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[Kagus]

I recently was reminded of this gem of a series by Relic when I read in an article about an upcoming Dawn of War II.  

Currently there are about five or so screenshots and one teaser trailer that's half copyright information, but even those tiny glimpses show a game that could potentially be Relic's way of topping their own highscore after Company of Heroes.

Although Dawn of War II is still quite a long ways off and wouldn't be all that healthy to sit around dreaming about at the moment, it did remind me about the earlier Dawn of War series.

I have the Dark Crusade expansion, had hadn't even heard about Soulstorm until just recently.  I now have the demo, but I only tried the tutorial of it before I was pulled away by more pressing matters.  This thread is for the discussion of anything in the Dawn of War series, including the newest in-development one.

I'll start off with Soulstorm, however...   Although the Dark Eldar are indeed quite cool (that ultimate unit is easily the coolest one I've seen, even if it is a little bit unimpressive in actual combat) and the soul resource is okay, I don't really like the way they handled aircraft.  Luckily, they'll be able to drop them in a fresh start come DoWII, but that doesn't keep them out of Soulstorm.  Any thoughts on the subject?  

Link to Dawn of War II homepage: nice music
Link to Dawn of War (and expansions) homepage: word

EDIT:  Maybe I should've read the site news myself...   People who purchased a copy of Soulstorm get to participate in the closed multiplayer beta.

When they get around to having a closed multiplayer beta, that is.

[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[I3erent]

I liked how there were alot of factions in the game.
Also, many truly epic visuals from craaazy battles in this one.

That makes me think of the whole 3-d ASCII battle thing.
Desire for better graphics has been ingrained in our heads since childhood.
Think about it.  Remember telling your friends how sweet the graphics were on our new (Insert any video game system).  Every new console promotes them in their advertising.  This is because marketing people are not stupid.  They realize the chemical explosion awesome visual content causes in our brains.  They have harnessed it to sell us and to blatantly cover the lack of quality in their games by covering weak content and implementation with fancy visuals.  And we as consumers suck it up every time.  Yes, You, Me, all of us.  Maybe the game wont hold our attention for long, but it will grab your ass, and your wallet and make you go WOOOP, "hey, did you grab my fucking ass"?  Then their are games that come along and you just play for years.  Wait, that actually rarely happens.  I am thinking now of how long I have played games.  Really there are only two for me, that I have played consistently for years.  For my grandmother there was only one,  Dr. Mario.  Dont ask me why but she played that thing from the time it came out on SuperNintendo untill she passed away.  Point is these games are few and far apart.  And she didnt play Dr. Mario for the "graphics".
So if people would get off the 3-d crack that has been shoved onto us...

DoW RuLeS!

[umiman]

I thought Soulstorm was crap compared to the other versions.

However, the series has maintained its amazing voice acting and awesome WTFBBQ execution kills. Seriously, they could just make the game only around the execution kills and I'd still buy it. The first time I saw a dreadnought squeeze the body of an orc then toss it aside back in the day... I was like... whoa.

Heh, then I heard the librarian say: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded" and I was like... whoa.

Then I saw a force captain take down a bloodthirster and I was like... whoa.

But why do they keep changing the voices of the chaos and marine heroes?

[Torak]

I bought Dawn of War about the week it came out.

[Kagus]

The "sync kills", as they are called, are certainly a really cool aspect of the game.  I would indeed call it a selling point, since it just adds so much more life to the game.

Watch this video for more information, including some rare footage of a librarian banishing an avatar of Khaine.  Like... whoa.  Also make sure to play (if you've got Dark Crusade or higher) as the Necrons for a bit and watch the Lord's executions.  Actually, most of the Necron units have awesome kills.  But let's not forget the times when the bloodthirster gets an enemy stuck on his axe and has to shake him off.

Yeah.  The Dawn of War series is perfect for some good, clean, over-the-top fun.  The utter mayhem that you can get in some of the bigger battles is absolutely brilliant.

Although the voice acting is still good, I found that the guy reading the quest text wasn't quite enjoyable in Soulstorm as he was before.  I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it just didn't sound right.  

And as for the heroes, the main thing for me was the switch from the gravelly war-hardened veteran voice of the Imperial Guard commander in Winter Assault being changed to the young upstart in Dark Crusade.  I think that's one change that they could've done without, quite frankly...

[Cthulhu]

I played the demos for vanilla and Winter Assault.  I preferred Winter Assault though.  Something about the sheer size of the battles.  Also, was the Avatar of Khaine vs. Librarian the one where it knocked him on his face, and he turned around and blasted it, and it fell apart?

[umiman]

Kagus: The narrator dialogue in Soulstorm is absolutely mundane. They took out all the sarcasm and overpronounced syllables that was used originally and the writing was just sub par. Heh, in Dark Crusade, the way the narrator would say, "indeed" was just awesome.

Can't fault them, it wasn't Relic that made Soulstorm.

EDIT: The thing I noticed most about DoW is that the game is so utterly imbalanced to the point the creators didn't even care anymore since there were too many races. For example, the Tau were so frigging unfair early game because of the kroot and their goddamned jumping ability. Then the necrons come and wipe everyone's ass because of their sheer, ungodly power until late game when chaos unleashes their posessed marines and bloodthirster and daemon prince while the Eldar use that insanely overpowered hero unit(s?) (the council thing...) and the single most powerful vehicle in the game: that hovering tank of infinite I-can't-move-cause-it's-blowing-me-up!!! power.

Then of course, you had to contend with the space marine's dreadnought spam. What did the imperial guard have? I dunno... stubbornness to die?

EDIT EDIT: Clearer view of Force Commander vs Bloodthirster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKHsj5y8UL8&feature=related

[ May 28, 2008: Message edited by: umiman ]

[Cajoes]

As a IG vet I can tell you.

We spam bodies.  

But yeah, we rely mainly on other people's inability to play the game than our own ability to outperform them.

And everyone goes "zomg u teh suck" until the leman russ tanks starts rolling out in droves, then suddenly you're the team's hero, singlehandedly turning the battle in your favour, shoop-de-woop you whiny gits, .

I thought the voice-acting and scripts in Soulstorm was unbalanced.
On one hand, the chaos marines had nice lines and a wikked delivery.
On the other hand the regular Marines had this.. crazy.. drunken Scottish/British Hybrid who stumbled into the sound studio after the pubs closed and had to make do with something from fanfic.net

Against my judgment however my siblings did purchase a copy. It's a solid title. With a few game breaking bugs, everything and everyone not ork or IG is overpowered beyond comprehension in their own unique way and the "flying units" just seemed like a unnecessary addition..

Bring back Squats.

[Dasleah]

Bring back Chaos Squats.

And Genestealer Cults.

[Kagus]

Screw ability/inability to play, the baneblade is just friggin' sweet.  

For those of you who want an even more imbalanced Warhammer 40k experience, coupled with INSANELY HUGE battles, check out the Ork Swarm mod.

Now, as with most Dawn of War mods, it's a major pain to install properly.  But once you get it running, ohhh....   Play that one map (I forget what it's called), it's a 2 vs. 2 map with a single chokepoint between the two sides, and you've got yourself a battle that you will never forget.

Orks have one infantry unit, their standard choppa-wielding thugs.  They can produce squads of them for free, and reinforce them for three requisition points for each, although it takes a while.  Most importantly,

NO UNIT CAP

That's right folks.  If you go up against an orkish AI, prepare for a never-ending tide of orks that will only pause for a moment.  Namely, when they get the tech/resources to start making artillery.

In order to deal with this massive assault, the other races got buffed a bit.  Some more than others...

All in all, it promises a bodycount the likes of which you have never seen before, as your troops will have to climb a mountain of greenskin corpses on their way to combat the fresh wave that's coming over the top.

Also, chaos can (if played correctly), get three simultaneous bloodthirsters.

[umiman]

Kagus: Is the map Breach? The one where there's a wall seperating the two sides with only one hole.

Cajoes: Oh yeah... the Leman Russ... ugh... boom boom boom boom boom STOP SHOOTING SO I CAN MOVE MY UNITS!!!! The Baneblade was quite pathetic though, with a strong propensity to get stuck at every interval. A competent Eldar and Tau player could even kite the Baneblade with their hovertanks.

[Kagus]

Yeah, I think it was Breach.  At least the description sounds like the right map.  Anyways, that place gets clogged with bodies, it's absolutely brilliant.

Also, I think you lot should see this, if only because it's rather well made for such inflexible machinima material.

And Cthulhu, if you liked big battles, you should definitely check out Dark Crusade.  I'm pretty sure (although not entirely) that they upped the squad size and unit cap.  Plus, Orkz get der 'eavy shoota squadz!  I do love me 'eavy shootaz...

[umiman]

If you've never read this W40k story before, you need to read it now: http://forums.sciflicks.com/showthread.php?t=15723

Diary of a Chaos Space Marine. Awesome with a fantastic ending of ultimate goodness.

[Cthulhu]

I tried the demo for Dark Crusade, maybe the units are just cheaper than marines, but I did notice it was a lot easier to field a large army.  I got to see a Talos do its sync kill on a force commander.  Pretty neat to see the leader of the enemy army get squeezed and poked to death.

[Kagus]

Uh, that's Soulstorm.  The Dark Crusade demo lets you play as Tau, the Dark Eldar weren't even in the game yet.  The Tau don't have any pokey-squeezey stuff, but they do have snipers as basic infantry.  That, and some pretty damn nasty firepower later on.