Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (Classic)

Pure amazing nostalgia. Very hard. Very clunky and has not really aged well. But my Sigmar the nostalgia!

It's a great game for nostalgia, for sure. But I was expecting some hot keys since this was for PC and not playstation. It's extremely difficult to play the game with a mouse, and you have to click buttons on a map just to move the view. You can't even move your units very well without trying to get a good view in time. If you wanna buy for nostalgia and don't mind throwing some money away go for it. But I am honestly not happy that there were not even any options to add hotkeys. I mean it really makes the game hard. If you are going to bring a game back from the dead, at least give it hot keys. Most companies remaster these games... This obviously is no remaster, nor did I expect it to be, but I was hoping for better playing capabilities. I feel that it's worse than when I played it on playstation decades ago.

[h1] Я знал, что у вас, блядских эльфов, нет чести! Нет уважения! НЕТ ПИВА! [/h1] "Ну всё, слушай внимательно, остроухий говна кусок! Если ты сделаешь ещё хоть шаг со своей обоссаной мотнёй, которую ты называешь париком, то я отмудохаю тебя ТАК СИЛЬНО, ЧТО ТЫ БОЛЬШЕ НЕ СМОЖЕШЬ ХОДИТЬ СО СВОИМ ВЯЛЫМ ХЕРОМ! Я засуну ботинок ТАК глубоко в твою до блеска выбритую маленькую жопу, что у тебя изо рта начнет разить кремом для обуви! Потом я вырву этот анальный шарик с твоего пояса - и пихну его тебе в лицо! Я ВЫСЕКУ ТЕБЯ СВОЕЙ ОХУЕННОЙ БОРОДОЙ! Я сделаю тебе пару рунных стальных яиц и с хирургической точностью пришью их туда, где должно было бы быть твоё мужское достоинство, чтобы я мог переебать по ним своей железной, ♥♥♥♥♥ ЕЁ, ногой! ... ХУЙЛО." (с) Урист

I really, really, REALLY wanted this to be good. Spoiler: it's not. The original Playstation 1 game is one of my "white whale" titles: it was badly broken on release, balance-wise, and I don't think anybody ever beat it without exploits on the Playstation. Sadly, this isn't it. This feels like they took the original game, wrapped it in an emulator to pretend it's installed on Windows 98 at a brutally low resolution, and that's all. On a modern Windows 11 machine running 4K, it almost managed to crash my GPU at least twice in 11 minutes, and just barely avoided wiping out my Desktop, because it doesn't run properly in modern resolutions, yet wants to demand full-screen, and is clumsily implemented when handing back control. I'm honestly surprised that in 2026 there are still developers out there pulling these kinds of stunts, when rendering at the proper resolution and letterboxing a scaled version on a modern GPU is so straightforward. I'm sad and disappointed, but not surprised; surely the source code's not really available and this was just a cash-grab. The game's been available as abandonware for ages and the original developers probably left the industry 20 years ago. Meanwhile, I got into the first mission, and already it was obvious that this is inferior to the Playstation version. You can't adjust unit facings when you set up a unit, for example, and apparently nobody thought that maybe we'd want to use mouse-wheel to zoom in and out in 2026 or use WASD to pan the camera. Was adding in some basic UI hooks [i]that[/i] hard? This was truly an amateur-hour version of one of the all-time interesting titles, and I'm more mad than anything that it was done so dirty and people will think that this is what the game was like, when the experience of the original was quite superior and even small amounts of work might have made this feel reasonable and playable on a modern device. All that said, I'm not asking for a refund: I'm asking whoever published this to sit down with this developer and ask them whether this level of shovelware was in anybody's best interests. It certainly doesn't make me want to buy anything Mindscape publishes in the future.

Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (Classic) — Reflective Impressions I’ve been going back to some of the older Warhammer titles, and this one feels less like a game you just “play” and more like something you study as you experience it. There’s a part of me that wasn’t sure if I could recommend it, and I think that hesitation is part of what defines the game itself. On one hand, you can clearly feel that this was an early attempt to translate Warhammer into a real-time strategy format. And in that sense, it honestly deserves respect. It feels like one of those foundational steps where a company is still figuring out how to bring its world into an entirely different medium. When you look at later RTS titles, you start to see just how much iteration and refinement came after this. The controls are probably the biggest hurdle. They’re not as smooth or intuitive as what you’d expect from more modern RTS games, and even compared to later Warhammer titles, there’s a noticeable gap. There’s a kind of friction in just getting units to do what you want, and that friction can pull you out of the experience. At the same time, that friction also tells you something. It shows you where the genre—and the interface itself—was still developing. It even makes the PS1 release more interesting in hindsight, because it highlights how experimental this whole process was, especially when thinking about translating RTS mechanics across platforms. What I didn’t expect, though, was how much the narration would carry the experience. There’s a tone to it that feels genuinely engaging, and even a bit humorous at times. It adds personality in a way that helps balance out some of the rougher edges, and it makes the campaign feel more intentional rather than just a sequence of battles. So I end up landing somewhere more defined than I expected: I do recommend it—but not across the board. This feels like a game that really only opens up if you’re already invested, either in RTS games or in Warhammer itself. The controls ask for patience, and not everyone is going to want to meet the game halfway like that. But if you’re willing to put that time in, there’s something here that makes it worth it. It’s less about whether the game holds up perfectly, and more about what it represents—and who is willing to engage with it on those terms.

They should have ported the PS version that had a much better UI and it wasn't a chore to figure out how the hell to do everything. Where is the command to get your crossbowmen to shoot instead of closing for melee? Absurd

After playing this game more times then I care to admit and having the Gog version, Im glad this came to Steam finally! played up until the bright Wizard so far feels pretty good, don't expect any modern QoL, the controls are as per the original, there was no issues with playing on my Ultra wide, it was a little zoomed but handled it well enough Looking forward to playing through this masterpice again!

I would have loved to love this game again, after playing it as a child. It's just not possible. The controls are just way too outdated, the view is way too restrictive, and the impossibility to simply pan the camera is a killer. I just cant play like this. Such a shame.

Game is borderline unplayable in its current state. I played the original many, many years ago. I knew it was a little rough. But the march of technology has done it no favors. By default, it has around 17 total pixels. Unless you have a 640x480 CRT laying around, you'll have to lower your monitor's resolution, or set up upscaling. Afterward, be sure to drop your mouse sensitivity to the minimum. Else, a passing mosquito may fart and send your cursor across the screen. The controls are a relic from days long gone. Labels are sparse, so you'll have to channel your inner 40k astropath and interpret meaning from vague images. Be prepared to spend a lot of time in the manuals. If you find the idea of this game appealing (as I certainly do) just grab the far more polished sequel, Dark Omen. Despite a mountain of nostalgia massive enough to house a Dwarf hold, I cannot recommend this game. Maybe, someday, we'll get a modernization. But since Warhammer Fantasy is dead, that's got about as much chance as an Avatar of Khaine fighting a named, unhelmeted Space Marine. Perhaps we'll get a spiritual successor set in The Old World.

Патриарх ПК-игр по ВахеФБ и вечное первое место в личном рейтинге игр по Warhammer. Именно с заметки об этой игре в #5'1996 классного журнала "Магазин игрушек" в том же году узнал о существовании вселенной Warhammer. Первый раз удалось увидеть игру живьём примерно в 1997 году, на экране 486-го ПК у знакомого, несколько секунд. Всем игра тогда показалась замороченной и народ активно гонял в WarCraft II %-)))) Впервые же пощупать игру смог только в 2019 году, благодаря GOG. Разнообразие юнитов и школ магии, глубина сюжета, сложность боёв -- круче, чем в Dark Omen. Последний пункт стал таковым, возможно, в немалой степени из-за неудобного, по сравнению с Dark Omen интерфейса :-)) Кстати, [i]в только что лет[/i] узнал, что мини-карта легко прячется в процессе боя (стрелка сверху-справа), облегчая обзор. [b]Вот бы ещё управление камерой каким-то образом назначить на WASD...[/b] И я имел счастье быть знакомым с человеком (наш земляк, под ником ChaosLord), который прошёл какую-то миссию, считавшуюся авторами игры непроходимой. ...И узнавшего об этом от кого-то из разработчиков %-))