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We're not fans of the campaign meta-gameWhile we're perfectly happy to see a refinement of what makes Dawn of War great, we don't like new features that just get in the way. We're talking about the turn-based campaign meta game that will be instantly familiar to fans of Dark Crusade. Built into Soulstorm's campaign, the meta-game focuses on requisition, taking control of some 31 territories across four planets and three moons, and fortifying strongholds as you bid to conquer the deep-lying Kaurava system. Soulstorm's story revolves around a warp storm which has attracted the attention of the game's nine races, who all want the Kaurava system, and the secret behind the warp storm, to themselves.
When you start the campaign your race already has a stronghold on one of the system's territories. During each turn you can move your forces to a nearby territory and attack (triggering a traditional, on the surface Dawn of War battle). Win the battle and you'll take over the territory and gain requisition points, to be spent on buying buildings and units that guarantee a force of some description will be immediately available should an enemy force attack you and draw you into ground combat. Each faction has a racial ability - the Dark Eldar for example can travel across the Kaurava system via Ancient Gates, while other races can only move to nearby territories. Conquer an enemy race by capturing the territory which houses their stronghold and you'll obliterate them completely and assimilate their racial powers.
AdvertisementThe point to make about this campaign meta-game is that, while initially amusing, it quickly gets in the way of Dawn of War's traditional RTS combat. Indeed we found it became quite an annoyance pretty quickly. We suspect some gamers will love it and some will hate it, since it's effectively ended the cutscene-style single-player campaign story we loved from the original game. It may be an easy to understand and pretty cool bonus feature, but we reckon it's ended up being a hurdle through which fans are forced to jump if they want to get down to the nitty gritty RTS gameplay.
Soulstorm is a fitting finale for the Dawn of War RTS series.We're sure that Soulstorm will be of most interest to gamers who own Dawn of War and perhaps the previous two expansions already, but RTS fans of all kinds should be interested. Soulstorm is a stand alone expansion, meaning you'll be able to use all nine races in the single-player campaign and single-player skirmishes, but if you haven't got the original game installed on your PC, and the other expansions, you'll only have access to the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle in multiplayer, which is where Dawn of War excels.
The graphics look a little dated - in the four years following Dawn of War's release much better-looking RTS games have been released, including Relic's own Company of Heroes - but the unit animations still have a cool factor missing from many of its rivals. And Soulstorm, like its predecessors, does a great job of providing an intense, war-torn, battlefield for you to play with. But the most important thing is that the game is great fun, and will surely touch the soul of every RTS geek who's ever dreamt of being a Space Marine.
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Bloodstorm wrote at 13:43 on 07 March 2008
Got it an hour ago, i'm certainly up for a multiplayer with anyone here tonight or tomorrow if they want.
VERY disappointed that the only new units are air units.........well for 8 of the races at least.
TrampSkillz wrote at 14:55 on 09 March 2008
SO MANY BUGSSSSSS
wyp100 wrote at 16:05 on 09 March 2008
@ trampskillz
bugs? how so? i didn't notice any
Bloodstorm wrote at 09:49 on 10 March 2008
Only thing i dont like in the game now is......
The battle sisters online....they are soooo over powered it makes me so frustrated when someone picks them and the necrons.
Khaine wrote at 22:18 on 10 March 2008
I love Dark Eldar but they need defence, and yeah Necrons kick ass when you know how to use them. But they Immortals are the best unit to destroy buildings, the tactic i use is build as meany as you can kill them all then build more then get then use orb of resurection on them, I garenty you will get loads more units, but then the patch stoped that a bit but you still get more units.
Someguy wrote at 20:58 on 14 March 2008
@wyp100
There are two horrific multiplayer bugs. The poor balance that took months to fix up at the release of Dark Crusade was one thing, but these should have been fixed a day after they were identified.
First, there is the unlimited resource bug from canceling builds with the Sisters of Battle, which is completely game breaking. I personally DC from any matchup with a Sisters player who I don't know, as much as I love being rolled by a T3 army 5 minutes into the game.
Next if you're playing Dark Eldar with an observer, the observer can use your unit abilities and put them on cooldown.
Hunkinatot10 wrote at 21:01 on 16 March 2008
Couple of only concerns with it, the campaign take forever to load. I have top range specs and when i click campaign it takes like 2-3 mins to open up the screen. Then it takes another 2 - 3 mins to tell me that i have conquered a planet then another 2 - 3 mins for me to get back to the actual campaign screen.
I see what you mean about SOB being over powered, but i was playing against an IG army and we were both fully upgraded and both hit each other at the same time and annihilated each others army, there over powered but have the same stats as IG on the table top version which is shit.
Anonymous wrote at 13:05 on 22 March 2008
So it it a big campaign or what? is there weeks of play or a few hours?
wyp100 wrote at 15:30 on 22 March 2008
The campaign is massive if you enjoy it - it will of course depend on what difficulty you play it on, but theoretically, if you were to try and counquer all four planets of the system with every single race on the hardest difficulty, I'd imagine it would take you around 50 hours.
Anonymous wrote at 01:34 on 27 March 2008
i still think the space marines are the best i mean the SOB are just female space marines with new units and resource not really much of a difference
they didnt give a space marine air unit either that disappointed me but at least they still got terminators and deep striking squads
puppies wrote at 17:19 on 22 April 2008
I have just install the game but it keep kick me out of the windows when i start the game. Please help.
GodStorm[R0] wrote at 11:12 on 28 April 2008
Hi there!Well i got ss a few weeks ago and i've been playing it since then.I finished the sp campaign with sob and de(mainly cuz theyr new) at normal difficulty just to see how they are.I feel the de have to much rush power in them but that's not a problem since theyr defense sucks.The sob well i love em'!Theyr a lot of fun to play with all that fire and plasma units.Overall it's a great finale for the dow series(except for the mp bugs :-( ).