Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade reviews

I bought Dawn of War Dark Crusade 1 week ago and I have been playing it every chance I get. This is an awsome game that has anouther Dawn of War style campaign where you conquer the world or Kronos. You can play as any of the previous races or one of the new ones – The invincible Necrons that rise up from the sands to reclaim their old world or as the alian Empire of the Tau fighting to claim Kronos as their own and wipe all other life from it. Dawn of War Dark Crusade has excellent graphics and of cource the blood and gore that scars the battlefield. With many maps to choose from the skirmish mode is great fun for those who have won their campaign and taken Kronos or for those who find the campaign to hard or who just would like to choose their own battleground and enemy for a change. You can fight in many places, from the bombed cities of the old empire or to the forgotten swamp lands or freezing snow, with up to eight players able to play it will never get old. As for multiplayer I don't realy enjoy this in any game but I must say that Dawn of War has changed that for me and I now enjoy pitting myself against other people to test my stratagies on those who can think instead of the CPU. All in all I love this game and will continue to play it and I recomend that all who love RTS buy this game and enjoy it as much as myself.

Early game it does appear like skirmish – but as the sides build up forces you will start with bigger armies from the get go.

There are about 6–7 “unique” territories which have a simple special win trigger e.g. collect all the servitors scattered around the map.

Finally each enemy stronghold plays out like a proper mission with multiple objectives etc.

It's reasonably enjoyable, although replayability value isn't huge, because the campaign will be very similar regardless of which race you place.

The added random elements flowing from which territories you target first and so on change things up but not really enough to make a difference.

All in all its not too bad, but only if you like the universe and visuals to begin with – gameplay wise its not really interesting enough to challenge.

Based on first impressions it seems it's just a series of skirmish maps linked into a loose, non linear “campaign”. If you just want to play skirmish battles one after the other that's fine, because that seems to be the game, basically. No story or anything. That's it. And the maps are very bland. The only two battles that I could be bothered with were like playing on a football field, with a few trees and craters here and there.

I didn't get very far into the turn based, campaign side of the game but it seems very simplistic. Nothing like Total War or anything where you construct buildings and things, and strategically move armies about. You just move your commander from one province to the next, and each move into hostile territory initiates a skirmish match, then you move on until you take them all.

There must be more to it than that, surely. There must be.

But still an excellent expansion! Story has never been a strong point in this franchise and it sure doesn't change in this expansion. The campaign mode is ‘open ended’ meaning they couldn't be bothered making actual missions so pretty much threw you into skirmish after skirmish after skirmish. It's ok to ease you into the game and the hero upgrading part of this is nice but it would have been even nicer if they actually put more effort into drawing us into this deep and unmined universe of intrigue. Ultimately it deserves a five star from me only because of the two new factions which really are worth the money! xD Multiplayer anyone?

5 stars but you need the original DOW to get every bonus.

Dont get me wrong, I really like Dawn of war. But I must admit I am a bit dissapointed by certain aspects of the new Dark Crusade. The single player campain in Dawn of War (apart from the abrupt end) was really good, and when I heard about the plans for an open campaign for Dark Crusade I thought it was a great idea. In reality though it doesnt work as well as one hopes if you are used to playing grand strategy across the empires of Total War and the like. It is most similar to the Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle earth campaign, not much in the way of strategic choice beyond which provence to attack next. As for the gameplay itself, any competant player will very quickly build up a force of their races most powerful characters, and from then its a grind and search across the map to find your opponents base. What is with the new unit limits anyway? Part of the fun of the original was being able to send 4 Land raiders into your opponents base at the same time, now you can only have one, and two predators at a time? why? Dark Crusade isnt a bad game at all, and there is much that is good, even if the voice acting is terrible, cutscenes and units alike. The new Space Marine commander is terrible compaired to the standard of voice acting in the Original. Good for skirmish and multiplayer, but those looking for an indepth grand strategy challenge might not get the depth they hoped for.

Exactly what you've come to expect from the Dawn of War series, but cooler.

The Tau fight the way you would expect, all big guns (Damn BIG Guns) stealth units and jump packs.

The Necrons are just scary, slow advances of massed “unstoppable” infantry, and a sense of death incarnate almost dripping off the monitor.

The Risk style campaign draws you in as increasingly hectic battles of attack and defence test your skills and resolve. Early on you can pick and choose your attacks to target your opponets weak points, while later on both your opponents and yourself have aquired special units and abilities too effect the out come of the battle, and you massed armies face off in unavoidable confrontations.

After picking this up I thought I was going to spend the majority of my time in skirmish or online, but I was strangely drawn into the non-linear single player I would reccomend buying this if you already have Dawn of War and Winter Assault as these two new races and style of gameplay allow many hours of re-playability.