Topic: DoW:Soulstorm comes out this week

[sirean_syan]

That totally snuck up on me, even with the Iron Forge news. I just got a Best Buy coupon in the mail today that'll be good for this weekend. I'll probably pick it up then.

[Xessive]

I'm grabbing this

[Quemaqua]

Damn it, already?  I'm not prepared!

[sirean_syan]

I picked up the game today and have put a little time into it.

So far I like it, but that honestly wouldn't take much at this point. The Sisters and Dark Eldar seemed to have turned out well. Both seem to carve out their playstyle with whatever little room there is left now that there are nine races total. At this point, the game is basically a brawl style game. It's not so much a matter of balancing, but about seeing things you love fight against each other.

Still, I get this feeling that it's the least polished of the expansions with little things that make me thing it was either rushed or the developers just figured it didn't matter at this point. The campaign, which seems bigger and more varied than the Dark Crusade one, feels like it was more thrown together and less thought out. For example, there's one map where the point is to control more strategic points than the other guy for a certain period of time. That's all well and good, but I managed to kill the other dude before that time was up and I had to sit there until the timer ran out. The narration feels more stilted than in Dark Crusade, which is strange because it sounds like the same voice actor. Maybe the writing was just worse and he had a harder time. There were also some recycled sound elements used with the Sisters. That's generally okay seeing as the Sisters are also part of the Imperium and would have a lot in common with the Marines and Guard, but when the building selection sounds are exactly the same as the Space Marines it just a little disappointing.

The real problem is you've got the third expansion for a game that really doesn't add anything absurdly new. The two races are sort of hybrids of existing ones and while they're unique in their ways, most people probably won't really care unless they're Warhammer nuts and just enjoy seeing these things. Again, when you have that many races going you're not going to have completely unique setups in a game like this. The new air units are reportedly pretty useless, but I actually haven't actually seen them in game yet. I don't imagine the game is going to review all that well nor go over well with a lot of people.

That said, it's nice to keep the game going for a bit longer and now have so much of 40K contained in a single place. If you haven't touched DoW in a while and feel like getting back in, it's probably worth it (and will be if there's a sale and you want to play with us). If you're sick of it, it won't help.

[Quemaqua]

Thanks for the update.  I'll definitely be getting it before long.

[Xessive]

Thanks Sy

[Quemaqua]

I picked this up about a week or so ago and installed it, but hadn't given it a shot yet.  Man, I'm so glad I did.  This completely, completely renewed my love for all things Dawn of War.

Firstly, the campaign is just awesome.  It's bigger, better, there's more to it, and it builds on everything that made Dark Crusade fun and different.  I'm not sure about the difficulty idea yet since I haven't gotten too far in, but I expect this is a bit like Dark Crusade in that things get a bit easier as you progress (at least as far as the normal battles go) because your hero gets so much more powerful and your retinue expands.  Anyway, you've basically got the same elements as far as I can tell, there's just more to it and a little more strategy that can be used.

I haven't tried the Dark Eldar yet, and more than likely won't get into them much, but holy crap I love the Battle Sisters.  For those who don't know, that's who I decided I want to paint for the actual tabletop game, and though it's been obscenely slow going for me due to an overabundance of other hobbies and real-life issues, I still really love them.  I can say pretty much without reservation that they're my favorite faction, even though I like a lot of the others a lot too.  But it's really nice to see that I love them just as much in Soulstorm as I do with the minis.  They're just so fucking fun to use!  It reinforces my confidence that going with them for tabletop was really the right decision.  I love all the units, and I feel pretty confident with them if I make the right choices.  You can make some incredibly killer infantry if you use correct upgrade paths, and their vehicles are very fun.  Add in the Golden Saint uber unit, and I'm happy as a clam.  These girls just feel like home, and I'm totally into finishing the campaign with them.

So just what I needed, another game to play!  But I'll be damned if this hasn't rekindled my love for DoW.  If you ever liked the game in any capacity, give this a try.  The sandboxy campaign seems just as fun as Dark Crusade's was, and I'm quite sure multiplayer matches will happen again with those of us who grab it at some point.  I'm far from a good competitive player, but I'll still play some matches, and anybody who enjoys coop is certainly welcome to hit me up for a coop versus CPU game too.

EDIT - And you know, the game still doesn't look bad.  It's showing its age now in terms of individual units being quite blocky and such, but at the level of view you generally play at (and even when you're zooming in a bit just to watch things die) it really doesn't matter.  The game still looks great, and the audio is there too with great music and at least most of the unit sounds being fun and cheesy in the *good* way.  I don't feel like this game has aged badly at all.  It isn't the best looking RTS on the market by any means, but when you crank everything up it's still very far from unattractive, and watching huge battles is still exhilarating.