Dawn of War

[Raven_ipb2_import227]

OK I didn't read the whole thread but I do want to tell you what I think of the 40k series of RTS titles.

The beauty of DoW and it's expansions is not the game play, it's not the setting, and it's not the story! No! It's the units. I know right now maybe your playing single player and it don't really seem all that. But if you also get dark crusade and start to play online you'll see the beauty of this game.

For one thing, you have 7 sides!!!! when is the last time you played an RTS with 7 sides to play? and they are ALL balanced and all are different... NOT one unit from any of the armies are the same. Each army has it's own tech tree, not only that, each side goes up the tech tree in a different way, for example the Space Orcs have to build up their "WAHHHHHH" to be able to upgrade, so we are talking numbers, the bigger the army, the more advanced it is ect. With Dark Crusade you can also play it in single player mode in a mini Total War type interface, you have about 15 or 16 areas to fight for, and all 7 races are fighting it out on this one planet, think Risk! anyway, each side in that expansion gets their own story to boot! Which are that not bad by most people's standards (ok they were not the strongest element to the game). But again the balance of so many sides, the mix of units and the way they do infact match the table top models (plus you get a very nice advanced painting interface, so your pc army looks like your table top army (if you have one)) all makes this a great game.

Lets not forget that in DoW resources are done a little differently than everywhere else, the way resource points work and stuff:)and no don't point to CoH as relic made that AFTER DoW:P


So ok the single player is somewhat of a let down, but I also think it's a nice intro to the 40k universe for those that don't know about it! Also while the story might be a little weak, you have to like the voice acting? I think every voice fits the race so very well. And the Space Marines in the single player storyline are exceptional.

I do however recommend getting DoW as well as both expansion packs to fully enjoy the 40k RTS series as that's when it becomes a complete package!

[Side note I did infact review this game for GamerGod.com when I used to work there, but since the site went down, I lost much of my work :/ was gona link to it]

Ohh and I've been playing RTS games for some 13 odd years now maybe a bit more, and I got to say, I'm surprised you have not played a few more "different" "not main stream" RTS games... did you try Homeworld? or Homeworld 2?, have you tried Ground Control? have you tried TA? what about SC?

See the thing is, they won't fix it till it's broke... if you look at ANY genre of games, it's the same thing. Like where have sports sim come in the last 10 years? fifa200X doesn't do that much more than fifa96 on the megadrive, except look a bit better and feel more smooth. Under the bonet they are pretty much the same gameplay. What changed from Half-life 1 to Half-life 2? graphics yes, AI somewhat, gameplay? no story? no enjoyment? actually no! they were both just as enjoyable as each other!.

What I'm getting at is, we as a gaming community, and in some respects us reviewers, need to start looking at the games market and see that... things are topping off... we are not gona get the influx of great new ideas that we saw in the early to mid 90's, we are not gona see the risks taken with PC games that have happened before, mostly because every PC publisher and their grandma wants to push out a MMO these days. The way I see, we have to look at the gameplay much more than we have done in the recent past. And online gameplay will be the key!

OK OK I'm done, enough for now:)

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Raven

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RavenZahadoom

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Raven Corvus

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