Dawn of War – RTS

[Yuryu]

Year of release: 2004
Development House: Relic & Games Workshop
Publisher: THQ
Website: www.dawnofwargame.com

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Game score: 80 / 100


Graphics: 5 / 5
Sound: 3 / 5
Gameplay: 4 / 5

Concept: 3 / 5
Execution: 5 / 5
Controls: 4 / 5
Enjoyment: 5 / 5
Replay ability: 3 / 5
Difficulty: 4 / 5
Learning Curve: 5 / 5


Patch version: 1.0
Bugs: 2 / 5
Modability / Community support: 3 / 5


Review
Dawn of War(DoW) can be considered the gold standard of RTS games at the moment. It is not one of the rare perfect games that simply set a new standard for every other games in that genre to come, neither is it just your everyday new Real Time Strategy game.
It is built on the solid ground of the genre on wich so many games already have been built, but in some areas it also greatly improves on it.

As the game starts you are first of welcomed with a thundering opening scene where you are put right into the action. It doesn't meet the technical superiority of Blizzards cinematic department but a first impression of the violent mess you'll be in for the rest of the game couldn't have been done better.

The game is set in the Warhammer 40.000 universe. A futuristic post-apocalyptic universe where various races fight for supremacy, survival, or simply for fun. The game features four of those races as playably, with one more limited available through the single player campaign.
A campaign that is rather short by the way. In only 11 missions you encounter and deal with your foes. Whats more stupid about it is that you almost always only deal with one of those foes at a time. The first few missions you deal with orks, after that come the eldar, and finally chaos. In fact you play the same thing thrice only against different enemies.
The story too is also no more than sub standard, and the lack of not so obvious plot twists and things is a bit of a let down.

Battles are always extremely violent and chaotic, as all armies have both ranged and melee weaponry. Laser cannons and rocket launchers go hand in hand with (often magical) swords and axes.
I consider it the absolute best feature of the game that this atmosphere is flawlessly experienced in the game itself. When two armies clash all hell breaks lose. Explosions throw troops through the air, troops shout battlecries, and most of all: most units have unique finishing moves when they kill an enemy in melee. Those moves range from marines their enemies bodies of their sword to the Space marine commander completely finishing of a four times his size Chaos Bloodthirster.
The sublime graphics greatly contribute to the carnage as battles can be experienced from close up without losing detail. Instead, being right in the middle of it makes it all the more fun.
Sound is good, with no irritating endlessly repeated confirmations and such. The music on the other hand is a bit mediocre at best, with no really thrilling soundtracks.

The resource system in DoW is based on two resources, power and requisition. Power is gained through building Plasma generators. The most important resource however, requires you to capture Strategic Points scattered on the map.
The armies that you build with those resources are made up of squads, vehicles, and heroes. Infantry is always in squads with members ranging from 4 to 16. These squads can be reinforced in the field, so when a unit dies you can replace him without having to return to your base. Also most squads have special upgrades like adding a leader to the squad for improved fighting or giving a few squad members special or heavy weapons.
Another important feature is Morale. When a squad is getting slaughtered the morale reaches zero within seconds and the squad "breaks" making them practically useless in battle. This gives a whole new meaning to retreat and regroup.

As you can see below my system specs are way below the minimum requirements. For that reason I haven't tried the multiplayer part of the game.

Good stuff: A digital version of the Warhammer 40k universe. A must have for RTS players.

Bad stuff: Crappy campaign.

Reviewer System Specs:
CPU: 800 MHz
RAM: 256 SDRAM
Video Card: NVidia GeForce 2 MMX (800x600x16 bits)

*I have also played the game on a far better machine with the best graphics etc. These are the specs for the machine I played the campaign with

[Freya Crescent]

Game score: 90


Graphics: 5
Sound: 3
Gameplay: 4
Concept: 5
Execution: 4
Controls: 4
Enjoyment: 5
Replay ability: 4
Difficulty: 3
Learning Curve: 3


Patch version: 1.01.
Bugs: 1
Modability / Community support: 2


Review
Originally I was first drawn to the table top version of warmhammer 40k years ago, but gave up in frustration when I discovered the immense cost of actually buying enough units to play a few varied games (upwards of 800 bucks easy)

For years I've longed for just such a game and have to admit it was worth the wait. The game follows the war hammer 40k universe extremely well representing some of the better known factions of Space marines, Orcs, Eldar, and Chaos Marines.

Graphically the game is incredible, with extreme detail of units
ranging from the scars on warriors faces to the slow ground decay around the chaos buildings. Combined with a full 360 degree camera rotaion that can even pan you can zoom in on the action for just about any angle, making it visually stunning each battle.

The sound however has a few small bugs, one of which is an annoying humming or blank sound instead of a usual unit saying. Also there is the lengthy, somewhat repetitive speeches the units give each time you select them. Although cool at first, they get annoying after a while. Fortunately there is an option to turn them off.

The game play itself is a combination of the standard build a base format well used in virtually every rts game do date. However Dawn of War also take the concept of holding requisition points like Ground Control II does and creates a style of base building more forcused on expanding and exploring rather than lining the walls with turrents and
waiting for resource harvesters to work.

Each team has several basic infantary units produced in suqads with their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as commander units that can be atatched to a squad for versitility and special abilites.

The vehicles in the game are completely ground based for the most part, although each team has jump units that can by pass terrion obstalces as well as the marines and chaos forces being able to hot drop units anywhere on the map you have the fog of war unshrouded.

Individually unlike aother rts game starwars galatic battle grounds, each team is unique, with thier own special units, ranging from the powerful terminators of the space marines to the quick striing falcon grav tanks of the Eldar. No matter which team you play you have a feeling of it being drastically different than the others, giving rise to a pleasant range of divirisity in tactics.

Fans of Star craft will notice the similarity in the changes of how each team is played, from the orcs wave of onslaught to the Eldar quick strikes, and the marine brutality.

One problem with over all game play is the unit cap limit that so many games these days seem to enforce. Once you build a certain number of units that's it until they die. While it may add a level of strategy to the game, (and possibly be necessary for performance reasons) there should have been a option to turn it off when playing a skirmish. (like you can in home world)

The single player campaign is also a source of disappointment, focusing only on one of the available races (the space marines) and being only 13 missions. While it lasts though, the single player campaign is fun and challenging on all difficulty modes, with the harder ones being all but impossible.

Skirmish mode is where the game seems to come alive, allowing you a choice between any of the available races and numerous victory options.

However there is a bug when it comes to taking on the computer where the computer always starts in slot #2 when playing against a single opponent on a large 4-8 player map, ruining the fun.

Aside from that the AI of the computer is surprisingly adept, and varied depending on the difficulty setting, with easy being a cake walk, and insane being, well, god like.

The controls of the game are simple and easy to learn, sticking to the tried and true methods used in virtually every rts, although the lack of a sub menu to change the hotkey bindings is a real draw back. (although you can change this by going into an .ini file manually with notepad.)

Also of note is the army coloring option, an awesome bonus that allows each player to customize their armies appearance to their liking.

Given the games relatively new release there isn't much community support for it yet, although this will no doubt grow in the future.

Modding is another area that is a big unknown at this time, given the total lack of a map editor and other modding tools on initial release players will have to hope for a download of it to be made available in the future.

Over all the Dawn of War is a solid rts that takes the best of what's already been done and puts it to good use with a few tweaks here and there to make it better in some areas. With any luck future patches will correct the few minor bugs and hopefully allow an option to turn off the unit cap limit. Until then enjoy the game as it is becuse it's one of the best rts games to hit the shelves this year.

Good stuff: Excellent addation to the rts genere without any glaring flaws and well balanced teams.

Bad stuff: Rather poor single player campaign, lack of a map editor, unit cap, and very few skirmish maps.

Reviewer System Specs:
CPU: 1.4ghz Athalon (clocks at 1.7ghz)
RAM: 1.2Gigs
Video Card: Nivida force 3 TI 64mb 8x AGP 800x600 32bit
Sound Card and Speakers: SB! Live wave device pci sound card hooked up to sourround sound home entertainment system.
Other Relevant Comp Specs: Windows XP

[GhostHunter]

Game score: 80


Graphics: 3 - Stunning unit animation, average user interface and missing a more dynamic invironment.
Sound: 3 - Battlesounds are very dynamic. Unit voices are average. i have not heard the Music.
Gameplay: 4 - Fast paced - feels balanced and intuitive.

Concept: 3 - Could easily have been a 4 but the lack of detailed unit variation is a drawback.
Execution: 4 - Solid execution a great platform to build on.
Controls: 4 - Easy and straight on but no stunning features.
Enjoyment: 3 - Very enjoyable at a first glance but does it hold water after 4 month of playing.
Replay ability: 3 - Very good considering that the game hopefully will be further developed.
Difficulty: 3 - AI has a wide difficulty range, but many will miss advanced tactical opportunities.
Learning Curve: 4 - easy to get into - perhaps even to easy but that cant´ be considred a drawback.


Patch version: - tested on a computer cafe - no clue about the patch version.
Bugs: 2 - some bugs - the first unit production facilty of Space Marines sometimes seems to be unable to produce units.
Modability / Community support: 2 - No Mod application included, community at the startup stage.


Hello There

- For those who not yet have tried Dawn of War I will recommend reading the above reviews and try the game before reading this article.

After playing RTS games for many years now, remembering back to the old days of Warcraft and the first versions of AOE ( Age of Empires ) I felt a strong need to make a comparison of some of the most popular RTS games both the old and the new seen in relationship to Dawn of War. This was triggered by the first impressions of Dawn of War that felt very great indeed, but playing along I also wondered about many issues in DoW that seemed to have been cut away for some reasons that only the developers can answer for.

if it could be avoided I would have chosen not to give give points in this comparison but it´s the rule of the forum and have to be followed. The main goal here is to summon up what make the differences in terms of strategy playing and general overall view of the games. I will look at DoW in comparison to C&C generals, Starcraft, Warcraft and the good old AOE Age of Empires. Furthermore I will bring guesses and speculations of what might be expected from an update much seen in relation to Games Workshops Warhammer 40.000 on which Dawn of War is built.


A much avaited dawn

First of all congratulations to all the people behind the new DoW - I have only played the game throughout the last 3 week?s but it has been great mayhem and overall very good entertainment and definitely not something I’m finished with. I’m a Mac user so to play I go to the local gaming cafe a quite big place with around 100 machines and a lot of gamers. Furthermore I have been a collector of WH40 miniatures in more than 10 years, but unfortunately very seldom have had the time to play - I have followed an tried to analyse the development of Games Workshops business strategies - and quite honestly never thought that an RTS game built exactly on the Warhammer 40.000 universe would be an reality - so Dawn of War is a very welcome game indeed.


Fiction or not

Mainstream RTS games are in general very similar like it is with other game genres and what first of all make the people play and chose the game of their choice are most of all the details and the Universe in which the games take place. Secondary the way that you can implement various strategies is important too. To hit straight into it - it seems like DoWs WH40K universe has a great advantage over examplewise C&C generals. Having played C&C quite a lot, it sometimes in the way of morale, feels a little on the edge - thinking of what is happening in the world right now. But I think that most players really dont care about that as long as the game is great - and it is better to fight wars on computers than I real life right ?. By the way talking about morale, one of the new innovative unit factors to DoW units and simply great - I wont go deeper into this for others have already covered it thoroughly.

But the fact that DoW takes place in a fiction universe makes a lot of difference and take it much closer to what made Starcraft such a great game. Just to check I opened up the starcraft in between a couple of DoW games and I found myself stunningly surprised over the visual unsimilarity. So much have happened that the memory of how good the starcraft was, got shaken quite a bit. Still - apart from the 2D vs. 3D visual differences, I remembered many of the great things you could do in starcraft. Examplewise playing Terran (Human) many of the buildings could hover and be moved to other locations, a great and very unique feature with a Sci-fi feel that not has been adapted or further developed in neither DoW or C&CG. This feature is thou very different but present in Warcraft III where the Night Elves have their “Ents” able too uproot and move. What has more similarity in DoW to starcraft is the Eldar Warp spiders that has the ability to “time jump” like many of the SC Protoss features and units had. Warping an entire Protoss army was a feature that really could change the outcome of a game. This form of strategic surprise and manoeuvrability is unfortunately not found in DoW.


A closer look

Dawn of War have visually moved in a bit closer ( standard View ) on the units and the combat which works amazingly well mainly because of the overall action boost and very well animated movements of units. Seeing units that come flying into your head caused by big explosions is a stunningly cool feature for an RTS game. Further more it is one of the first games in which the size of the Units vs.Vehicles are pretty close to real. I could not stop saying wow when I produced the first bloodangels tank. Unfortunately but understandable this does not go for the Buildings in DoW, but then again this is not found in any mainstream RTS games a such. It is still a headache issue for developers and relates to map size, computer power and the overall technical specifications necessary to create and sell games. Perhaps in 5-8 years time this issue will not be a problem any more but only the experts can answer for that. Very subjective I find the Eldars buildings the less successful in terms of design, size and animated add ons and the structures of the Space Marines the most complete with the cool smashing down of drop pots. Some of the chaos constructs resembles the Undeath in Warcraft III but are still cool. The Orks look like Orks and the buildings seems very uneven but I think its the way of the Orks and made on purpose. The 3D feature and possible zoom and turn function of the main view functions very smooth and better than in ex. C&CG. But as a player you can be annoyed in both games that the radar view don’t? have the option of following the direction from where you look. This meaning that if you are placed on top of a map and turn the view to get a more forward feel the radar view will still be the same in this case opposite - very confusing and annoying - please some developers solve this.


Strategy and simple drama

Bypassing all about unit against unit issues here. In DoW there is no scanning and advanced strategy tools or side bonus features like in C&CG. Again this is very true to the WH40K table top game. For recon it is merely up to the units having the infiltration ability to scout ahead. Furthermore the player will be able to judge on which strategic points that have been captured by right clicking on them with an apropiate unit (capture able) selected. If the red dot don’t flare, someone else have already taken that position so do not go there with only 2 men. The fact is that even on standard difficulty setting a new player will have enough to do keeping the enemy at bay for the first couple of games. I had a game with 2 guys against 3 computers on standard setting. The 2 guys left an hour later leaving me (they had to work on Sunday) with 3 computers constantly harassing and attacking me, but I set my mind up to check and see how far it could go - 9 hours later I was still in battle not really able to make any serious advancements and also getting a bit tired. It seemed that the AI was more or less adapting it?s agressivity to how much I had ready to go. Putting the difficulty on hard changes all that and there are several higher levels to go at, which must be considered a bonus to the developers and naturally for the players. I have experienced other skirmish battles where I simply thought now I’m finished, but keeping up the faith and continuing to fight changed the final outcome. So in that relation I consider DoW really well balanced in a sort of big curve up and down way - in simple words good drama. All in all DoW is simple and fast forward RTS with the main focus on battle.


Where is the air

In terms of strategic features the absolutely biggest difference in DoW is the lack of air units. Air units is found in many other games even in Warcraft III where dwarf choppers, dragons and many other units are airborne. In that sense DoW is more or less back to AOE in terms of strategy. This is not fully true thou - all the armies have troops and vehicles ( Landspeeder, Viber) that can jump over obstacles for surprise attacks and fast support but actual air units is not found, not even dedicated aerial transportation. As mentioned above DoW is close up combat more than anything but the lack of aerial vehicles would as the game is right now, make it nearly impossible to have a war between non connected areas like islands. Actually it?s even worse than in ex. AOE where naval war an transportation units are available. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I did not find it possible to transport builder units like the Eldar bonesinger or the SM Servitor in the hover vehicles. And still for the Orks that have nothing that resembles flying vehicles it would be impossible immigrating . But all in all it is not a something that cant? be solved. In Warhammer 40.000 air units are not common either but can be added, both the Orks, Eldars, Tau and Space Marines have air units. In C&CG air units play a big role in terms of strategy but again the ability to make tactical strategic weapons like Nukes and Scud storm makes balancing a game much more difficult but not necessarily better. But for DoW being a completely new game it is somehow missing out here. My best guess is that we are not going to see actual air units in DoW even if I would hope so - but perhaps it will be a apart of another RTS game build on the WH40K universe in the future.


Environment

What I really miss in DoW is the weather and environmental variations like rain, thunder and snowfall, day and night and perhaps even volcanos or something that would add life to the surroundings. Something which I think I amazingly well done in game like Age of Mythology and also added to the update of C&CG Zero Hour. It is not because DoW don’t? have the ability in terms of code and dynamic power - the SM Commanders special ability to call down the devastating “Orbital Bombardment” really show that the game engine can compete with explosions in C&C and the God powers of AOM. But I guess you just cant? have it all and seeing an Eldar dreadnaught fighting extremely dynamically and even kicking opponents is really great - and that is still for an RTS feature breaking news not compared by any of the other RTS games period. It is also possible to fight in low water areas this is nothing new as such, but still a cool feature. This feature is not possible in C&CG but possible in current versions of Warcraft. As a last note I must mention one of the most well thought ideas in the game is the use of droppods for Space Marine reinforcements ( Actual unit production ) - when I first saw it gave me the feel of the Emperor was watching and commanding resources to the tides of battles and that kind of feel is also Environmental in a much sophisticated and dramature way - more of that conceptual thinking please. Ork air plane droppings are very hilarious and the Orks made me laugh out lout several times “WaAaaag Luv”. Furthermore “random” aspects like seen in the grand farther of all RTS games “Dune” would add more feel to the universe - remember those “unit eating sand whales” that made crossing unknown dessert territory much more dangerous and off course dramatically fun an annoying at the same time. But incoorporating NPC´s ( also Non Playing Creatures ) in DoWs WH40K universe might be diffcult.

The totally deserted and out bombed city?s of DoW have various terrain with some ruin areas being access able and others not. It is thou not obvious which areas can be accessed but it is no drawback from the game experience. As it is stated about DoW the rules from WH40K regarding units in cover count. So units being in cover get cover bonuses and last longer. This is in comparison also a measurement in both C&CG and AOE/AOM but more related to high ground. Last it needs to mentioned that areas of big battles looks totally wasted afterwards with big bomb craters so big that on occasion one will see units hiding in them. I don’t know if they count as being in cover but they should.


Units

DoW units exists of core choices of classical WH40K units - no more no less - well less would be the factual data but not giving the prober angle on the game as a whole. The feature of colouring your own units is a good and updated reinvention and I think wanted by many players and especially those WH40K fans. For the “Ork Tracks” I miss something like the GLA ( Global liberation army ) in C&CG - where vehicles can be upgraded when depleted war gear of the enemy is picked up, but it?s only a fluxual wish knowing that it would change a lot on the balancing sheet of the whole game and it?s programming. Furthermore in C&CG units get more experiences the longer they survive in battle, up to 3 levels to be exact. And I am wondering why a similar feature haven’t been incorporated in DoW after all it?s a very unit orientated game. It would probably also be a feature that many Warcraft III fans could accept when missing their beloved heroes. But when it comes to units is the very fact that all interested DoW fans an players will be unstopable in their wishes. So many characters exist in WH40K. Even for the discussions this can bring up - it must be seen as a very big bonus for DoW - it?s pure unspoiled user dedication. A dedication that might give DoW a long term relationship with many players - that is if it is constantly developed.

Thinking it over I could mention a single SM unit that would be a pleasing addition “the Tech Marine”. But even now it can be pretty hard to kill dreadnoughts and tanks, so a Tech Marine in war armour backing up a Tank in battle could be quite unbalancing. Being an Eldar collector I really miss the Wratihguard unit, but that is a very personal wish. For the future I would choose the adding of more races as a first choice. But secondary it would be great with Codex differences. The Fact is that DoW exists of 4 races with 12 - 15 unit choices each and all the rest is just color variants. If you count in squad leaders the number goes a little higher but In comparison to other games there is still a long way to go. Warcraft III have 4 races and some of them have many units to choose from, C&CGZH have a basic of 3 armies but with many different units, the old SC had only 3 races aswell but still over numbering DoW in unit choices and finally AOE have around 20 races and a very large number of units. I have not yet had the chance to check out Panzers and I cant remember unit details of the first 3D breaking RTS game Total Annihilation but my guess would be that they both at least equal the unit choices in DoW.

For looks I find one of the most stunning effects the Fire Prism tanks huge purple lazer beam and for units the chaos Defiler is extraordinary cool. But overall the units looks very good and behaves dramatically cool. I have one question thou - why are the Eldars measured as they are - when I go to my shelf and take a chaos terminator space marine and put it besides a howling banshee there is no difference in height, the fact is that the two models heads are in the exact same level. I hope not this have to do with some misunderstood communication with GW. In that regard I would like to make this SPECIAL NOTE: Eldars are the Elvenkinds forefarthers and the first race of middle earth. Go look at the models for Lord of the Rings and you will see that GW have had to change their too often 80? heavy metal approach to the size of races. Off course Space Marines and their hated deceivers of Chaos look bigger and bulkier due to power armour, but the historical facts if it?s possible to talk about that in a fictionary world, the Elven kind was taller than men in general and so was also the Eldars. I would strongly recommend THQ and Relic to stand up for as many rights as possible in further developing DoW perhaps even GW could get inspired the other way around. Not that GW are doing anything wrong for the most - but they sometimes seems a bit stuck in their conceptual approach and the last 3 - 5 years focus on Chaos have set it?s mark - don’t? misunderstand me here - I’ve?e got the shelf full of the stuff and some of the worlds most prominent modellers and other creatives work there.


Guessing on new armies

I think that many DoW players already expect updates to the game and the Tau would definitely look great, battlesuits and their close combat mercenaries the Kroot making the Tau actually differ a lot from the Eldar, Tyranids and their very alien nature - pure battle andrenaline and a must in DoW, Necrons very cool, robotic steel moving and green plasma glow, regeneration abilities etc., but what could the last race be, guessing on a four new races update - Well - Dark Eldars perhaps - the Eldar equal to Chaos vs.Space Marines and easier to balance than the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guard could become quite difficult to balance due to their great numbers, various looks from Tallern Dessert Warriors to Catachan Jungle teams, meaning many polygons in the programming and many designs, this combined with very strong tanks and long range barrage fire abilities - overall a big run around. I think thou many would like to see the Imperial guard perform in DoW. So what have we left of actual different races in WH40K to choose from - plain and simple - none - Daemon Hunters, Battle Sisters, Witch Hunters and Eldar Harlequins or even Eldar Exodites - nope - these are all specialisations and variants of the main races. So my best guess of the 4th race will be Dark Eldars, but if we are real lucky all the last main races will be added. 4 or 5 extra civs what does it really matter, if there is 8 or 9 races to choose from I definitely take 9 - a drop down menu don’t? necessarily have to have even numbers. If the developers should choose to split the updates into 2, I think it actually could work for DoW due to fans dedication of the game.

As said fans can easily become carried away over units and that goes for me too. For add ones I think that a specialized ability for every force commander would be a good differ. For the Chaos the four main Demons being; Khorne The Bloodthirster already present, Nurgle the Great Unclean One, - bringing biochemical warfare into the Game, Tzeentch the Lord of Change and Slaneesh the Keeper of Secrets, would be great variants. Especially Nurgle could ad some more ugliness and off course be a challenge in the programming part - here I think of slime, more or less free floating organic parts and off course flies - blood is already spunking i DoW and flies are seen in AOM with the Pharaoh mummy unit - so it should be possible. The Eldars have many choices but perhaps being more true to the various Craftworld Codexes would be lovely but a big chunk of work. Perhaps instead bringing Warwalkers, jetbikes or Phoenix lords could be an addition. The Orkish horde is already pretty good represented but bikes would definitely give them a boost in manoeuvrability, the addition of big guns could also be considered. All this is off course just guessing and it will be very exciting to see what an update will bring.


For The Future

Well where do we stand with Dawn of War then - in my opinion the overall game is solid and entertainingly dynamic, its very well done not to say stunning in some parts of the game. The unit Morale issue is a new RTS add on and a great one. The deletion of actual resource Gatherring/Production is a fresh step and good change in the genre. The Warhammer 40.000 has a lot to offer in terms of development and in my opinion Dawn of War needs further development to reach a little higher ground when talking implementation of various strategy plans. There is more to Strategy than throwing the right units against each other. At a first glance you could say that DoW is putting more emphasis of what is called “Conduct of War” ( Sun-Tzu “The Art of War”) but it is not the case - in that regard it?s not much different than most other games mentioned above. Other games also feature special abilities for various units and local unit upgrades and add ones. The feature of squad management and add ones in DoW is thou where it stands out from the rest and not making it edgening totally out of the strategic arena - and to say it again this part is well done. The lack of Aerial combat an manoeuvrability and no special side strategic features like in C&CG makes it somehow a plain and mean game but bloody fast and crunching it is. The rather harsh comments above can easily be countered with developments that still keep the focus within the universe of Warhammer 40.000. The general user interface is easy learning curve, but many of the icons for upgrades lacks stronger and more simple symbol design. This mostly referees to Eldar building upgrades. In the squad and vehicle department the iconorary line is very straight on and not to be dissed at all - Funny enough these icons are smaller but somehow works better.

What many people have been complaining about is the missing Mod application - but I’m? sure this will come so no more barking about that - but I can only say the sooner the better. And did I forget Sound - well a friend and strategy fanatic joined me at the Game Cafe for couple of tryouts and he was not so found of the Orks babbling about that “we are not gonna make it” but it is a morale thing for the Orks and in total adherences to GW games, but not obvious to players not knowing the GW universe. Furthermore the Heretic builder of Chaos annoyed him so much that he would not play Chaos for that one reason. I did?nt totally agree with him on either case, but for some the sounds of units might seem a bit static and overall DoW does not surpass any of the other games like C&CG, WC III, SC in the unit voice sound area. It?s not so much a direct critique more a statement of what players might expect from a brand new game. And quite honestly some of the punch lines in Starcraft was very amusing “Do you want something destroyed”. The sound of guns, cannons, battle mayhem and the metallic "swungs" and "klangs" of Killer Cans and others is dynamic and pulse raising. I have not heard much of the music included - I simply by instinctive reaction turn music off in any RTS game I play. But for development it would be nice creating a simple ingame control of the music, so that players don’t have to go to the options settings each time they need to turn the music on/off or adjust the volume.

I read here in the forums that DoW was produced in around 2 years time and if that is a fact it is not a mystery why many things seems missing. I think that DoW in the future could be a game with very army dedicated players and clans. I have no doubt at all thou that Down of War is here to stay and from watching people play at the earlier mentioned game Cafe - it must already be considered a successful birth. And the child bears the genetic fundament of being a worthy overtaker of the Old Starcraft throne.


GhostHunter



Good stuff: the WH40K Univers of DoW and the Dynamics of unit animation and game play.

Bad stuff: Mod Application missing and the lack of Arial Units giving limited strategic options.

Reviewer System Specs:
CPU: -
RAM: -
Video Card: -
Sound Card and Speakers: Headphones - no problems with the sound.
Other Relevant Comp Specs: Tested on a computer cafe´ no speed or lacking problems observed.