammer 3: First Impressions

With 28 hours clocked, I just finished my first Total War: Warhammer 3 campaign and I hate to say it, but my initial impressions are a little mixed. But before we get too negative, let’s quickly run through all the good stuff in Warhammer 3.

Visually, Warhammer 3 looks superb. The units, campaign and battle maps are all impressively detailed. The unit animations are amazing. The sound design is excellent, accompanied by an excellent soundtrack. In terms of content, Warhammer 3 has nearly double at release compared to Warhammer 1 & 2 with 8 races and 12 Legendary Lords available to play on Day 1.

The multiplayer campaign has been expanded for 8 players, with a new option for simultaneous turns. And there are even two smaller ‘mini-campaigns’ for exclusive co-op play – although I wish these were also available to play solo. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy my first campaign and I’m sure I’ll enjoy many more but, I must admit, I’m not in a great hurry to jump into another campaign just yet.

The first problem I have with Warhammer 3 is that it’s not Total War: Three Kingdoms. This might sound a little strange, but allow me to explain.

Three Kingdoms introduced some pretty major overhauls of the campaign side of Total War with numerous improvements to the diplomatic system as well as faction, character and settlement management. Although WH3 rolls a few of these features into its own campaign (such as the Quick Deal diplomatic option) the majority of what made 3K so enjoyable and engaging in its campaign is largely absent here.

Now, to be fair, I did kind of expect this. After all, Warhammer 3 needs to be able to combine with Warhammer 1 & 2, so it simply isn’t possible to radically overhaul these systems, not without breaking or entirely redesigning all of the previous content. And I’m not sure the hardcore Warhammer fans would want that. They’re probably quite happy with how the Warhammer games already play.

But me? It feels like a step back after playing 3K and that’s hard for me to adjust to. Obviously, 3K can’t compete with Warhammer when it comes to faction and unit diversity. That’s the real star of the Warhammer games and it carries WH3 just as much as it did WH1 & WH2.

One thing I was really glad to see the back of in 3K was campaign map agent spam. At times during my Kislev campaign, I had 12 or more enemy heroes running around my territory. Some of the cities had 3-4 permanently camped outside. And no matter how many times I eliminated the f**ks they’d reappear a few turns later – and they’d usually bring a friend.

I don’t recall the heroes in Warhammer 2 being this numerous or annoying. It’s a little silly calling them ‘heroes’ when new ones are popping up every f**king turn. They seriously need to limit how many heroes each faction can recruit. They should be special characters whose placement – embedded in an army or active on the campaign map – is a considered decision.

But they’re not because there’s no end to them and I really got f**king sick of playing whack-a-mole every turn trying to get rid of them. Speaking of playing whack-a-mole we also need to talk about the core campaign mechanics because I have a lot to say about that, but for now, let’s talk about battles and the new siege system.

Battles in WH3 felt a little strange at first and I couldn’t quite figure out why. They all seemed so . . . messy and, if you’ll forgive the pun, chaotic. And that’s when I realised the problem – some unit collisions are totally screwed up. Now, I’m no expert on this stuff, so I don’t know if it’s collision or not, but I do know that when a line of infantry is ‘braced’, enemy units like cavalry shouldn’t be able to just push their way through the formation.

Because that’s what’s happening now in so many battles. Any ‘larger’ unit can just walk through a braced battle line like it’s not even there. And that’s why battles feel so messy – because any attempt to use formations goes to hell when the enemy can just push straight through your line and immediately attack the weaker units such as archers, artillery or spell casters behind. They don’t even take damage as they ‘push’ through. It just slows them down. I never had this problem in WH2 so I assume it’s some kind of bug they need to fix.

And then we have the new siege system which I do kind of like, but I do think it needs a few tweaks such as you or the AI being unable to rebuild destroyed towers or fortifications. Every building ‘point’ should be one use only. That would encourage both you and the AI to hold the outer areas of the settlements first, before falling back and building new defences at a second or third line. But right now, you can just keep rebuilding stuff, even behind the enemy as they advance and it’s annoying when the AI does it to you, and kind of overpowered when you do it against the AI.

And finally we have the main campaign mechanic in which you must race the AI to obtain four souls from the four realms of Chaos. And it really is a race, make no mistake. I actually think this system could be pretty fun but in its current state, its kind of not.

It results in a campaign where expanding too far is actually detrimental to your progress. It’s more effective to play turtle, keeping your faction leader fresh and ready to enter the portals to the chaos realms as soon as they appear because if you don’t, the AI will beat you to the souls. And if the AI reaches a soul before you, you get kicked out of the realm with nothing to show for it.

Keep in mind, each realm can take several turns to complete, turns in which your faction leader and what is likely your best army is mostly sat around doing nothing. To get kicked out with no reward is a total waste of your time. You have to just sit and wait for the portals to re-open. But even if you do claim a soul, you’ll also pick up some pretty nasty negative traits which you can only remove by spending 2-3 turns in your capital city, or in a region with a specific building type.

Which means . . . more sitting around . . . waiting. And whilst this is going on, you’re not really focused on the rest of the map. Your faction leader can’t really get involved in your expansion because you need to clear those negative traits and get ready for the next round of portals. And, like I said, expanding too far is detrimental because you now have more portals to close before they spawn so many chaos armies (and more f**king heroes) it becomes a nightmare to deal with. So you’re playing whack-a-mole, not only with enemy heroes, but the chaos portals and the armies and heroes they spawn.

That’s how I think I spent 70% of my campaign time, running heroes around to kill other heroes or closing portals. Most of my armies just sat in key locations to protect my modest borders because I couldn’t focus on expansion if I wanted to win the campaign.

Which I almost didn’t. One of the AI factions collected all 4 souls before me. The game told me I could intercept this army, defeat it in combat and block it from returning for 15 turns. I expected it to work like the Warhammer 2 Vortex system whereby I’d get the option to teleport and stop them. But no, I just had to send my faction leader to camp the quest point . . . waiting . . . and sitting . . . and waiting several turns for the enemy to finally decide to show up.

But after defeating that army, I tried rushing for my last soul, only to receive the notification that I’d lost the campaign several turns later. Because the AI didn’t get the memo about being blocked for 15 turns, it seems. So I reloaded and returned to the quest point, defeated the army a second time and then returned to the realm to claim my last soul but . . . the realm then reset, and I had to start from scratch. Which meant rushing as fast as it would let me, spamming the end turn button to claim the soul before the AI could re-spawn again.

I managed to do it, but at this point I was really just hating the game. It just wasn’t fun. I took my soul, fought the final boss battle and won. But I was glad it was over. A campaign I’d initially really been enjoying turned into a campaign I just wanted to end.

But here’s the thing – the system isn’t bad, it just needs some tweaks. The portals shouldn’t appear so often or be so numerous. They shouldn’t spawn enemy armies or heroes. You shouldn’t get negative traits just for entering the realms. If the AI claims a soul in a realm before you do, you shouldn’t get kicked out of it – everyone should have an equal chance. And if the AI does claim all the souls before you, you should get an instant notification to teleport and stop them.

The campaign in WH3 right now is just too focused on racing for the souls. My faction leader spent most of the campaign just slowly traversing the chaos realms, one turn at a time, or sitting in a city waiting for a negative trait to be removed so I could go back in. The way it works right now is tedious and it sucks. I just stopped caring about anything but getting that last soul. I stopped bothering managing my territory because it really didn’t matter. My other armies didn’t matter.

That’s why I’m reluctant to jump into a new campaign because I don’t want the same thing to happen again – me just sitting there, spamming end turn not really caring about anything, just waiting for the next portal to open so I can jump in first and win. I guess I could try to ignore it and focus on a domination victory, but I’m still going to be stuck playing whack-a-mole with chaos portals every 15 turns or so.

Overall, although it might be hard to believe after that lengthy rant, I’d still say my experience with WH3 has been mostly positive despite my issues. I do want to start a new campaign, but I might wait for a patch or two to see what changes get made. Because changes do need to be made if they want this campaign to be fun and engaging from beginning to end – not the tedious and annoying grind it slowly turns into now.

Now Playing: Metroid Dread

I don’t have that much experience with the Metroid series. I’ve played the Prime games, but that was so long ago I don’t recall much about them. The only side-scrolling Metroid I’ve played is Fusion, but I also don’t recall much about that. If I can find the time I’d like to revisit all of these titles but for now, let’s take a look at Metroid Dread.

Dread is very good, but I think you already know that. It’s a game that’s received near universal praise from both critics and fans alike. And not undeservedly so. But as much as I enjoyed playing Dread I can’t help but feel that the game lacks value. At release, Dread had an RRP of £49.99. It’s a premium price for a premium Nintendo brand – but is it worth it?

I don’t often talk about pricing in my reviews but there are times when I feel I have to make an exception and Dread is one of those times. Dread is really good. It’s one of the most perfectly paced and tightly designed games I’ve played in years. It’s exactly as long as it needs to be.

I want to clear about that so you don’t think I’m suggesting that Dread needs more content. It doesn’t. It’s perfect just the way it is. But the way it is also means you can complete Dread in about 8 hours. 8 hours of content – as great as it is – is pretty hard to justify given the premium price. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Dread from beginning to end but there’s simply no way I can recommend Dread at it’s current RRP. But if you see it on sale at 50% off? Go for it!

Okay, so let’s move on from the pricing issue and talk about the game itself and why it’s so good – good, but not as great as I think it could be. The visuals are crisp and clean and easy to read. I’d say the game looks sharper in handheld mode than docked, but docked still looks great and that’s how I primarily played Dread – docked with a pro controller.

The gameplay of Dread is pretty much perfect. The movement and shooting feel good and your progression through the game is perfectly paced. You unlock new abilities or equipment every 30-40 minutes which in turn unlock new areas to explore and new shortcuts through previous ones.

The level design is great in the way that it guides the player with subtle direction – you’ll always instinctively know where to go next. I think during my time with Dread, I only encountered a single moment when I had to consult my map and try to figure out the correct way forward.

That said, there’s a delicate balance to be struck between subtle direction – gently nudging the player in such a way that their progression feels natural – and the less gentle railroading, which Dread is also a little guilty of during its earlier stages where it feels like you’re just being forcibly guided along a very linear path.

The environmental variety is decent with the typical fire, ice and water themed levels you’d expect. Standard enemy variety is also decent, but the game does stumble a little on the boss fights. The early boss fights against various local creatures are great, but the later fights against (without spoiling anything) more humanoid enemies are repeated way too frequently.

You end up fighting this one mini-boss type enemy multiple times and each time they follow exactly the same pattern – they just take slightly more hits to kill. And then we have the robots that will hunt you throughout certain sections of the game. These encounters are pretty intense – at least at first – as you desperately try to evade them and find a weapon strong enough to destroy them.

But once you’ve destroyed 3 or 4 of the things, they just kind of become an annoying obstacle you want to remove as quickly as you can. They can also one-shot you, which is kind of irritating. They become less of a threat, and more of a ‘oh, not another one’.

The final boss was fun to fight, but it’s a fight broken into 3 distinct stages and it’s really just a matter of learning the pattern for each. Once you’ve figured it out (and it might take a few goes because if you die, the entire fight resets) it’s really not hard to beat.

And that’s something that surprised me about Dread. I’d seen so many people talking about how ‘hard’ it was but I found the entire game pretty easy. I’m not mentioning this to brag, and I don’t think making the game harder would have made it better, just that it’s another reason why Dread can be completed relatively quickly.

I know some people may argue that Dread can take longer to complete if you seek out and retrieve 100% of the upgrade items and this is true – but it will still only take another 3-4 hours or so and honestly, you really don’t need them. I collected 64% of the items and I felt kind of overpowered by the time I hit the final boss. Any more health, and it wouldn’t have been a challenge at all.

The story aspects of Dread are kept minimal as the game focuses purely on the gameplay and exploration and that’s perfectly fine. You get enough direction and motivation to keep moving forward with some neat twists along the way.

Overall, Metroid Dread was very good but the pricing really bothers me and it’s very difficult to ignore that. Even if I try to score this game without taking the price into account and judge it purely on the content I still think Dread is lacking a little – it is guilty of railroading the player too heavily at times. The robot hunts become more annoying than tense. The mini-boss fights get repetitive.

There’s also not a great deal of challenge here in terms of exploration (it highlights ‘hidden’ areas on your map, so they’re not really hidden at all), puzzles or combat and there’s not really any immediate replay value either – you do unlock a Hard mode, but if it’s just the same enemies with more health / doing more damage I’m in no rush to play it.

As good as Dread is, I feel like I’ve played much better games in this style at a much more appropriate price point – I’m talking, of course, about the Ori games. There’s a pure simplicity to Dread that is certainly appealing in the way it handles its story, level structure, gameplay, progression and boss fights and I think that will resonate positively with a lot of long term fans of the series and with players who have never touched a Metroid game before. It’s a game I’m happy to recommend either way – but only if you can get it on sale.

7/10

Gallery: Forza Horizon 5

Now Playing: Phasmophobia (VR)

There have been several TV shows down the years where a bunch of idiots run around in a supposedly haunted location at night trying to capture evidence of a ghost. It has to be at night of course because ghosts, as we all know, are allergic to daylight. Phasmophobia is a game recreating this formula but with the added twist that the ghosts are real and they really, really want to murder you.

This is a game that’s still in Early Access has been been for some time. I was a little wary of it when it first released in 2020 because it looked like a cheap, twitch-bait cash grab. But after picking it up on sale recently I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong. Phasmophobia is actually pretty good and easily one of the best VR titles I’ve played.

Although this is only a ‘VR supported’ title, it really does feel like a game best played and experienced in VR. Exploring spooky locations and confronting ghosts is so much more immersive and, at times, genuinely nerve racking when you’re playing in VR.

I’ve tried playing the game solo – and solo play can still be fun – but Phasmophobia is best experienced with others. Like I said – a bunch of idiots running around a haunted house. It has ‘cross-play’ in the sense that I play in VR whilst my friend doesn’t and this comes with its own pros and cons.

In VR I can carry more items than he can, but some actions – like the simple act of opening and closing doors – can be a little more awkward. Using the radio can also be a little hit and miss at times because the ‘sweet spot’ you have to reach up and press to activate can sometimes be hard to find – it’s like the headset position sometimes gets reset on a load and it messes up the placement.

The VR experience of Phasmophobia isn’t perfect and could use a little more work, but what’s here is perfectly playable and fun and after playing this in VR, there’s really no point in playing it any other way.

The game can feel a little unfair at first as it sets you objectives that involve equipment you can’t yet afford and is easy to lose when you finally can because you’ll die quite a lot. There is a tutorial in the game but it’s pretty basic and there’s a lot it doesn’t teach you. This is a game where I’d recommend watching some beginner guide videos before jumping in so you understand exactly what you have to do, what the difference between a ghost ‘hunt’ and ‘event’ is and how and when to use the various types of ghost busting equipment.

Actually, there’s no ‘busting’ of ghosts no matter how often you and your friends quote the movie as you play – GO GET HER, RAY! Your goal isn’t to fight the ghost, but to identify the ghost type by using your equipment, to gather key pieces of evidence of ghostly activity and – most importantly of all – to escape alive.

Completing all of the key and optional objectives (such as taking photos of the activity or the ghost itself) will net you cash you can then reinvest in more equipment. You’ll also earn experience that will level you up, granting you access to new equipment and maps – although honestly, the level up system seems a little pointless and you’ll easily unlock everything currently available by level 8 or so.

If you die, you’ll lose whatever equipment you personally brought to the hunt, but depending upon your chosen difficulty, you can be ‘insured’ so you won’t have wasted all of your cash. And you’ll likely want to play on the Amateur difficulty when you start as you learn the ropes because as you soon discover, the ghosts in this game really don’t like you at all and will sometimes try to murder you the first opportunity they get.

There’s a decent variety of locations to explore both big and small although more maps would certainly be welcome. But even when you’ve played these maps multiple times, you don’t really get tired of them because every new ‘hunt’ is a new experience. The type of ghost is randomised so you never know exactly what you’re going to be dealing with or how the ghost will respond.

And what’s really great about Phasmophobia is how the ghosts are programmed to behave and interact with the players and the environment. There’s lot of little neat touches to the game that give each ghost type a ‘personality’ of sorts and it really does sometimes feel like they’re playing with you – during one hunt, the ghost kept opening a specific door so my friend kept closing it, only for the ghost to immediately open it again.

The sound design in the game is also really good – as it needs to be for a horror game. The creepy audio when the ghost is around, or the voices on the spirit box when you ask if it’s ‘friendly’ and the ghost rasps back ‘DIE’ so you all nope the f**k out of the house. Visually, Phasmophobia could use more polish – particularly in VR – but at the time of writing, a VR overhaul is on the cards with regards to interaction and visuals, so I’m hopeful for that.

Overall, Phasmophobia was a very enjoyable and pleasant surprise and a game I’m sure I’ll return to often provided the updates continue to roll out and improve the experience. That said, what’s already here is well worth your time but this is certainly a game best played with friends and I don’t think you’ll enjoy it half as much playing solo or with strangers. But if you do have people to play it with – in VR or not – then Phasmophobia is worth checking out.

7/10