The chaos of war has never been potrayed more brutally.
User Rating: 9.5 | Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War PC
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, or DoW as I shall call it from now on, is a truly brutal, violent, in your face real time strategy game. Gameplay: DoW has a great single player campaign, that lasts for a very, very long time, as well as a fully realized skirmish mode, and of course, an excellant online multiplayer mode. There are four races in DoW, the Space Marines, the Eldar, the Orks, and the Chaos Space marines. The first three are exceedingly diverse, this game is one of the few strategy games that is able to pull off the feeling of playing 3 different races entirely. The Chaos Space Marines, however, are almost exactly like the Space Marines, just with a different skin set. That isn't such a bad thing though, as the former 3 races are very different in unit selection and production. The Space Marines, for example, do indeed rely heavily on *shock* marines. These will be your primary fighting units throughout the whole game, and amazingly enough, thats not such a bad thing. The marines can be reinforced on the fly, bringing in new units as your old ones get cut down, and the marines feature 4 different weapons they can upgrade to. The Orks are different in that they rely on massive, overwhelming numbers. A single ork squad falls under the onslaught of most other units, but with the massive amount of orks you can bring in, you can simply swarm over the enemies in no time. The Eldar rely more on subtle tactics, although some of their later units are surely strong enough to pack a massive punch. The Eldar are the more technologically advanced race, and their units reflect this (i.e. more plasma than machine gun). Again, the Chaos Space Marines are almost exactly like the Space Marines. The chaos of battle is potrayed so violently in this game it is awe inspiring. Zooming in on the chaos you will see dozens of different animations, and utilize dozens of ways to kill your foe. This game is exceedingly intense. One example I can give of the ferocity of the combat is when you are playing as space marines. You're zoomed in on the field, watching your marines happily walk through a seemingly unprotected zone, when dozens of ork pour on you out of nowhere. You bring in reinforcements to your units as you take casualties and fall back to an area of cover (cover allows you a mild defensive bonus). Then you bring in some assault marines to give further back up. The assault marines pull out some chainsaws, and as you watch, hack apart the ork, the chainsaw blades sounding in the chaos of battle as blood flies all over. Battle has never been this intense. Amazingly, the game even makes you care for many of your units, when you lose a squad of marines you had armed to near invincibility, you actually feel sad at the loss, although you can quickly bring up a new one. It is interesting that amidst this chaos of battle, there is still some sense of humanity in it all. The campaign isnt the best way to see the chaos of battle, instead, online play or massive skirmishes with computers allows this. Hundreds will die quickly in such massive battles. Graphics: The graphics are truly superb, but zoomed out, the view you use most, they look just average. The way to really appreciate the graphics is to get your base defended, and then zoom in to watch the combat. Sound: The sound is actually really good, but it has several glitches. Often in the campaign character speech glitched, and once in a while the music would cut in and out randomly. This was actually pretty bothersome after a while, but you eventually get used to it. The actual quality of the music is superb, very suiting, epic, and awesome. Value: While the campaign is good, it doesnt give you an appreciation of the game as much as a campaign should. Otherwise, this game is the perfect value for your money, especially as its price has recently dropped. Tilt: A brutal, gritty, unrelenting potrayal of futuristic war. What more could one ask for?
