Warhammer is a franchise that sits upon an untouchable throne, but that throne has no jurisdiction on the PC. In the realm of tabletop games, miniatures that is, Warhammer is the king of kings. It's an amazing game that has several offshoots and millions upon millions of figures sold. Sadly, its electronic counterparts have been somewhat poor, often downright awful. Fans of both Warhammer and PC games have had little if any joy from the fusion of the two. Last year was the closest, with Dawn of War. While it wasn't quite accurate to the Warhammer mythos and rules, it had the settings, the big picture, and a lot of fun packed in. THQ has had the only semi-successful Warhammer interpretation... that is, until now.

This fall Namco will be releasing a title by developer Black Hole called Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. The game is something that has been needed all these long years (decades, now) that Warhammer has been in existence: a damn good translation. Not only is it the right races, the right setting, the right look, tone, and feel... it's the right game. All of the strategy, customizability, and action of the tabletop source material are here and they look great.

The visuals are astounding, from mile high to directly on the shoulder of a soldier, everything looks detailed and sculpted to perfection. While playing the game it feels as though someone animated the figurines, causing them to carry out their eternal war without waiting for the players to whip out their rulers or dice. Every unit has individual decorations, war trophies from their previous battles, and their own war paint. These decorations can even be customized in an army building tool in the game, where every unit can be individually crafted as though you picked up the paintbrush and miniature yourself.

Games Workshop is married to the game, crafting its story, assessing its units' accuracy, and judging every aspect to make sure their seal of approval is not going to waste. With this level of detail, I doubt any Warhammer fan will have much to complain about. The campaign has two sides to it, and of course those are the two most famous (or infamous) factions of the Warhammer canon: Chaos and Empire. Also in the game, since you can't fit everything in Warhammer into a game, are the High Elves and the Skaven.

There are several portions to the game. First is the story mode, where plot is played out in cinematics and cut scenes that should make Warhammer veterans giddy and give those just joining the struggle some background, and great motivation, to jump in headfirst. After some tales of woe and a goal or two, the game will present the strategic world map. This is a turn-based planning and campaigning map with all of your armies and bases and heroes on it, waiting your command. World events can happen here, like the budding invasion of chaos to the east, or the spread of the roving bands of Skaven to new lands. Perhaps you're preparing for a long siege battle to come or you're building-up your main army for the next wave of hit-and-run attacks on your foe's border fortresses. Whatever your task, it can be accomplished from this intuitive map screen. Finally, there's the war.

The game really gets going when the battle begins. Gone is the turn-based aspect, and in comes the real-time destruction on a massive scale. Giant units will swing at swarms of soldiers and send them flying through the air. Hundreds of units will charge at each other, breaking morale and breaking formation. The combat is terrific, with scale playing a large part, as does tactical thought and an advanced form of rock-paper-scissors style troop combat. As in many other titles, Calvary devastate ranged units, ranged units level hordes of footmen, and footmen eat Calvary for breakfast. Only in this case, there's many, many more categories and abilities to change things up.

Also, the game doesn't solely focus on armies charging at one another. There's siege gameplay, to take down forts and castles and any other encampment of enemies. And, of course there are heroes. In most titles, the hero units are simply strong units with some kind of radius effect. In Warhammer, they're that and so much more. When a hero takes on another hero, their abilities change to duel mode and all other units freeze and watch in awe. The massive heroes trade blows and have charge-up powers that make simple claws and blades laughable. The heroes are even customizable so that upon gaining experience in battle they can learn new abilities in different aspects. Perhaps the hero will focus on fighting hordes of units. Maybe your hero excels at commanding and assisting your troops, and providing permanent bonuses on the strategic map. Then again, he might be an assassin style hero, trained specifically to find and kill other hero units.

There's so much in Mark of Chaos it's hard to believe it's all coming together into one game. The design, the story, and the visuals all look fantastic. Plus its intuitively easy to control. Real-time junkies, Warhammer fanatics, and anyone looking for carnage on a massive scale should mark their calendars, notch their wall, or start a stack of skulls to count down... this fall you have a new obsession.