I once owned the first edition of the pen & paper Warhammer game. The game and it rules were oke, not breath taking nor brilliant. But the crazy Brit’s from Nottingham (Games Workshop) had created a unique remix of Tolkien & co that was fun, crazy and intriguing.

Today the Warhammer universe has spawned many successful ventures.

Warhammer online finally bring that universe to willing and paying masses. A bit too late – since EveryQuest and WarCraft online have already conquered that market.

To be honest all these games look the same – and are all centered around the same storyline: slaughter.

You can play an evil guy as well as a good dude …

The same kind of storytelling that made classical role playing games so appealing to me is not there. While battling the creatures from some server somewhere there is not benevolent Gamemaster to bend the rules to make the story better or ignore the rules if it would spoil the fun.

These are ’serious’ simulations that strictly follow the rules and the scripted story – if you fail you fail.

And it’s bloody expensive too.