2022 Games of the Year: Total War: Warhammer 3

By -

I gave Total War: Warhammer 3 a real shot.  I wanted to like it a lot.  And, honestly, there are parts of the game that I did.  This is another one of those games that is doing something interesting but didn't end up clicking with me.

I really liked the battles in Total War: Warhammer 3.  I think I've liked the battling in most Total War games that I've tried.  I also thought that they did some interesting things with the factions in this game that were fun to explore on the battlefield.

The part that constantly tripped me up was the strategy layer.  All of the things between battles are less interesting than the battling itself.  The strategy level of the gameplay ends up feeling like busy-work in between the fun of the tactics level gameplay.  I shouldn't be surprised since this is the same reason I stalled out when I played Total War: Warhammer 2.

I think this is still a really solid strategy and tactics game, it's just not for me.  I'm sitting here wishing for a version of Total War where I can focus in on just my hero unit and one core army while ignoring all the rest of the game that feels (to me) like a distraction.

This one lands in the lower part of my list for the year.  The running games of 2022 list now looks like this:

  1. Elden Ring
  2. FFXIV Endwalker
  3. Horizon Forbidden West
  4. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
  5. Halo Infinite
  6. Vampire Survivors
  7. Nobody Saves the World
  8. Unpacking
  9. Total War: Warhammer 3
  10. Tunic

It's not surprising to see a strategy game slot in lower for me.  I've always been more of a fan of tactics games rather than strategy.  Although that line can be blurry at times.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently have.
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing games way ahead
Read more

Games of the Year 2022: In Conclusion

By -
This running Games of the Year list has been an interesting experiment.  I decided to start this series right as we were shutting down the Geek to Geek podcast as a way to keep creatively broadcasting some gaming thoughts out into the world.  I learned a few things from sticking with it this year. The main thing I learned is... I just don't have as much desire to broadcast my thoughts out in public as I used to when I started this blog or when I started podcasting.  I still love to have in-depth discussions about current games and general geekery, but I feel less and less need to broadcast those thoughts widely.  Honestly, it's been over a decade of blogging and podcasting at this point.  It would be more surprising if my relationship with the media landscape hadn't  changed. Around mid-year I started trying to use Twitter as more of a microblogging platform to do very short quick-hit thoughts about games but didn't get much traction or conversation going which was wha
Read more