I was in the process of cleaning the old stuff of my computer yesterday and stopped when I came to the Dawn of War games. I happily removed Winter Assault, it was awful. I could not force myself to remove the original Dawn of War, or Soulstorm.
I remembered how fun Dawn of War was and quickly loaded it up. Sure the game is dated, and not a true cross-over from 40K; but it was a blast to play. I soon found myself halfway through the game and completely off my list of stuff to accomplish on my day off. Damn it was still fun after all this time.
Yes, the story is no better than most 40k fan fiction, or 2/3 of the Black Library contributions. The A.I. isn’t super tough either. The voices are not B-list celebrities like most video games. It is pretty simple as far as real time strategy. Yet, it was still really fun to sit and play.
The fact you can build marine squads, as per the current game rules, to make the experience harder is cool. Myself, I like to build squads, well basically of devastators with four heavy bolters. This chews through the ork hordes and eldar you face through the early parts of the game, and is hysterical. Later I just change half of them out for missile launchers when chaos shows it’s face. This is just some real fun stuff.
Then you get the horde of assault cannon dreadnoughts you can throw out there as well. It is also a riot to see them mulching orks with assault cannons. It is even better if you get them in hand-to-hand. Then it gets real silly as they lift orks into the air, crush them in their fist and then slam them to the ground. Much like the squads the dreadnoughts get switched out for land raiders later in the game. These things are damn near unstoppable in this game.
So yeah I got zero painting done yesterday, and instead was fighting pixel orks and elder. I will actually probably finish the remaining missions before removing it. I mean I have made it this far. I have to know what happens next! Oh wait I know, but damn it is still a nice little jaunt down the video game nostalgia trail.
If you haven’t given this game a try, then do. Well, if you like real time strategy and can tolerate space marines. I know there are those of you who can’t. It takes nothing to run by today’s computer standards. It is also rather nice attempt to make 40K playable off the tabletop. Oh yeah! It also has one of the best opening movies in a video game in years.!
I can’t recommend the follow-up Winter Assault, it is so un-fun. However, Soulstorm is worth a run through if you feel like expanding your 40K computer experience. It has all the races open to play.
Then again, if I could find 40K Chaos Gate and actually be able to play it again…………
That looks kind of fun.
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