Dawn Of War (Beta Review)

[Thordic]

I've been beta testing Dawn of War, the new Warhammer 40K strategy game, and holy crap is it good.

Imagine starcraft with MUCHO better graphics.

http://www.dawnofwargame.com/homepage.php

Thats the site, check out some screenshots...







THose are pretty much just cropped in-game shots. The graphics are great, and you get camera control so you can zoom in to watch hand-to-hand combat (the kill animations are mindblowing, you see guys getting torn apart and thrown through the air when they get mauled by something large enough, or get shot with a big enough gun).

Even though I would normally consider Warhammer 40K games somewhat of a niche market, this game has HUGE potential to be a big big game.

Watch the shelves. This one rocks.

[dirty_canadian4894]

hmm i loved starcraft and that looks pretty good any idea when it will come out. or do you want to burn me a copy

[Thordic]

I can't burn you a copy, you need a CD key to play, sorry :-/

The only mode the beta has is the tutorial, which gets boring in about, oh, 5 minutes, and online play, which you need the key for.

As for a release date, I'd say at least another 6 months. There are a lot of little bugs right now that they are fixing, and I think they still need to implement one or two more races (I think they have at least one other race done, they just didn't plug it into the game yet)

[Steelrat]

Im a big Warhammer 40K fan, this looks like a must-have. What are the playable armies? I only see Space Orks and a couple of space marine chapters (Ultramarines and one I dont recognize) there.

Man, it just looks great! I see some dreadnaughts, as well as plasma guns and heavy bolters. When is it due out? Do they have tanks and APCs? And, this is the biggie, do they have special characters like my beloved chaplains?

[Crighton]

Release is slated for sept.


Playable races in this release are.
Eldar, orks, chaos, marines.
The game includes an fairly usefull army painter, so you can really play what ever army of each race you want to play.


Very fun game, but they still need to work out a couple balance issues.

Tanks, Grav platforms, dreads, jump packs, infiltrations units, speeders, defilers, looted russes, war tracks, orbital deployment for terminitors and dreads, Avatars, blood thirsters, ect. ect. They actually added a decent amount of vehicles.

Each race has two commander units. For the marines it's a Force commander and a Librarian. For the orks it's a War Boss and the Big Mek.

[Thordic]

There are tons of Imperial Guard screenshots out there (Cadians) so a lot of people are hoping they put Cadians into the game, it appears they have the army done already. I have wishful thinking for 'Nids (Zerg, basically, for you non-Warhammer people) in the future, maybe an add-on?

I've only played a few times so far (it took my brother a while to get me the game), and Ive only played Eldar, who are damn cool to play. Once you get that Avatar, oh baby. It's great watching him impale a marine on his sword, drink the guys blood, and then throw the guy's carcass fifty feet.

[Crighton]

I'm fairly certain they are going to release an expansion with more armies in it.


Avatars are tough SOB's but a Librarians VS demon bonus applies to them. A couple devistator squads + librarian = dead avatar.

[Automaggin2]

Thordic,
Will Black Templars be available to play? I want to use the Empies Champ to kick some ***.

[BlackHalo]

Relic

hee hee, my friends are working on that game.

[Thordic]

I sent in my Avatar last night with 4 Wraithlords and 3 Dark Reaper squads. They tore up from the floor up.

As for Templars, its going to be vanilla armies. I think otherwise it'd just get too complicated. You can paint the troops any color scheme you want, so they can look like templars / fists / wolves, whatever, but the stats will remain the same.

[Thordic]

I just thought I should mention this game makes me wanna cream my pants.

The graphics are awesome, sound is amazing, gameplay rocks.

I am starting to love Eldar more and more.

[FutureMagOwner]

i under stand the video games basic concept, but i have no idea what the heck you guys mean with all these army names and junk lol

[Thordic]

Its a video games based off a tabletop miniature game that Starcraft was loosely based off of.

That help?

[Steelrat]

The Eldar are gay space elves

Man, I hate wraithlords with a passion. Space Marines all the way!

[tony3]

My brothers friend was one of the 3d modelers for this game I believe.