Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (Xbox 360) – Review
Video game collections all over the world are almost bursting with online first person shooters, yet it’s very rare to find medieval arenas in this multiplayer carnage. 2006’s Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and 2011’s Mount & Blade come to mind as two of only a handful of games in about eight years of game history. Chivalry: Medieval Warfare charged Steam in 2012 and has proven to remain quite popular, spurring Torn Banner Studios to bring the game to the Xbox 360 Marketplace.
Story
Being an online multiplayer slashfest, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare isn’t exactly known for its gut wrenching storyline. It takes place in Agatha, a fictional country that is divided by a civil war. The Agathian Knights and Mason Order are at each other’s throats in a power struggle, which is all you should need to pick up their weapon of choice and jump into the fray.
The tutorial asks the player to choose their faction, but this choice is in fact useless as this choice is already forgotten within the tutorial itself, which has even spawned “enemies” of my own clan against me. It is a first symptom of many that the Xbox 360 port has received none of the developer’s love for the original PC version.
Graphics
The PC version looked quite gritty, showing a whole lot of blood and severed limbs in enthralling battlegrounds and even a Coliseum-like arena. It wasn’t perfect, as character models and project weapons were known to glitch now and again, but those flaws were easily overlooked because of the sheer fun the title delivered.
The port, however, is a whole lot less impressive. This already becomes obvious in the character creation screen, which forces you to watch the PlayStation 2-era characters and their lack of detail. During matches, characters seem to glide on the ground and sometimes even float above it, giving the game an Elder ScrolIs IV: Oblivion-esque look sans the details. Moreover, the small amount of battlegrounds feel quite empty as they are simply too large for the small amount of players, although this could also be due to the fact that the active player base is very small and I have therefore never been able to experience a game with full teams.
Sound
Whereas the original Chivalry: Medieval Warfare managed to create a true battle atmosphere by giving the character models a (limited) voice, the effect of these war cries dwindles with the amount of players. Having one character scream “Charge!” at, well, no-one is just ridiculous. Even the clinging of the swords can’t deliver, which is a real shame as there isn’t even a soundtrack to save the day.
All of this means that in the end, you will be muting the game in favour of your own soundtrack while you play. If you still play it after a few matches, that is.
Gameplay
The alarm bells should be ringing quite loudly if you’ve been reading up to this point in the review. This is an online multiplayer game without an active player base. Sure, this can be countered by playing solo with bots, but their A.I. is so simple that it just isn’t fun to challenge them.
In terms of game modes, the game offers none but the most basic of options: Team Deathmatch, Free for All, Last Team Standing (which is Team Deathmatch but without respawning), Capture The Flag, Duel (pitting two players against each other) and Team Objective. The final mode boils down to having one team attack or burn down a castle or village while the other team defends, which could actually be pretty fun if, you know, there were enough players with whom to coordinate the sieges. For those who might be thinking of playing this game against bots, be warned: Capture the Flag and Duel aren’t playable when you’re on your own.
This review has been full of complaints so far, but none of the mentioned flaws can even hold a candle to this one: the gameplay is incredibly slow, effectively breaking the game. Chivarly: Medieval Warfare shouldn’t have been expected to be perfect, as its source material was fun in spite of its shortcomings, but the pace has been altered so drastically from the pc version that it is almost impossible to effectively time your swings. Sure, the heavily armoured Knight is supposed to be a bit slower than others, but having to wait a whole second between pulling the Right Trigger and actually swinging the sword seems to be overdoing it. Even the Man-at-Arms, which should be the fastest class, can’t attack without having a little tea break. And don’t even get me started on the projectiles, as in all of my matches, I have never seen anyone get hit by one of the throwing axes or arrows. Aiming is a drag, firing is a drag, and even blocking is a pain due to the slow animations.
Conclusion
The Xbox 360 port of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare shouldn’t be touched with a ten foot pole, let alone a dagger. Its graphics seem to have been downgraded from the PC version, its soundtrack is virtually non-existent and the characters’ screams and weapon clinging are worthless. The game itself is broken by an immensely slow pace, making the attack and defend animations so long that it is almost impossible to time anything well and rendering every kill a product of sheer luck. Other players seem to be sharing this opinion, as the online lobbies are as good as dead only a few weeks after the games’ launch. This might be the start of a great asylum story, however:
“Retreat!” he screamed into the empty room…
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