Review RPG Codex Review: Mordheim: City of the Damned

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Mordheim: City of the Damned; Rogue Factor

As is well known, the genre of squad-based tactical games is distinguished from RPGs by the fact that there is an entire squad of people running around and killing things in turn-based combat. Mordheim: City of the Damned is one of these games. Developed by an obscure Canadian company and set in the world of Warhammer, it has you control a tactical unit known as warband and lead it... somewhere, preferably to victory. Standard stuff, you know.

But before you get all excited for a Warhammer tactical game, you have to ask: is it actually any good? This question is where esteemed community member Darth Roxor comes in with his review.

Here's his conclusion if you're curious:

Nevertheless, despite ending the previous chapters on rather negative notes, my overall opinion of Mordheim is completely different. I think the fact that I currently have 80 hours of the game clocked on Steam, and that I’ve been playing it all the time for the entire last month, is enough of an indicator how much fun I’ve had with it. In those 80 hours, I’ve only managed to get one warband to max rank (Skaven, took me a whopping 60 hours in total) and take another one half-way through its campaign.

Simply put, Mordheim is just a solid game of squad tactics. If you’re a sucker for the genre and for the world of Warhammer, you should get it immediately. But even if Warhammer is unknown to you, The City of the Damned offers loads of content and plenty of good, old-fashioned fun. You just have to make sure to turn a blind eye on its remarkably bad technical side.

To be honest, I have no idea how many of the things I’ve praised or lambasted in this article can be traced to the original tabletop, and which are the work of Rogue Factor. But whatever the case may be, as a debut loaded with expectations from an unknown studio, Mordheim is proof enough that the lads have talent.​

Read the full article: RPG Codex Review: Mordheim: City of the Damned

 

[Excidium II]

Good review.

I'm really turned off by the controls/interface, I hope if somebody ever makes a Negrobunda videogame it has proper PC-centric approach.

 

[you know what time it is]

Anything but SitS. What's next, Fallout 4 DLC review?

Spoiler

 

[Darth Roxor]

Well, I can review SitS too. But would you really want that?

 

[Excidium II]

Just post a vid of people wacking each other for 5 minutes with some swirly lights.

 

[you know what time it is]

Just post a vid of people wacking each other for 5 minutes with some swirly lights.

You just described 70% of all the games ever made.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Good review - I agree with most of the praise and criticism.

For me the game wasn't unstable though - I can't remember a crash. But I rarely played more than 2 skirmishes in a row.

 

[A user named cat]

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

 

[Mustawd]

At least this will help some of the pearl clutching of GW's licensing decisions. They've had some pretty good hits so far.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Considering how the license gets thrown around nowadays there statistically must be a jackpot and Mordheim is just that. Good review.

The game also provides enjoyment for heretics like me that hate the Warhammer settings with a passion. Ignoring it and enjoying the tacticool aspect is incredibly easy.

BUT Darth Roxor is right about the DLC. The Smuggler gives the Sisters of Mercy a very strong range unit that is borderline game breaking due to giving the Sisters such a powerful ranged option.

 

[duanth123]

WHY can’t I speed up animations in single player?

This. More than anything this.

The animations are by no means smooth or particularly enjoyable to begin with, but layer onto that NEEDLESS MINOR PAUSES and lengthy animation cycles and you remind the player of the inherently repetitive nature of the gameplay.

It's shocking to me that developers are still coming 'round to the notion of QoL considerations such as this.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I wonder if it it was successful enough to warrant the development of a new war band and not only those special unit DLCs. They still update the game, but iirc, they haven't said anything about new war bands.

They just did:

New Witch Hunter Warband announcement!

 

[Bubbles]

Turkish Song of the Damned

Why turkish?

As for the rest of the article: tl;dr.

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

Roxor really, really hates widescreen monitors, it's basically a meme at this point.

 

[Yeesh]

Thanks for the review. I actually played Necromunda on the tabletop way back in the olden days when I lived. I've had my eye on this game, wondering wistfully if it might bring similar good times. Sounds like it just might.

 

[Excidium II]

Thanks for the review. I actually played Necromunda on the tabletop way back in the olden days when I lived. I've had my eye on this game, wondering wistfully if it might bring similar good times. Sounds like it just might.

Roxor reviews so good they raise the dead from the grave.

 

[Murk]

Turkish Song of the Damned

Why turkish?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6fFJX4OkDw

I hate widescreen too =(

 

[Mustawd]

Thanks for the review. I actually played Necromunda on the tabletop way back in the olden days when I lived. I've had my eye on this game, wondering wistfully if it might bring similar good times. Sounds like it just might.

I played WH40K, WHFB, and Necromunda a bit. From my experience Mordheim didn't really catch on in my part of the states. Maybe it's just UK thing? *shrug*.

Gorkamorka didn't really catch on that much here either.

 

[Plane Escapee]

Darth Roxor and Bubbles reviews are so good they make me actually want to read them and not just skim and skip to the conclusion.

I've been on the fence about Mordheim since the first screenshots were released. Before that I was moderately excited. I'm glad to see it reviewed. Though honestly... I'd read a review of any shit game no matter how little prior interest I've had in it, as long it was written by Roxor, Bubbles or VD.

The only bad thing about their reviews is that there aren't enough of them.

 

[Roguey]

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

High-end CRTs still have better black levels than LCDs.

 

[Mustawd]

Considering how the license gets thrown around nowadays there statistically must be a jackpot and Mordheim is just that. Good review.

The game also provides enjoyment for heretics like me that hate the Warhammer settings with a passion. Ignoring it and enjoying the tacticool aspect is incredibly easy.

BUT Darth Roxor is right about the DLC. The Smuggler gives the Sisters of Mercy a very strong range unit that is borderline game breaking due to giving the Sisters such a powerful ranged option.

Well it's not just this game:

-Blood bowls were well received
-Battlefleet Gothic seems to be getting a lot of interest
-WHF Total War (or whatever it's called) will sell well due to WHFB fanboys such as myself
-Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide seems like a smashing success based on what I've heard

What's interesting is that Games Workshop has some ancillary correlation with WOTC in terms of Fantasy settings, and they are kicking WOTC's ass at licensed video games.

 

[A user named cat]

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

High-end CRTs still have better black levels than LCDs.

I agree to an extent. IPS panels still have this issue all these years later, tried a few of them and returned them because of this. However VA panels have very good blacks. I have a nice glossy VA panel Dell, BenQ makes them still as well. Just about as good as a classic CRT and you don't get the hideous refresh rate flickering.

For someone to be against widescreen monitors though, I just don't get it. Why would anyone oppose having a larger viewing area? It's not like you can't play 4:3 games still and keep aspect ratio intact.

 

[Excidium II]

Roxor doesn't use a CRT. He just has the last 5:4 LCD.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Good review Darth Roxor. Didn't read it though.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Good review - I agree with most of the praise and criticism.

For me the game wasn't unstable though - I can't remember a crash. But I rarely played more than 2 skirmishes in a row.

Maybe it depends on system specs because another git I talked with said he had no crashes either. But I would get "OOPS! It seems something went wrong!" error + CTD relatively often. It didn't happen every time I played perhaps, but it was still noticeable.

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

Widescreens are for plebs.

It's shocking to me that developers are still coming 'round to the notion of QoL considerations such as this.

My guess is that they were too lazy to code animation sliders for singleplayer to make them not apply for multi since the two modes are so "seamless". It's still really fucking annoying, though.

Thanks for the review.

:mrpresident:



Also, one funny thing - I wrote this revioo roughly a week before the announcement of DoW3. Talk about the opening being prophetic.

 

[M0RBUS]

Why do you not have a regular widescreen monitor? What are you using, an old CRT or something?

Roxor really, really hates widescreen monitors, it's basically a meme at this point.

And his eyes as well, I'd say.

:EDIT:
Nice read though, I stayed away from this game 100% because of technical things. Extremely long load times, crashes, chunkiness and all the criticism that was raised at it in the review. Maybe I'm missing on some good fun, but meh...