Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm Expansion Pack (PC DVD)

Let me first start off by critically addressing some of the previous comments made about this game.

1. "The game does not feel complete"
Answer: Most games these days, just simply due to economic pressures and large corporate policies, are more or less 'churned out' and this is also done to meet the demand of the ever impatient fans. If fans of the series complained less about release dates, perhaps the develops would be under less pressure to release an incomplete product. Secondly the product is not incomplete. It has some bugs, and is not entirely polished, but so are all modern games. They are vastly complex to make and not all can be fixed, all bugs zapped prior to their release - that is what patches are for people. They will release patches, and these things will be fixed.

2. "I was expecting more"
Answer: Well, I have a question really. What were you expecting? This is the THIRD expansion to a game. By rule of thumb expansions go down hill, and the quality of games become less and less, cheap knock offs of their more impressive predecessors. However, Soulstorm is by no means any of these things. It is consistent, delivering another high quality game. This far into expansions this is hard to do and so a potential buyer should have this in mind - "Why am I buying this expansion?" if your answer is "because I want the new races", "I just love the series", "I want more campaigns and new units" or "Wow, Dark Edlar!" - then this game is perfect for you, as will be all expansion packs. The potential buyer who views an expansion pack, expecting to see a 'New game' will be disappointed, because it is an expansion pack - if only people took the time to read what was in front of them perhaps there would be less confusion. This game does EVERYTHING an expansion pack should do.

3 "The Air units are rubbish!"
Answer: Okay, i'll give you that, they are. HOWEVER, there is barely a gamer I know who does not dabble in using mods and these will come thick and fast for the air units. What this has really done, is enabled experienced modders such as myself to go and create new airships for the communities gaming pleasure. This are easy to find and easily downloadable, legal and fun, and a good mod base is often a highly importnat factor to a game and its community these days, especially a series. Trust me, you'll see strafing bombers, missile ships, paratroop planes and all sorts before long, so sit tight and nag those those modding communities!

4. "It hasn't really brought anything new"
Answer: ......What? I mean seriously. It brought a new function of the Soul harvest which is extremely useful. The sister of battle also have the faith ability. A new bigger and badder campaign - I mean it is all in the review above!
Better graphics seem to also be a new plus, and this is not to be taken at face value, but I think a tweaking of the graphics engine has been performed - as in my Laptop now runs the game on full specs without so much as a nudge of lag or freezing - which it could not by ANY means do with Dark Crusade. That is just conjecture but I have noticed a difference in improved performance. The air units are there and with improved modding will be more then a delight, and also one more point, they DO attack grounds units, whoever said they didn't was not doing something right, I was happily pummeling a couple of Wraiths with my Ravens for some time.

5. "The new races are too weak, awful units"
Answer: Okay, confession time, i've not actually bothered to play the Sisters of Battle yet, I don't like them, and I love the Dark Eldar. They were the race I collected when I was younger in the Boardgame and so i'm delighted to see them finally added. Let us also clear up, they are not just cheap knock offs of the Eldar, they are UTTERLY different, but find that out by playing. Lack everything you might expect some units from the boardgame were left out for Dark Eldar, Grotesues being the most notable but besides that they appear to be the most "Codex Accurate" race thus far - except the Warp Beasts now actually can do something!

With that out of the way, there is just left for me to sum up. The game is an expansion pack and it is of the usual high quality. When the modders and Relic get their backsides in gear the game will like all games take its true form, with patches and modifications and it'll become the final polished product. You must obviously buy the game to get to that point however! As it stands it is a thrilling game though, and yes much of the same, but again I state - expansion pack - and continues much in the same vein. The graphics are good and the new races look beautiful, the Dark Eldar are formidable actually and I am finally glad to see something to match the space marines in firepower and close combat. The Sisters of battle look not much to shout about, but they are female warriors! What more could you want? Beautiful, armour glad nun-like women, showing Orks who are in charge! At the very least, it is entertaining and nice to see women actually portrayed with some strength not just the damsels in distress nonesense. It is also only priced at the same price as an expansion and so it is probably far more "bang for your buck" (as the Yanks would say) than the original game in the first place, which you paid twice as much for. If you are not doin the classicly "bad critic" mistake of reviewing something that it is not (i.e. expecting an expansion to be a new game) then you'll love this. I personally believe the best of the series so far, superior to the nonesense of Winter Assault and simply adds more then DC ever could. It should also be noted that when they say "Last in the series" what they mean (as people seem to be panicking) is that it is the last before a likely release of Dawn of War 2. They have been saying all along the engine could not do the the Tyrannids justice, and so they are likely to make Dawn of War 2 - which will probably have all the races of Warhammer and take it to the next level. I suspect some people were expecting this to do just that. But it won't. Only a couple of expansions in the history of modern gaming have done that, most notable recently, being Beyond the Sword for Civilization IV, which was almost a new game. This is another fantastic game by relic and well worth buying. If you have followed the series don't hesitate. Most of us know what we are getting, and our heads are not unrealistically in the clouds expecting too much, and so this is the game to end the series, and what an end it is. Buy it, play it, enjoy.

Cheers.

Well let me start by saying that this is the first review of the game from someone who has actually played it and not just the demo.

Well to start with let me just say that I had very high hopes for this game (although I knew the air units would be a little iffy to say the least), but unfortunately the game doesn't deliver, which is a real disappointment. Now its not something major that ruins it, its just lots of small niggling little mistakes and incomplete elements that throw a spanner in the works and it all mounts up, especially as I have been so into the other expansions in this series.

I'll start by listing the problems that I found just from a few hours of playing the game today.

- The big thing for me are the poor animations of the units in general of the 2 new armies. Now i'm not saying the models are bad, or the ideas and the armies do have some nicely done units but there are some shockers too.
The attack animations for many of the new units jump around and seem to lack the flow that the originals have. Plus some default movement stances are just plain wrong, the normal Sisters animation is that of running but move slowly and the Archon for the dark eldar moves as if he is in fast forward. There seem to be many small things all over the units that seem to do this.
- Areas of incomplete content, simple things such as the ripples of water when wading through are not on many of the new units, pretty poor if you ask me. Plus the Living Saint seems to have little or no "synckill" animations when dealing with enemies. The few that are there just don't seem to flow or even work properly.
- The skins are generally good but such things as the Immolator skin puts a taint on it, you can actually see the bright purple and green default colour on some quite large patches, its just plain rushed!
- The campaign is just like the old Dark Crusade with just more worlds so they can say its biggar, but each world has very few provinces.
- There are also many jumpy sounds on the new units, although the voice acting is very good for the new units, the application leaves something to be desired (such as the jump pack sisters, the sound is intermittent and not flowing when smaller numbers are in the squad).

I will say that one good thing about the game is the number of new maps added, it really adds some more battlefields to play around on, but overall I am really disillusioned by the content of soulstorm, its a real shame, its damaged my image of Relic and the series.

I know I am really picking bits here, but for a hardcore fan like myself, who has enjoyed the realy intricate details of the old games its a real blow. I actually found myself turning it off and going back to games that I have been playing for months instead.

I really hope that a patch can be released to overhaul these errors, it just seems as though the game is still a Beta.
Its sad for me to think that this is the first of the series that I was disappointed with :-(

I would advise to get it if you liked the old ones, but just be prepared to sit on your enthusiasm until they patch it up (I pray they do).

Ok to add to what others have said (this is for single player campaign) this game could use a patch. Nothing major or game breaking, but certain niggly things that do really annoy if you have played the rest.

One thing I hate about it is that when you conquer a territory it doesn't remember your previous layout when you then defend it again. You start from scratch each time, with the exception if you buy the buildings the computer puts them out for you. Most annoying for the gun defences.

There are some definite graphic glitches I noticed quite a few when using the Sisters of Battle. Nothign game breaking but annoying. The air units, with the possible exception of the Tau ones, are useless. I actually liked the Sisters of Battle (finished on normal) they are pretty much Space Marines with some twists to them.

The Dark Eldar look great but playing them was difficult (for me). Just not my thing maybe. Finished the campaign on normal as Chaos and Sisters of Battle and on hard as Space Marines.

Storylines/cut scenes are more of the same. It is not a vast improvement over Dark Crusade by any means, and in some cases it is worse. The campaign in practice is not really much different. Every map with the exception of gates is annhilate (kill the other team base.) Every gate map is take and hold majority of critical points for a few minutes. There is more variety is DC for sure.

In summary, more of the same as Dark Crusade, some bits slightly better some bits slightly worse. The two new races are ok. Worth buying if you own the rest of the series but if you don't I would get and play the rest of them first - or if you have to buy one only get Dark Crusade. Get this when the price drops and wait in hope for a patch.