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Death from above - Air units and medals

Soulstorm introduces air units into Dawn of War for the first time, and they are sweet indeed. We've had a play with most of the air units across the nine races, from the super mobile Sisters of Battle Lightning Fighter to the Dark Eldar's devastating Dais of Destruction, and have found them extremely useful, on the battlefield, especially when you need a quick and mobile unit to defend against an enemy strike team. They work in a similar fashion to ground units (can't make them fly higher or lower - bah!) except they can travel over all terrain. Every race, including the old ones, has had an air unit injection. Air units are a welcome addition, and while they don't fundamentally change the way the game works, or indeed how most fans will play, they do add some spice to the already boiling Dawn of War pot.

But air units are not the only new gameplay feature - achievements of a sort have been implemented as rewards for particularly skilled multiplayer play. You've got medals for winning lots of games in a row, for example, or having a particularly high kill-death ratio. Sadly these aren't integrated into your Windows LIVE profile, like Xbox LIVE achievements, but they are a nice bonus. Don't expect to be blown away though.

Miles better than the medals is the basic levelling up Soulstorm has brought to the single-player campaign. When you win a battle you're able to upgrade your commanding unit with better wargear. You're only allowed to choose one piece from a pre-determined list, and the more powerful gear required you to have already unlocked lesser items, but it's a nice way of adding a degree of customisation to your units, something rare in the RTS genre, but a cornerstone of the Warhammer 40,000 table-top game. We found the prospect of unlocking super powerful wargear became our primary motivation for completing the main campaign. We reckon fans will love it.

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