User Reviews (11 - 21 of 29)

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Must Rebuild Everytime

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

While I like the game and don't have a problem with the little extra time it takes to load, I don't like the fact that I have to rebuild everything.

In the other DoW games, once you put buildings in place they stay when you have to defend against attacks, so that you can get resources and power quickly. Not so with Soulstorm, when you defend against an attack you start from the beginning with one building and the reinforcements that you place in that territory. You have to re- build everything, from listening posts to barracks, as if they never existed.

This to me is a waste of resources and power, but I can learn to live with it, because it isn't going to change.

Mixed bag

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is the fourth DoW game so far (original, and 3 addons). While the gameplay did not change (it's still enormously fun and fast-paced), this installment left me with the feeling that it was completely unnecessary. So far each of the new installments gave something new. New fractions, new units, new storyline. The air-units are a great -that's sure- but not really revolutionary. The two new fractions... well, they look and feel more like some third-party mods, than official races. (The Inquisitor mod is much better than any of the new races in the game, by the way.) The choice is unfortunate -dark eldar being a renegade race, suited for guerrilla-warfare. Not exactly the base-building type; and the design... well, it doesn't look really good. (Skulls, spikes, and angry facial features.) The Sisters of Battle were completely unnecessary. They are not essential part of the Warhammer universe, and they look kind of a cheap ripoff of the Catholic Church's symbolism. They are not very original. I know, it's easy to be the critic, but these were my impressions. Tyranids, for example, would have been a much better choice -not to mention, some real good opportunity for a completely different take on the gameplay: the same way as the Eldar can't be played the same way as the Space Marines.
I wasn't really fan of the "Risk"-type gameplay of Dark Crusade; too bad they brought it back. The Warhammer universe is always interesting because of the stories; the first to installment at least made an honest effort to give an interesting storyline. (The original was a disappointment because of the short single player campaign.) There's the chance to give each of the races their own, yet intermingling campaigns, about the war raging on the moons and planets. It would have been awesome to follow an ork's rise to be a warboss, the Necrons' awakening, and so on - and getting a lot of background info on the races in the meanwhile, just to keep it interesting. What motivates a Chaos space marine? How does an eldar farsinger think? Instead, the creators of the games went with the fast way -and turned the game into an endless attack-conquer-defend meatgrinder, where only the terrain changes, and not the gameplay. (I know, real war is half as interesting as the fictional ones.)
I started playing the game, but honestly, it became boring after a while -the same old, same old from Dark Crusade.
In short, the game seems more like a last effort to some more income on the DoW franchise before DoW2 comes out, than an honest standalone. If you played all three games before, and the thought of conquering dozens of territories appeal to you, it's the game for you. If you want to play multiplayer with the new races, you'll also need this game; otherwise it's better to replay DC. If you don't know the series, get the platinum pack instead -the first three games have everything you need. You might wait a while until another pack comes out with this game included. But either way, sadly, you won't miss out much if you miss this game.

Another good DOW game with a few quirks..

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First off, I am a die-hard 40K fan (of the games and the books, not a big table-top gamer)and I have been looking forward to the (promised) new 40K game. I have enjoyed the game,it is IMMENSE adding yet more new races and a few new units to the existing ones. There are a few things that annoy me about this game though. A lot of units will say the same things over and over..when you click on them, send them to fight, pretty much anything. And when it comes to races like the Sisters of Battle where they yell everything they say it gets old and you will find yourself starting to get annoyed by it. Another thing is that through the past games..Load times have goten progressively longer and longer..I know I expect longer load time with all the races but when I finish a battle, I have time to go make a snack, use the restroom, and call a friend before it gets back to the Map screen, and my computer is no slouch. I run Crysis on High settings with 2 Gigs of DDR Ram and a New Geforce card. (which is the only reason I dont give this game 5 stars)
Other than a few things..I highly recomend it..and like I said before, it is immense (with 4 planets and 3 moons all with their own territories and 8 races) and will take quite a while to play all the way through...if not getting just a little bit repetetive. Another good game from THQ, another good addition the vast library of Warhammer 40K products.

Your every Nightmare!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Hail Archon! The feast of Soul Despair is nigh!

And so, the latest addition to the award winning RTS Game, Dawn of War, introduces a new campaign and two new races: the Sisters of Battle and the Dark Eldar.

I enjoyed the new campaign map structure, but I miss the old story line driven campaigns and I miss having my built bases remain on the map.

The Dark Eldar are awesome; I took them to GT in 2001, and I hold them close to my heart. Playing this race in DOW is great!

Slightly rushed development - overall good game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Pros: TWO new armies. Sisters of Battle are like Space Marines, if the 'rines took all their defensive prowess and channelled it into offense instead. The "Emperor's Touch" ability is absolutely SICK - it can bring down a Daemon Prince in no time flat.

Haven't played with the Dark Eldar much, but they seem potent.

Cons: Pathfinding and combat AI seem a little buggy - sometimes a unit won't begin attacking an enemy nearby until I go through the trouble of selecting them and telling them to move (in any direction).

ALSO: THQ seems to have only half-upgraded the Necron Lord. Yeah, he can turn into the Deceiever now, but it feels half-finished - the Deceiver should have more abilities.. in its current form it's just not worth using - the Nightbringer is far more effective. Maybe if they gave the Deceiver the ability to fake-clone entire armies (to create diversions) or something similar..

Overall a good expansion but it feels like the dev studio got cut off before the normal end of the development process and put on a different project (probably Dawn of War 2) before they had a chance to really put the "THQ/Relic polish" on. Sadly this happens with a lot of great games - Xenogears, Final Fantasy 7, the list is too long to list here.

If you're a Warhammer 40K fan, and enjoyed the previous games, you'll like this one.

Expansion From Hell

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a terrible expansion online wise. There are so many known bugs and glitches, yet no one from Relic has taken the time to fix them or release a patch. You know you bought a bad game when it says "This is stand in news, replace with real news" for over a month after the game is released. All this game offers is two new races, one which is bugged. The game offers horrible connectivity to other players and most games joined are severely unbalanced and stacked with premade teams. It is plagued with slow load times etc. This is coming from someone with a dual core and 2GB of ram. This game is not worth buying unless the price drops severely, personally I feel scammed, I had much more fun playing DOW: Dark Crusade over this garbage.

A nice way to finish the series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have thoroughly enjoyed Dawn of War, plus all three expansions. With the addition of the Sisters of Battle and the Dark Eldar, the game now has 9 fairly unique and fun races. This expansion is at least as good as the other two, though it is not without flaws.

Gameplay: Same great, over-the-top, explosive action. Just more races to cause havoc. The campaign is based on the meta-map concept from Dark Crusade, where you move about a turn-based strategic map and engage in real-time battles. The new maps look great, but it does get tiring having to fight the same skirmish on the same maps during the campaign. Each race has a stronghold mission, which are challenging and well done. There is really not a lot of reasons to play through the campaign more than once or twice, but it is a nice diversion.

Skirmishes against the AI are generally great fun. My only quibble is that the AI is merely decent; Relic really does need to get more serious about AI programming for Dawn of War 2. While it can sometimes put up a good fight, at other times computer opponents will do some outright goofy things, like not tech or build necessary buildings. Thankfully, there is a good player-made mod forthcoming that should greatly improve the AI. Still, Relic, which has built its reputation upon real-time strategy games, should take more care with its AI. Anyhow, I only rarely play multiplayer and haven't played it with Soulstorm yet. However, there are supposed to be some improvements, like better connectivity, metals, etc.

Graphics: The game still looks great to me. The Dark Eldar and the Sisters are well done. The game adds air units to the mix which also look good. I personally like them, though they don't have a large impact on the core ground-based gameplay.

Sound: As much personality as ever. The Dark Eldar are especially wicked in their voice acting. All other sounds--explosions, weapon fire, etc.--is convincingly done.

Technical issues/documentation: Beyond minor AI bugs, I have not experienced any technical issues with the game in single-player modes. The game comes with a manual that adequately describes the new races.

Replayability/Value: Since this game will continue to get some high-quality, player-made mods and maps, I will probably be playing it for years to come. The Dawn of War series is my favorite RTS game, and Soulstorm just reaffirms that. Since it is a stand-alone expansion, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes strategy games or the Dawn of War series.

Pros:
+2 new and well-done races
+Slightly improved campaign
+Many more maps
+Still looks, sounds, and plays well
+Has a talented modding community

Cons:
-Not the best skirmish AI, even after all of these expansions
-Only slightly improved campaign

A Jolly Good time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game isnt perfect,sure. But it was very fun.The new Air units are fun to use and helpful.The Multiplayer is good.This is my first RTS game and i enjoyed so i definately plan on buying more thanks to this game!

kinda cool, but

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First of all the graphics are pretty cool, the races are true to the tabletop, missing my favorite race the Tyranids. Some of the battle are a little ridiculous, I understand the fog of war is to increase realism but, it makes some of the battles a little more ridiculous. Just like in Warcraft 3 you'll spend 3 hours looking on giant maps for one little worker running around. If they wanted to make it more like the tabletop game they wouldn't have the fog of war. I never played warhammer where we pretended where the characters where, unless they that an ability that made it so.

The load time is worse than any other game I've played. I like playing the game, it's quite sad, I'm so use to the long load I end up reading a book while I wait for it to load. Or go make something to eat, eat it and come back. Reminds me of the old playstation games. Maybe my computer just sucks I don't know.

Soulstorm rev

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: April 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

haveing played the previous installments of soulstorm, im fairly pleased w/ the game overall. the two new races were neat and the new aircraft for the others races were ok. one of my favorite rts games, my only bone to pick would be that the races arent too well balanced

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