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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm Expansion Pack (PC DVD)
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3/5 |
Just buy Anthology...
(August 22, 2008) |
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Seriously, Soulstorm just isn't worth paying anything extra for really.
For a lot of people there's been on big problem, and that's that the game won't install as it won't register in some peoples DVD ROMs, maybe that's down to the DVDROMs, but it still seems stupid as Dark Crusade (also DVD ROM only) works just fine. Other ideas have been down to copy protection. Either way, it's not really acceptable. So I've had to play my friends copy on his computer.
Another thing is this game was rushed, simple as that, whether this has anything to do with Dawn of War II is another matter but so many little details and finishes have been missed in this one and this is one thing that can let a game down big time, almost makes me glad I can't install my copy. I'd rather have waited another month or two than get something half 90% polished.
Generally the new races are...uninspiring. The Dark Eldar are tricky to get used to and by far the better of the two, but the Sisters of Battle just feel like Space Marines in skirts with a few fancy powers (though hey, I guess they can only be what they are). Graphically they're ok, and not bad considering the engine that's being used and the fact it is effectively 4 years old.
The campaign mode is merely an expanded version of the Dark Crusade planetary campaign, more planets but they are sparse in their territories.
One of the more impressive things are the 114 total multiplayer maps.
Honestly...if you're expecting the big changes that came each with Winter Assault and Dark Crusade...don't bother, just get DOW Anthology and avoid the Complete Collection/Soulstorm. Of course if you just like SoB and DE...go for it. |
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2/5 |
Soulstorm
(August 12, 2008) |
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A contender for one of the worst expansions ever? Quite possibly.
"You get to battle across an entire solar system!"
... Four planets, each with about 5 provinces each, and 3 moons. Our solar system has 8 planets. It only adds nine more provinces than Dark Crusade.
"Rain death from the air!"
Hardly. The new air units are awful. They're not very fast for air-craft of the 41st millennium. You can't even do decent bombing runs. Essentially, they're just land speeders raised a little higher off the ground. Even Command & Conquer (which in my opinion is one of the worst games of all time) did a better job with air units!
"Customise your commander and personalise your army!"
You can't "customise" your commander. It's exactly the same as Dark Crusade, where you just give them new bits of equipment as they are unlocked. In fact, with the races that were in Dark Crusade, most of the equipment is just the same. And you can't really personalise your army either. There's only the army painter, and that can't be used in the campaign.
As for the new races...
The Sisters of Battle are disappointing. They're buildings use the same construction animations as the Imperial Guard, and their building sound sets are exactly the same as the Space Marines. I think the word sloppy is a bit of an understatement. The Sisters of Battle are pretty much all geared towards fighting infantry, and lack any considerable firepower or any decent anti-tank weapons. The best they can muster is an immolator with multi-meltas, but even that is nowhere near as good as say a predator with lascannons. Also, the Living Saint is the worst ultimate unit. And their unit sound sets are laughable. Most of the sisters sound like little girls, especially the immolator.
The dark eldar are better. The idea of harvesting souls is good. They have a better mixture of units, such as the scourges who can take on infantry and the raiders and such which can take on tanks. Personally I found that the dark eldar took a little getting used to, what with harvesting souls and all that, but I think they were good. Really, I think Relic should have had the tyranids (anyone who's a fan of Warhammer 40,000 will know what I'm talking about). Having another Imperial faction wasn't the best idea.
And as for the campaign... The lack of effort there is astounding. Its almost identical to the Dark Crusade campaign, but with a few things added. The reasons they give for 3 Imperial factions fighting each other are almost as bad as it was in Dark Crusade. Of course, for the sake of the campaign and gameplay, they can't be allied, but they just should have come up with a decent reason. Surely it isn't that hard?
Like with Dark Crusade, a story-based campaign, like in Dawn of War and Winter Assault, would have been better. Although the stories weren't brilliant, the campaigns just had more variety and were a little more interesting. The campaign in Soulstorm is basically just a string of skirmishes. It's not very exciting.
Overall, I found Soulstorm very disappointing. As it went along, each expansion just got sloppier and sloppier. Soulstorm was the worst of the lot. It doesn't add much, especially compared with some other expansions I could name.
Oh, and just like in the other Dawn of War games, the unit pathing is still awful.
Still, if you liked Dark Crusade, I'd recommend it. |
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2/5 |
deeply dissapointed :(
(May 21, 2008) |
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i had really high hopes watching the relic forums and trying to guess what is in the game, and as a game its half decent, but it does seem far too rushed. some details and shading is off, some of the layers are out of sync, (the tau hq and sisters of battle immolator are two examples)
the flying units are a great addition though, but they tend to either be too weak or too strong, maeing you'll either play the game and forget they ever created flying units, or just spawn on mass millions of flyers, send them to the enemies base and destroy the vital buildings with no thought or skill required.
the animations have basically stayed the same as the original dawn of war, which were brilliant, but now seem a little exhausted. the mea campaign (one of the games major selling points) is good in the long run, having a different strategic element to it, like supply lines etc and the maps are great. But where did the banter between the generals go, they were one of the greatest touches on dark crusade, but now have dissapeared, leaving you feeling like your army has no personality which devoids gameplay, i have to add though, i think this is a huge step down from dark crusade, but hopefully an upcoming patch will sort some of these problems out.
however there is one problem that has put me off playing this game untill the patch comes out, i have a computer that can run dark crusade full specs without a hitch, and loads campaigns and skirmishes in a flash, but it took 7:34 seconds to load a single campaign map, (i got bored while waiting so had to keep myself occupied somehow), then i had to wait again (about a minute) for the mission result screen, (thats right 1 minute to load 1 screen) and then at least 2 minutes for the campaign menu to pop back up again so i can choose my next mission and wait for it to load once again.
its not balanced like the tabletop game but it never really has, but it has never detracted from gameplay so its not really worth noting about, overall then this game does have potential, but need some serious fixing work, and the patch to be a great game!!! |
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3/5 |
Unimpressed.
(May 15, 2008) |
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I should state that in my younger years I was never a player of the Warhammer 40K table top game, so my introduction to the universe was via the original Dawn of War game. Which I thought was fantastic - a great mix of ENTERTAINING gameplay, great graphics and a good variety of factions and units. This was further enhanced with the Winter Assault add-on that gave us the Imperial Guard to play with and more well thought out cmpaigns.
Next we had Dark Crusade, and for me at least this is where the problems started to creep in. I've read that the makers of the series were and are trying to raise the profile of the game as a professional tournament game. Fine, but having played then become immensely frusrtrated with it, I thought that the seeminly fanatical efforts of the game developers to intricately balance all the sides in the game was actually detrimental to fun game play. According to the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe earch of the races portreyed in the game is supposed to have a distinct fighting style - the Orks are generally mele troops, the Spaced Marines are balanced between mele and ranged units, the Tau Empire are more focused on ranged firepower etc. etc. With Dark Crusade the unique nature of the factions was eroded - the Orks got Kustom Shootas (ranged units), the Tau had the Kroot mele units and the Space Marines got... Not very much. Turrets were suddenly limited to 8 per command center, but a player with significnt resources could circumvent this by building more command centres in captured territory. The whole play mechanism was changed. More balanced maybe, but as the factions became less unique the game actually became less FUN to play.
Now we get to Soulstorm. Like Dark Crusade, the campaigns have been replaced by a sort of "Risk" type game which basically makes each campaign a long series of skirmishes. The AI has become a lot better, but this has actually become seriously challenging, even on Easy difficulty. It's very nice to have the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle, each of which allegedly has their own style of play, but unfortunately further fanatical efforts have been made to intricately balance the game, again to the further detriment of FUN PLAY. Turrets are now limited to 6 per command center, but oh dear - now players can only build 5 command centres. Builder units no longer count towards the infantry unit cap, but oh dear, each player can only have 4. Some of the basic vehicle units have rediculous unit caps, for example a player can only have ONE Space Marine artillery tank.
What all this is getting at is that each game seems to degenerate in to a general meat grinder type affair in the middle of the map, and the outcome seems to largely depend on which player can get the most advanced units to the middle the fastest. Any defensive strategy to allow time to build up an army is doomed from the start. In fact, any strategy more artfyul than sending endless streams of mele units and powerful vehicle in to the enemy base has largely become pointless.
Oh yes, and now we have air units. Largely this comprises of floating vehicles that shoot long range missiles at your troops and which seem to be poitnlessly difficult to shoot down. Nothing close to the game-revolutionising change they're advertised as.
The AI is much better than the previous DoW games and now presents a genuine challenge. I'm not sure if it's a bug in the software, but unfortunately you the player now come under incessant, mercyless attack within seconds of a skirmish battle beginning. This is great on Hard difficulty, but on easy as well? There seems to be no variation between the difficulty settings. More frustration.
Yes, the game is entertaining to some extent, and if you're a serious professional gamer then Dawn of War probably just became of great interst. My big problem with the Dawn of War series is that it's become less and less FUN TO PLAY. Add in the errosion of the faction's individuality and I must admit to having been left completely cold by what should be an ENTERTAINING EXPERIENCE. |
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4/5 |
Dawn of War: Just like you've seen it before!
(May 04, 2008) |
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I love the DOW games; they are great simple, easy and fun!
Soulstorm pushed all the right buttons, but you can tell just by looking at it that it's getting old. DOW was released in 2004, FOUR YEARS AGO! And the game engine hasn't changed!
This game is as funs as before, just don't expect any major changes.
Oh and don't get too excited about the air units, I did and I was left on the verge of tears, they are pretty awful, but then again the game is now 4 years old like I said.
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