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SEGA’s Make War Not Love Promotion Is Back For Year 5


Posted on February 13, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

SEGA’s annual “Make War Not Love” promotion is back for another round of community earned freebies and deep discounts on some of their more recent titles. 

This year SEGA has chosen a motif similar to the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects”, by titling this year’s giveaway as “The Unusual Suspects” and placing characters from Dawn of War III, Company of Heroes 2, Total War: Warhammer and Endless Space 2 in a police line-up, similar to The Usual Suspect’s theatrical poster. 

By signing up with your Steam account and authorizing SEGA to send you promotional emails over the course of the 5 day event you’ll gain access to two classic SEGA Genesis Titles – Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage 2. 

Each day has a community incentive to reach an unspecified total number of hours played across all titles per day to unlock an addition free game + DLC. As of the writing of this post the insentive for Feburary 14th has already been reached with a Total Warhammer II DLC and full copy of 2008’s Vikings: Battle for Asgard available.  

Of course, SEGA isn’t giving away free titles just for fun (although wouldn’t that be grand of them?) – they’re obviously doing this to bolster the online population of their recent titles and get those games into the hands of potential owners. The following discounts are available until February 18th: 

  • Total War: Warhammer (original game) – 60% off 
  • Total War: Warhammer 2 – 10% off 
  • Dawn of War III – 66% off 
  • Company of Heroes 2 – 75% 

If you don’t own any of the above games to participate in the unlocking of extra freebies – it might be worth it to sign up and stick around just to see what surprises have yet to come. 


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SEGA Reveals TwitchCon 2017 Lineup


Posted on October 17, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Publisher SEGA announced that they will be attending the annual video streaming convention TwitchCon from October 20th through the 22nd in Long Beach California. SEGA will be bringing two of their biggest Fall titles with them for attendees to play: Sonic Forces & Total War: Warhammer II.

Total War: Warhammer fans can get a sneak peek at the upcoming Mortal Empires add-on which merges content from both the original game and its sequel for a truly epic new campaign. Mortal Enemies brings the starting faction count to a staggering 117 and is only a small part of Creative Assembly’s vision for a Trilogy of Warhammer strategy titles that will intermingle via free add-on DLC.  Mortal Enemies will make an appearance both on the show floor as well as on SEGA’s official Twitch.tv channel.

To comprehend the sheer density  that is the content within Mortal Enemies here is how Creative Assembly’s official announcement describes it:

“In terms of content, Mortal Empires is way, way denser than we’d initially envisaged back in 2013, when we were in pre-production for the first game. That’s thanks in part to our New Content team, headed by the ever-cheery Rich Aldridge, whose small but insanely talented crew have contributed to massively more playable factions per-square-mile in the Old World (and therefore in Mortal Empires) than we’d originally imagined. New factions for all those original Old World races (Clan Angrund, Crooked Moon, Bloody Handz and all the rest) plus three new races in Bretonnia, Wood Elves and Beastmen, each with their own sub-factions and start positions. Factor in what the core Warhammer team has been working on for the last year and a half – four new races (that’s eight more Legendary Lords and start positions) with eye-poppingly different mechanics and playstyles for Warhammer II – and you’ve got quite a busy map to play on.”

Also coming to the show floor & twitch is brand new content from the upcoming Sonic Forces. Attendees will be able to check out 4 stages from the final game @ TwitchCon using either Classic Sonic. Modern Sonic or for the first time ever – a custom created character! Sonic Forces will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 7th.


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SEGA’s Make War Not Love Promotion Returns Next Week


Posted on February 10, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

SEGA will once again mobilize the player communities of their various Real Time Strategy game franchise in a battle for ultimate supremacy. The causalities? Our Steam libraries of course! Everyone can register over on their official site for Make War Not Love and pick one of four factions – Dawn of War II, Warhammer: Total War, Company of Heroes II and Endless Legend.

From February 14th through the 19th a number of challenges for the community will be opened up including the chance to vote for which games appears in a SEGA Vs Fans event, the chance for each faction to create a unique piece of artwork to rally their respective communities and the ultimate prize: the two leading factions square off against each other at the PC Gamer Weekender event on February 19th.

Dawn of War III

Here is a summary of the challenges for the Make Love Not War promotion:

Feb 14th: SEGA Vs Faction Vote

Feb 16th : Release of SEGA Prize Bundle 1

Feb 17th: Community Art Attack Challenge, Release of SEGA Prize Bundle 2

Feb 18th: Faction specific live-streams, Release of SEGA Prize Bundle 3

Feb 19th: Grand finale at the PC Gamer Weekender event, Release of SEGA Prize Bundle 4.

Jet Set Radio

Previous year’s SEGA Prize Bundles given away during the Make Love Not War promotion have included classic Genesis games like Gun Star Heroes and Golden AXE, as well as the HD remaster of the 2000 Dreamcast classic Jet Grind Radio. SEGA will also discount games on various digital distribution platforms from all four factions for the duration of the event.

More information about SEGA’s promotion is available on the official website.

 


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Total War: Warhammer Review | A Solid Game with a Few Additions to a Solid Formula


Posted on June 3, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Review by: Rob Logsdon

Total War Warhammer is Creative Assemblies newest edition into their long running series of real time strategy games. Warhammer is a solid addition to the Total War catalog, and represents the first non-historical foray by Creative Assembly in their world conquering strategy games. I got am playing this game as a veteran of both Atilla and Rome Total War games, so its safe to expect some bias in the favor of Creative Assembly, that being said, let’s get to the review.

I did love this game, but by no means is Total War Warhammer perfect. With the newest instalment we see great visuals especially with the campaign map itself. Warhammer models are famous for their specific detail, and Create Assembly has really worked hard to bring this level of detail to the individual models. Each unit seems lovingly sculpted with the care and time the most devout tabletop players, emblems stand out, hero units look unique and the whole world feels alive.

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The level of detail in the game is stunning

The user interface will be familiar to veteran total war players and easy to understand for newcomers to the series. There haven’t been many UI tweaks to this entry, but the ones that are there are mostly related to magic, new tabs for lore, with videos of each spell in action, and explanations of each lore, are some of the new features.

The addition of magic is well implemented with multiple schools of magic ranging from the lore of death to the lore of metal. On the battlefield you will now see your general as an individual who will be a capable warrior able to singlehandedly take on units of normal infantry. This is quite a change from the previous squishy lords. Its not mostly safe to charge your hero in to a large group of enemies and tie them up in melee combat. Your lord may not win against an entire unit of say heavy cavalry, but he will keep them engaged until you can find something in your army to counter with.

Watching units of flying creature’s crash into your lines as units of trolls and giants tear through your lines is a both an amazing and terrifying sight to behold for the first time. Creative Assembly has done an amazing job of bringing the visceral world of tabletop Warhammer Fantasy to life. You can feel the power of a strong magical spell doing its work as infantry units get tossed aside by a column of fire from the sky. Calvary crashes through ranged missile units, utterly devastating them, and your heroic lord holds the center of your line, his mace swinging back and forth with devastating effect. It’s all very stunning to see.

Stunning visuals are not the only thing this game offers, each of the four playable factions: The Empire, Dwarves, Greenskins, Chaos, and Vampire Counts, all look and feel and play very differently.  Despite the difference between the races, anyone who has played the tabletop game will quickly see the similarities between game and tabletop. Each race keeps its most important traits without any one race being too powerful.

Dwarves are very heavily armored and able to absorb enemy charges and beat them back with powerful artillery and ranged units. They excel at defense and have powerful late game artillery that can devastate entire enemy units. Dwaves do not wield magic, instead they have runesmiths who capture powerful magic’s in runes and can release them on command. Dwarves excel at both ranged and melee attacks with a good balance of units and some of the most powerful cost effective artillery in the game.

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Empire troops defend a wall in a high tier settlement

The Empire’s infantry and ranged units are not as powerful as some other factions, but they make up for it with powerful cavalry which used well to attack enemy units in the flanks and rear will quickly turn the tide. The empire is strong in magic fielding wizards, of three types Fire, Light and Celestial lores, each bring powerful spells to combat. The empire is in my opinion the most balanced faction, it possesses a decent amount of everything, war machines, cavalry, and monstrous creatures, and while none are devastating alone, together they form the best rounded army in the game.

The vampire counts field hordes of cheap infantry combined with death magic and powerful monstrous infantry. They trade the ability to have ranged units for large amounts of cheap infantry, and some seriously scary monstrous creatures that that can cause Terror in the enemy ranks. Their lords can raise the dead, quickly turning the tide of a battle that may not be going your way. They also get to corrupt the land they currently hold giving them bonuses and doing causing attrition to invading armies.

Chaos functions like a horde armies from the Atilla game where they have no permanent settlements and each horde builds and carries its own building with it. Chaos was a late announcement to the game, and was meant to be the first DLC, but anyone who pre-ordered got them for free. They get chosen warriors of chaos and chaos knights so though infantry and cavalry at higher tiers is very powerful. Chaos wields the magic of Fire, Death, Metal, and have some extremely powerful spells.

The Greenskins have powerful melee infantry and the ability to bring Trolls and giants onto the battlefield, plus once there fightness meter reaches its peak a Waagh army will spawn to aid in further conquests. goblins have the little waagh lore of magic ork shamans have the big waaagh also they get giants and trolls as there top tier units which is just cool.

Each race feels unique and even though there are only so many ways to do infantry and Calvary and ranged units, each race feels separate, but not so much that if you are playing say empire you can’t go and pick up vampire counts.

 

While Total War Warhammer has been well crafted and implemented it is not free from flaws. One problem I discovered quite quickly is that Empire and Vampire counts have a hard time keeping an economy that can support their armies and allow for new conquests. Few buildings especially for the Vampires add significant amounts of money and units. Meanwhile  army upkeep ramps up very quickly. So these two factions will quickly be running either in the red or making very little money a turn making it quite challenging to build new armies.

Next up we have to talk about the AI which has plagued the total war series since the beginning. While the enemy army will for the most part be competent using its ranged units, plugging gaps in their lines, and trying to use units to outflank you, I experienced a bug where very rarely an enemy army will sit in place and eat your artillery shots. With the new focus on lords as individual units a new problem has arisen in that the enemy AI will often run their lord ahead of an advancing army and allow you to either kill him or do very significant damage to him before he has even reached your lines. Lords are way more powerfull than in say Atilla, or Rome, but you still can’t put them against an entire army and expect them to survive. So to say the Ai is more liberal with its generals is a bit of an understatement. This can be easily fixed with patches, and I hope that it will be.

The diplomatic mechanics have been significantly reworked from Rome two, it is now much easier to know where you stand with a faction. Confederating is now a much more useful and doable mechanic than it was in previous games. With this comes a very silly exploit that will hopefully be patched out. If you declare war on a faction that cannot reach you in several turns they will generally sue for peace and offer a sum of gold or whatever your factions variant is, which you will accept of course because you will need the money. Several turns after an ally will ask you to rejoin the war again generally with an offer of a sum of money, you can repeat the cycle over and over to farm gold. Obviously this is a slight issue again hopefully that will be patched and changed in some way.

Next let’s talk settlements. Total War Warhammer keeps in line with Attila and Rome two that the provincial capital has walls and can reach size five. Minor settlements have no walls to start, but, there are defense that can be added to them to give them walls. This is a nice feature, and since they top out at size three.

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Settlements

The major issue I have with this is that sieges and city assaults are just plain boring now. If you attack or defend a minor settlement without walls the battle takes place in a normal open battlefield instead of within the confines of the settlement. So gone are the days of your minor settlements using narrow streets and possible city centers on hills with small ramparts to station ranged units. This is a great loss as that helped sieges feel more alive and to give you a chance to overcome terrible odds with clever use of terrain and buildings.

Sieges of provincial capitals have also taken a huge step backwards in that instead of being able to attack from all sides choosing how you will overcome the enemy defenders and cities that generally had at least several defensible positions once you had breached the walls. Now you get one wall to assault two if you are really lucky, towers are only active if one of your units is standing with its influence box. Once the walls are breached you have maybe two or three large streets for the enemy to move down into the city center capture point. Also for some unexplained reason every unit in the game can run up to the enemy walls and pull out ladders and start climbing. Sieges have taken a huge step backwards taking a lot of the fun of it with them. The last issue with settlements comes that all factions cannot take any settlement Dwarves and Orcs can only control the others settlements and Humans and Vampires are the same this is by far one of the worst ideas introduced into total war it limits the gameplay potential as a whole and will kill replay value as the strategies and maneuvers you make game to game will end up being very similar since you are so limited on what settlements you can control.

All things said though Total War Warhammer is a fun game and a fine addition to the series many of the issues above will either be patched out at some point and failing that there has always been a thriving modding community for total war so the people will get what they want one way or the other. The game is beautiful with a lot of potential and the freelc of Britonia and they many other to be announced DLC packs will provide hours of fun for those willing to look past its minor issues. Beautiful with tons of potential I am looking forward to seeing how this game changes and grows as we go forward.


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Total War: WARHAMMER – Gameplay Walkthrough – Greenskins Campaign


Posted on December 5, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

The Total War youtube page has posted 17 minutes of brand new game play footage from their upcoming game Total War: WARHAMMER.

[youtube id=vJUWImJUZrU]

help I fell in love.  I am an admitted Warhammer Fan girl,  I have loved almost all of GWI’s games, and SEGA seems to be doing a great job with the licesne. Im currently playing through Warhammer End times: Vermintide, and absolutly loving the level of detail thats been put in to the environment, characters and just the whole game package. So far this game looks as good if not better than any other Games Workshop based game I have seen to date.

The video shows off in beautiful detail the over world map, featuring how much character the map has. We get to see an auto-resolved battle over a dwarf stronghold after with the stronghold get ORKY. The whole look of the structures change, and it gets Ork banners, and pointy spikes and all sort of other things!

We also get a peek at the Ork building tree, its pretty basic, but we can see what major units Orks will have and also see some new units, and how unit upgrades work, as well as hero units. There is no actaul arms based game play int he 16 minutes of video, buts a lot of dumped content to see in that time, plenty of eye-candy visuals, lots of game play mechanics and a good overview of how the whole world level battling works. its worth the 16 minutes of watch.


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In-Engine Total War: Warhammer Trailer Released


Posted on November 26, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

SEGA and Creative Assembly have teamed up to give us the first in-engine look at the upcoming Total War: Warhammer which launches in April 2016. Thirst glimpse of the campaign gives us a look at some of the goblin encampments as they plan to wage war all the way from the Badlands to the Chaos Wastes.

Total War: Warhammer will feature similar gameplay to other titles in the Total War franchise – minus the historical accuracy. Basically replace the roman empire with Orks, The Empire (humans), Dwarves and Vampire Counts.  Also unlike other games factions in this game may also have access to flying units – something that the time periods and real world settings of the other Total War franchise don’t allow for.

Check out the trailer below.

[youtube id=”DbvY_fij9E8″]

[Header Image Source]


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