Picks and pans: Warhammer, Star Wars and more
DateTime:7/8/2009 5:21:12 PM

The debt that Blizzard's "Warcraft" series owes to Games Workshop's "Warhammer" fantasy universe is paid off a bit with "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning," an online role-playing game that any veteran of "World of Warcraft" could pick up and play without even checking the key bindings.Not that the games are identical, though their worlds are similar in many respects. True to the franchise background, the game focuses on inter-player conflict as players fight for control of the "Warhammer" world itself.

"Age of Reckoning" breaks its opposing factions, Order and Destruction, into six smaller groups fighting one another: Dwarves fight the Greenskins (Orcs and Goblins), the human Empire vies with Chaos, and High Elves battle Dark Elves.Each faction has a set of unique character classes, such as the mutant Chaos Marauder and the clever Dwarf Engineer, with more promised for the future.