GH Review: Warhammer 40,000 Dark Crusade (PC)

Zardon

Read the review here
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For almost two decades, millions of geeks all over the world have enjoyed the famous board game created by Rick Priestley that is known as Warhammer 40,000. These fictional battles carried out in dark murky basements with the help of dice always had an untapped potential to be an amazing video game that was only realized in September 2004 when Dawn of War was released by the pioneering developers Relic Entertainment. Gamers everywhere instantly fell in love with the fast and refreshing style of gameplay that was unique to the Warhammer trademark and thus, it wasn’t surprising to see a new expansion one year later called Winter Assault, adding the notorious Imperial Guard to the already numerous amount of races. But of course, the Canadian developers didn’t stop there and as a result, we are blessed with their latest game based on the sci-fi universe; Warhammer 40,000: Dark Crusade.

SFOSOK

I disagree on a lot of your points.

Dark Crusade is quite beautiful on my computer with everything turned up and AA enabled through its profile.

Also the AI is outstanding and not matched in any RTS I have played yet. Hav eyou played a 4 on 4 game? It doesn't matter what difficulty, if your base if getting overwhelmed you AI teamates will flood your base with their troops. They also move in effectively with a more defensive attitude than offensive (because if they beat everything it would be fun now would it?).

The campaign lacks a story where one person comes out the winner but I like the take on being able to conquer a map and making tacticle decisions .

Overall I would have given it an 80-90.



I may buy company of heroes but I am really tired of WWII and how over played it is in the industry.





Edit: It is also 20$ less than Company heroes and includes the races from the original game and previous expansion. It includes 7 different races that each have completely different styles of play. (Space marines and Chaos Space Marines are similiar though).

Also I forgot about the massive sizes of battles. The AI doesn't hold out, even on easy. If you leave them unchecked they upgrade build a massive strike force then try to overwhelm you.

In fact, when I was playing as the Space Marines in campaign the Orks had sent little scouting parties to test my strength. So I sent some scouts to where I believed their main base was. As my scouts were reaching their base they overwhelmed me with at least 600 troops at once. Luckily I had been building Mechs in my orbital relay and I sent them to my scouts forward position. I rushed their base with two mechs and two teams of scouts. As they reached my base and I was almost defeated I destroyed their main base and barely escaped by the skin on my teeth. Now playing through on hard I can say its tough and relentless. It takes a few hours each map but its worth it because you actually feel like your finding each races weaknesses instead of building lots of troops and attacking.

As a heavy RTS player I would recommend this game to anyone. Its only 30 bucks and awesome.

Zardon

not my points, its the points of sandok - the reviewer, who im sure will be more than happy to debate it with you. I would have personally given the game around 85% myself but gaming is all about opinions and im certainly not going to mute the opinions of my reviewers with my own views

SFOSOK

O I know. It was directed towards Sandok and I would very much like to debate it with him. He may be able to get me to buy Company of Heroes, ya never know

BlueMak

I have only played the demo (still waiting for the anthology to arrive!) I think the game looks great. I think the reviewer spent too much time "complaining" that it is a game based on an older one. Still, it is a good review because he/she makes the points very clear.

Sandok

Well SFOSK, you make some very valid points, I do agree and I will also concede that I was harsh with the title but overall, I stick with what I said.

When talking about the graphics, I also ran them maxed out with Full AA and AF and it is purtyish... But compared to the recent crop of RTS games, ESPECIALLY company of heroes (which let me remind you, is also a relic game), DoW DC is really lagging. Of course, being an expansion it doesn't have a choice... The animations are great, I loved em, but apart from that, the low resolution textures and low polygon enviroments really can't compare to newer RTS games...

Again, for the AI, while it is good and very enjoyable, especially since the AI is awesomely good at amassing powerful huge armies and rushing you appropriately, it is nothing better than the original DoW. However, if you play just ONE game of CoH, you'll agree that better AI isn't a myth and is actually feasible! Overall, again, it's not bad but some newer RTS games are fanatsticly better.

As for teh campaign, I too love the new system but I was disapointed in how limited the AI was on this level. They never attacked my starting territories (well main one) and usually were always concentrated on several key points. While it was a welcome addition, I must say, some parts were lacking.

The reason I didn't give it anything 80+ is because, as a standalone, the game is fairly too short. The multiplayer races are reduced to two and while this is okay for some, many will feel ripped off, especially since in singleplayer, all the races are available. Also, I know I must be coming off as a Company of Heroes lover but honestly, even though I hate the WW2 setting (as its been saturated), CoH is a wonderful leap over DoW, even though they share many aspects.

But don't get me wrong, DoW is a solid title... Just nothing exceptional anymore. Just very decent

SFOSOK

Good points. May pick up Company of Heroes. How does the demo compare to the game?

Sandok

Of Company of Heroes? I personally found the demo quite lame and actually thought that the game would suck because of it... But boy was I wrong

At least try the demo but keep in mind that the full game is miles better!

BlueMak

If someone has the Dawn of War GOTY edition and the other has all three parts (main and 2 expansion packs), can they play together? Limitations?

Sandok

I won't be able to give you a correct answer as I unfortunately never tested the fact, but if anything like other RTS expanded games, techncially yes you should be able to.

The only limitation is that the person who owns all 3 of the DoWs will have to play the "first" DoW (thus the orginal, not having the imperial guard or tau or necron). Of course, I can be wrong but that's how most RTS games work so I don't see why not this one.

Dark Lord

nope, all 3 DOWS are seperated.

my biggest complaint about the game is how unlocking all 7 races is handled with DC. DOW and WA both must be installed, and kept installed for the 5 races to be used in DC. all the while, DC has all of the content required for those 2 games and still requires a total of 3 CD keys to unlock the DOW and WA races.


as for the graphics, ya, the standard low res models suck.... until you do a little tweaking.

add fullres_teamcolour=1 to your Local config settings
add -Forcehighpoly to the end of your target location on the icon.

im sure youve noticed it, but when you zoom in to look closely at the units the texture quality and poly count increase, and the units look pretty damn good. what this does is set the texture quality/poly count to max, even when fully zoomed out. looks much much better that way.

after playing the game since its release, i can very saftly say theyre are some serious balance issues. like the Taus Krootox.... they can get 6 of them out, and each one is slightly less powerful then all the other races Tier 4 units (avatar, blood thirster, squiggy, land raider, baneblade)
8900 health, 400-500 melee damage, and i think 300-400 ranged damage. theyre almost impossible to stop, even with a full army...