That's right, it's the big two-oh for me. I have a thousand pageviews, thanks for that. I bit the bullet and bought Mark of Chaos. The box told me that a 7-series chip could run it fine, so I put the quality on the higher end of things. I think my computer had an embolism, and woke up after I had to do a dry-shutdown asking, "WHY GOD!? WHYYYY?!" Needless to say, I need more memory. I'm getting a new gig or so of juice to supplement my 512mb.

Now, as for the game itself. Aside from the in-house complications the game gets an 80. It has a nice LOTR-meets-40k carnagey feel to it, but I'm not impressed with the overarchingly powerful ranged units, specifically the siege weapons. Lord of Change, do I hate those things. They can waylay troops from nearly a half map away, but take at least five minutes to knock down one section of wall. Sure, I can just put my men into a loose formation (great gameplay element by the way), but I'll still lose about a dozen or so units before I have a chance to get up close and personal. Khorne bless the mounted units and their unstoppable charges. I get giddy whenever I have the chance to field a half-dozen squads (er, regiments, sorry, I'm 40k all the way) of Chaos Warriors with a boatload of horse-bound killers leading the way. Speaking of that, death to the Empire handgunners.

While I was on the path of the Dark Side, I met up with the Skaven. Now at first, I thought they would follow as their fluff rightfully should: a teeming swarm of chittering morons that simply swarm to submission. Well, after five or six wholly annihilated squads of footsoldiers, I soon realized that somebody in Namco/Bandai screwed up. Quite the contrary to their background, the Skaven are the Fantasy equivalent to the Tau: shooty beyond all reason and piss-poor in close combat. The only difference between them is that the Skaven really don't have a Kroot equivalent, at least not one that's any good. Their Warp cannons are insanely powerful, although about as accurate as a shotgun. If you're wondering what it's like, picture this if you're a 40k fan: the heavy cannon the Necron Monolith wields being sent loose against WFB characters. Yeah, it's that damn powerful.

Speaking of grossly overpowered units, let's talk heroes. In Mark of Chaos, a big section of the gameplay is set away to the duelling segment. When two enemy hero units are in a certain range, you'll hear them start talking trash. You now have two options: kill them the regular way, or kill them in a Duel. No, retreat is not an option you French cowards! Of course, killing enemy heroes is easier when use the regular method, but where's the fun in that? When you enter a duel, a slew of new abilities is opened up, and a nifty little ring of fire encircles them, so no backstabby. If you win, the surrounding enemy troops are demoralized and easy pickings for the rest of your forces. If you win, well, let's just hope your guys can run in 80-pound suits of armor.

The Hero customization process is a bit like a simplified form of Armored Core: damned if it ain't tedious, but damned if it ain't useful. New weapons, wargear, mounts, spells and healing potions, etc. Your hero, as he fights, levels up, allowing you to grant him more enhanced abilities, buffs, and spells. You will quickly find that having two heros is a godsend. As of now, I have a Chaos "Lord", a Lieutenant, and a Sorcerer. I let my Lord do the anti-hero work, my Lieutenant does the slogging about in the battlefield, and my Sorcerer gets all the Command buffs. It's good that you can choose whether or not your hero is mounted or not, because it can spell the difference between life, death, and a fate worse than the latter.

Oh, and while we're talking Sorcerers, damn whoever made this games story. As a Chaotic force, your Lord starts out as Undivided, fair enough. You do some fighting, gain an army, then you have to do a quest to gain the favor of the Chaos Gods. This would seem cool, and it is, at least until the end of said mission. At the end, you must choose a patron god, but you only get TWO choices, Nurgle or Khorne. That pissed me off beyond all reason. Throughout the game, Tzeentch and Slaanesh got a reaming, only being mentioned in passing. True, they're more 40k than FB, but it still didn't make me happy.

Well, that's all I have as far as news goes, the vid-blog should be up with a new round soon.