TheDeadlyShoe
22nd Sep 04, 2:46 AM
Being that as I consider myself at least decently good at RTS games and that I'd played DoW extensively both through the demo and multiplayer, I decided to play through the campaign mode on 'Insane' difficulty from the start. The school of hard knocks works best for gaming, IMHO, anyways.
Mission 1 went down pretty quickly. I liked it, although I felt that it had far too many introductory-tutorial comments in it. I mean, there already is a tutorial. Y'know?
All the missions amounted to the same thing- They all had a unique feel to them and were well polished with lots of little nice touches. And they were a lot of fun. And they had unique challenges.
Such as, mission 2 had an ungodly number of Boyz coming at you fast and hard and from multiple angles. It's also a great example of the little touches- the marine squad and LP that you rescue out of the blue if you send exploratory forces to the flank, the Boyz Hut that can be taken out over an intervening wall by a missile squad to reduce the (vast) pressure on your frontline squads, and the key function SKull Probes or Scouts can play in taking out the final Ork base- you can pot the Mek Shop from the last LP if you get an infiltrator up there! Although, the initial part of Mission 2 felt a little bit contrived, the rest of it was great.
Mission 3 was interesting- especially when the Orks switch from mobz of Boyz to swarms of Wartrakks, and then back again! I got spanked my first run through that one. Damned Bomb Chukkas.
Mission 4... well, we all know the detail on mission 4. I speculated this from the demo file, but it's pretty apparent from the briefing video that the initial part of the mission was to be slightly different- there would be a bridge over the canyon to Orkamungus, and the Orks would blow it, and you would have to seek another path down south, but they just took that out, for whatever reason.
The mood setting in mission 5 was perfect. And it was mostly mood setting. Don't let that one squad of Orks past your base intact- They WILL come back, eventually!
Mission 6... argh!!!
I haven't beaten it yet, I'm on my second go and I've spent at least 2 hours on it so far. I've only stopped because my sound card started overheating.
[Spoiler="More details"]
Just a side note, the plucky guardsmen holdouts- AWESOME!! Heh. The design of this mission is just great. The damned eldar are _everywhere_, you want to commit as little as possible to the Ork front to put sufficient forces against the Eldar, but the Guard can't hold for very long without at least antivehicular support, and as they take casualties (particularly the Russes, which go down under swarms of Tankbustas and the Big Mek) they need more and more support, which gives you plenty of incentive to get moving. And the Eldar front is immense. It's difficult to even find all the webway portals, let alone commit enough force to clear them out. And supposedly secure positions can get awfully unsecure awfully fast, like when two squads of howling banshees rip apart a fortified LP and a hb-turret _and_ a half-squad of Marines.
It was really cool that by the time my forward force reached the main objective, I expected a walkover (like, say, you get vs the Orks) but instead I got spanked by massed firepower and had to beat a hasty retreat minus my Librarian and all my vehicles. I think that's what broke my sound...
Also, BL platforms are a *****.
But that doesn't mean it's not hard. It's wicked hard.
I'll never say nice things about Wraithlords again. *cries*
Mission 1 went down pretty quickly. I liked it, although I felt that it had far too many introductory-tutorial comments in it. I mean, there already is a tutorial. Y'know?
All the missions amounted to the same thing- They all had a unique feel to them and were well polished with lots of little nice touches. And they were a lot of fun. And they had unique challenges.
Such as, mission 2 had an ungodly number of Boyz coming at you fast and hard and from multiple angles. It's also a great example of the little touches- the marine squad and LP that you rescue out of the blue if you send exploratory forces to the flank, the Boyz Hut that can be taken out over an intervening wall by a missile squad to reduce the (vast) pressure on your frontline squads, and the key function SKull Probes or Scouts can play in taking out the final Ork base- you can pot the Mek Shop from the last LP if you get an infiltrator up there! Although, the initial part of Mission 2 felt a little bit contrived, the rest of it was great.
Mission 3 was interesting- especially when the Orks switch from mobz of Boyz to swarms of Wartrakks, and then back again! I got spanked my first run through that one. Damned Bomb Chukkas.
Mission 4... well, we all know the detail on mission 4. I speculated this from the demo file, but it's pretty apparent from the briefing video that the initial part of the mission was to be slightly different- there would be a bridge over the canyon to Orkamungus, and the Orks would blow it, and you would have to seek another path down south, but they just took that out, for whatever reason.
The mood setting in mission 5 was perfect. And it was mostly mood setting. Don't let that one squad of Orks past your base intact- They WILL come back, eventually!
Mission 6... argh!!!
I haven't beaten it yet, I'm on my second go and I've spent at least 2 hours on it so far. I've only stopped because my sound card started overheating.
[Spoiler="More details"]
Just a side note, the plucky guardsmen holdouts- AWESOME!! Heh. The design of this mission is just great. The damned eldar are _everywhere_, you want to commit as little as possible to the Ork front to put sufficient forces against the Eldar, but the Guard can't hold for very long without at least antivehicular support, and as they take casualties (particularly the Russes, which go down under swarms of Tankbustas and the Big Mek) they need more and more support, which gives you plenty of incentive to get moving. And the Eldar front is immense. It's difficult to even find all the webway portals, let alone commit enough force to clear them out. And supposedly secure positions can get awfully unsecure awfully fast, like when two squads of howling banshees rip apart a fortified LP and a hb-turret _and_ a half-squad of Marines.
It was really cool that by the time my forward force reached the main objective, I expected a walkover (like, say, you get vs the Orks) but instead I got spanked by massed firepower and had to beat a hasty retreat minus my Librarian and all my vehicles. I think that's what broke my sound...
Also, BL platforms are a *****.
But that doesn't mean it's not hard. It's wicked hard.
I'll never say nice things about Wraithlords again. *cries*