Dawn of War - Soulstorm

Man, I lost count of how many hours I've burned playing the Dawn of War series. Viks just shakes her head in dismay. Ever since Dawn of War has been released in 2004, it's been my favorite real time strategy game. I stopped playing RTS games like Command and Conquer because of Dawn of War. The recently released DoW Soulstorm is now the 3rd expansion pack (it's actually a quasi standalone as you don't need the previous games to play all 9 races in single player campaign or skirmish mode). The game has retained and expanded on the same great gameplay, frenetic pace, right balance of farming vs action (emphasis is on the action though - turtling will end your game fairly quick). Each race has a really nice variety of weapons, special abilities and battle styles making the strategy very deep and the voice acting is awesome and really immerses you into the game. In addition to comments I already made above, I think what sets DoW apart from other RTS games is that your infantry is not marginalized as soon as your opponent has tank vehicles ie the Celestian squad of the new Sisters of Battle race has excellent anti-vehicle abilities. The various infantry classes are in fact key to winning.

But we all know things in life are never perfect. There are known bugs in the 1.0 release. Some reviewers have poo-poo'ed the game saying it's more of the same and that the graphics are showing it's age. My personal take is that it's not "more of same" it's actually "more of a good thing" - and that's a good thing! And regarding the graphics - given that the engine is relatively old, I think the game still looks terrific. I use to think graphics were the highest priority when it came to the overall gaming experience. But Dawn of War has so many good things going for it that I don't even notice that the graphics are not Crysis-like/photo realistic. And lastly, you come across some whining about race balance issues. I won't say that the game is 100% perfectly balanced but I'll say it again - Dawn of War has so many good things going for it that even with all the "issues," there are enough good elements to outweigh the bad.

Up to now, it's been Josh, Danny, Nick and myself playing together in co-op multiplayer on the previous expansion packs. We usually play skirmishes vs the CPU given the varying skill levels among us. We haven't played Soulstorm together yet but I am looking forward to some great multiplayer action soon!