Customer Reviews

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great RTS game. It is very entertaining and there is always a lot of stuff going on. The graphics raise the bar for this game genre. Units are rendered great. Structure building is rendered great. And even the maps a re rendered very well. Animations are awesome. Battles in general seem epic. Kudos.

There are 4 different races in this game. They all play differently. It's not like playing a new game, but you will def. have to change your strategy and use different abilities and structures when you play different races.

Gameplay overall is great and entertaining. This is an RTS game similar to Command and Conquer. If you liked CC, then you will def. like this game. It should be mentioned however, that this game is not super-strategic in the sense of Total War or Combat Missions. It is a more accessible game that is made for the gamer who wants to be entertained rather than challenged.

The missions are generally interesting, although they do get repetitive. There are only one or two campaign maps that made me alter my strategy. I often approach missions relatively slowly and focus on building up a good strike force before I go after the oponent(s). There is nothing this game does to force me to play differently (such as a time limit or a defensive mission). However, for some reason that doesn't bother me so much in this game. Probably because the game managed to keep me very entertained.

Probably the biggest problem with this game is that the campaign is very short. 11 missions with only one race (Space Marines) is not enough! The campaign also isn't too difficult. I played on medium difficulty and didn't have to reload even once (although thinking back, I always seem to have felt reasonable challenged, so perhaps that is not a bad thing). Perhaps I should have played on "insane" difficulty.

What saves the game is that it has good skirmish maps that are almost as entertaining to play as the campaign, and with all the different skirmish options, this game can basically be played indefinetly. I normally play RTS games for the campaign only, but in this case, skirmishes are good. And then of course there is online play...

This def. tops CC as my favorite RTS game. Can't wait for the first expansion...


PS: Some of the fellow reviewers seem to complain about the lack of features that are really there. Hotkeys for instance. In fact, I find that this game has better hotkey support and a better interface in general than other RTS games. What is lacking however is the manual. Some of the things I just found out through trial and error. Others through the strategy guide. It is a shame that game developers and publishers still sabotage their own efforts that way.

Even if you're unfamiliar with Games Workshop, miniatures games in general or the Warhammer 40,000 universe (sometimes simply and affectionately called "40K") this game should knock your socks off. The graphics are stupendous and the action during the battles is absolutely visceral and spectacular. PC Gamer magazine has given this game three highly favorable preview reviews so far this year and the 17-minute video shown at E3 and at Games Workshop's Games Day has amazed all who gazed upon it. When I watched the video at Games Day in May 2004 people actually responded audibly to the scene of the Bloodthirster (huge winged demon) taking possession of a Chaos Space Marine and then cheered at the spectacular scene of the Space Marine Captain leaping upon the Bloodthirster's shoulders and taking him down with his huge power hammer.

The game designers are so good that each of the "races" in Dawn of War have their own "feel" based on the Games Workshop mythology of the tabletop game, and not just in combat either. Even the gait of the soldiers is different from race to race: the Orks lope brutishly, the Eldar run in a graceful disciplined way and the Space Marines and Chaos Marines fall somewhere in between, marching in a forceful and orderly manner. It's the same in combat where the Orks thump and pound, the Eldar perform amazingly graceful and lethal martial arts moves and the Marines are powerful and straightforward. Even the fighting machines of each race follow this careful design and are amazing to see; Eldar Wraithlords, Space Marine Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, Rhinos, Chaos Defilers, they are all here and behave in a manner consistent with the other troops in their army. Even if you're unfamiliar with 40K, you're in for a treat. Dawn of War promises to be one of the best RTS computer games ever regardless of whether or not you are into the Games Workshop tabletop miniatures hobby. Dawn of War stands on its own as an amazing and exciting science fiction/fantasy battle game like no other before it. If you are familiar with 40K, be prepared to see the 40K universe spring to life before your eyes like never before.

(...)

I am a very frugal person by nature. This is usually hard to reconcile with my desire to buy computers and computer games. My usual solution is to wait until a game goes "Gold" or gets some other value packaging ("The Mega Value Pack!"). Very, very rarely, will I ever buy retail - and never the full retail a game goes for when it is first released.

Dawn of War has proven to be the exception. Ironically, when I first saw the packaging/cover art for Dawn of War 40,000 (DOW40K) I was turned off. It looked like a cheap game, probably some lousy adaptation of the tabletop game that was going to trade on name recognition. Well, it turns out, they could have sold this game in butcher's paper and named it anything they wanted. It is the best computer game I have ever played.

I've been playing since the Atari 2600. I'm old. I should be doing bigger and more important things. My wife shouldn't have to roll her eyes when I tell her I'm going to turn on the computer. Alas, I like computer games. So I have played a great variety of games - strategy, role-playing, first person shooter, simulation. My favorites are pretty mainstream: Civilization, Morrowind, SimCity, Diablo, Half Life, and Medal of Honor. Until DOW40K, I had a "group" of favorites, but no one favorite game. Now, I have a favorite game.

There are basically three ways to play, and I would recommend playing them in this order: First, the single player campaign. It is a simple and effective tutorial that lasts about 10 hours, depending on how you play. You will finish it and know the basic game mechanics, controls, and some strategy. Second, the "Skirmish" option on the main options page. You play against one to seven AI opponents on several different maps. You can choose the difficulty level from easy, to standard, to hard, to harder, to insane. When you can beat the computer consistently at the standard difficulty, then try the third option: online play. The people in the online lobby know what they are doing. Try to join a game where it is team versus team, not a free for all. I really enjoy the online games, even though I lose a lot. Which makes the victories all the more enjoyable.

If you've read this and see me online, say hello. It's MEF40K (Marine Expeditionary Force 40,000). Good luck!

Dawn of War is one of the most anticipated strategy games of 2004. Like most overly hyped games, it has a lot to live up to - fortunately, the new Warhammer game fulfils most of the publicity, with one glaring exception. Hardcore Warhammer gamers will be impressed with the slavish attention to detail. The Relic Developers are clearly Warhammer fans, and it shows in every frame - from the Orc flamethrower in the opening cinematic (with a cigar shoved in its mouth), to the harsh fascist nobility of the Space Marines ("Beware the alien, the heretic"). This game doesn't shy away from its martial origins, and doesn't pull any punches either.

There's nothing I can say about the gameplay that hasn't been commented on, elsewhere. The learning curve for the user interface isn't all that steep. The only change is the use of constantly aggregating resources from strategic points, which leaves players to focus on the strategy element, rather than micromanaging resource gathering.

The music from Jeremy Soule is outstanding (as always) - he has been a composer on several excellent games, including Neverwinter Nights, and once again shows why he's the "go-to guy" for quality music.

The only problem with the game is the extremely short single-player campaign - at 11 missions long, the storyline is seriously abbreviated. By the time it's over, it's obvious that only one-third of the story has been told. This is quite remarkable, as Relic were the same developers who created the classic epic Single-Player storyline for Homeworld and Homeworld 2.

Inevitably, this game will be compared to Starcraft and Warcraft 3 (both developed by Blizzard). The comparison is inevitable, as both games revolve around the same themes. In terms of technology and gameplay, Warhammer is the better choice. But in terms of storyline and Single-Player campaign, Warcraft 3 and Starcraft are still unparalleled in its execution.

In summary, Warhammer is an outstanding addition to the Real Time Strategy genre. Despite it's visceral violent content and action, it's not a revolution, but rather a evolution. The key achievement is placing the focus on combat and strategy, rather than micromanagement. Hopefully, other RTS's will emulate this approach.

This is a fantastic game and well worth the money. I haven't had any interest in an RTS game since I played Starcraft back in University about 7 years ago. The opening movie alone will get you into it.

In fact the game reminds me of starcraft a lot: Space marines=Terrans, Orcs=Zergs, Eldar=Protoss, Chaos=Infested Terrans. Nice big maps as well, with elevation and terrain being a factor.

The graphics are outstanding for an RTS, zooming in on the battle doesn't make the game easier, but it makes for a fun watch when you are on a major assault. The units are well balanced, and the advanced units are quite cool (marine mechs are awesome). Controlling squads instead of individuals is also realistic and refreshing. There isn't a lot of emphasis on resource gathering (a good thing I think), rather more focus on the micromanagement of your squads (morale, health, weaponry, reinforcements). The focus on controlling stratagetic points instead of resources forces players to explore the board and battle, rather than hoard resources and build one big army for the final attack.

Anyways the game is a ton of fun and has excellent replay battle. My only complaints are: 1) Single player campaign too short, and only for 1 race 2) Only 4 playable races (I hear there are ton of species in the Warhammer universe). Hopefully an expansion pack or user-made mods will change these things.

If you like RTS, Starcraft, Warhammer, get this game. I believe this is one of the best releases of 2004. Rome:Total War may be a better overall RTS game, but if you've grown tired of the medieval genre as I have, this may be up your alley. Warhammer 40K is a great title that you'll spend many hours playing.

Well Games Workshop finally managed to get a good computer game of WH40K released! Dawn of War is an excellent RTS game reagardless of whether you know anything about the Warhamemr 40,000 miniatures game. It has great graphics, great sound, solid gameplay, a good campaign story and excellent skirmish mode options.

If you are a 40K fan you will be even happier. While Dawn of War does not reproduce the mini game exactly it does give a close feel and the character and vehicle animations are great. The intro movie alone is probably worth the cost of the game for the 40K fan (although you can see that for free with the demo).

The only real complaint I have is I wish the Imperial Guard were included as a full army (you do get to play them a bit in the campaign game but not in skirmish mode). But I suppose they had to leave something for an expansion.

A previous reviewer noted you can't select groups of units with the keyboard. This is untrue. You can create quick select groups by selecting a unit(s) and hitting ctrl plus 1-0. Then just hitting that number selects that group. There is also a hotkey file you can modify to set most game functions to the key you prefer. You can also select the game speed by going to the options menu. You can do this before but not during play. As for play difficulty there are five difficulty levels. The harder levels really make the game tough to beat. Overall the AI does a pretty darn good job (perhaps the best yet in a RTS game) of attacking with groups and hitting you where you have light defenses.

The graphics in the game are excellent. All units are fully 3D and have a nice variety of animations for fighting. The options allow full control of graphic settings to accomodate different computer speeds. There is also a painter that allows you to give your units a unique color scheme and badge.

Dawn of War is a great realtime strategy game. It does not expand the genre into any new areas but it is a solid, entertaining, and replayable design.

First off, I generally liked Dawn of War. Numerous other reviews address and detail the strengths of this game. In many ways it is a step above the most recent generation of RTS games.

What I wish to address is the fact that the solo campaign is comprised of only 12 missions. That's right, 12 missions (about 10 hours). On top of that, you only get to play as Space Marines and not one of the other 3 races (i.e., Chaos, Eldar, Orks). Furthermore, the storyline ends with a cliffhanger that suggests that there will be an expansion released in the future. In my opinion, when you spend $49.99 you deserve a bit more than this. The multiplayer is fine and the single-shot missions are alright but for this amount of money... more story content should be presented.

I was lucky enough to be picked to be one of the beta testers for this incredible game and I can tell you that this is a "Must Have" title for me. The first and most noticible thing for me is that the combat animations for the units are not what most people are used to in RTS game with one a few frames of unit animation making the units fight the same way. When your units are in combat they fight with different moves instead of attacking the same way. The Marines will shoot with their bolters while at range but when an enemy gets too close they'll whip out their combat knives and leap into the fray. The Eldar Banshees slash with their swords, do backflips, and all sorts of other maneuvers. Another plus is that when you create a unit you get a unit of multiple troops (normally 3 or 4 except for special units). This is great for those who hate getting rewarded with only one troop per purchase like in other RTS games. I will warn everyone that it is a VERY bloody game... the Eldar Avatar will impale enemies on his sword before slinging them away and the Bloodthirster will crush his enemies to pieces in his hand. There are only two resources in this game... requisition and energy. You get energy from building reactors but you get requisition by taking and holding strategic points. If you put a listening post on the strategic point you get more requisition. By upgrading your listening posts you get even more. The individual squads are customizable too. You can create a hero (sergant for the Marines) for each squad and you can also buy heavy weapons for each squad to better let them deal with buildings, infantry, or vehicles. A nice bonus feature is that you can create a custom paint scheme for your units for when you play online so that your units have a very specific look. With the palate of colors available you can make sure that your troops look like nobody elses.
So far I've only played the beta but I'd buy it as is. I absolutely can not wait for the official release.

I was fortunately very lucky to participate in the beta for this game. At first, I was very skeptical about it. The previous WarHammer PC games were terrible. Just plainly terrible. But I must say that after playing this game, I am in awe. We have finally made a WarHammer 40k PC game that is worth its price tag! The graphics are amazing on both my machines (both 3.0 P4, 1 gig RAM, one with a nVidia geForce 4 Ti4200 and one with an ATi Radeon 9800, both running 1280x960 pumping about 40-50 fps), and the gameplay is spectacular.

The one thing that really got me, however, were the models: they're amazing. In fact, they're beyond amazing. They look so much like the table-top pieces it is not even funny. The game does have just about every aspect of the 40k game world in it, so everybody from the novice to the hardcore players will be satisfied.

All in all, this game is definately worth buying...I know I've already reserved my copy!

I am a fan of real-time strategy (RTS) games and have played most of the major ones that have come out over the past several years, such as Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Warcraft, and Rise of Nations. However, there is something very special about this one. Most RTS games have you sparring with your opponent(s) until one of you gets knocked out or assimilated. Not with W40K: Dawn of War. It's non-stop kicks in the groin until one of you doubles over and then gets decapitated with a buzzing chainsword. This is by far one of the most graphic games I've ever played. It gives you a front-row seat to an all-out brutal spectacle of carnage and savagery. The game is at once cute, entertaining, dark, grim, and horrifying. Rarely does a match last over 45 minutes and most are over (at least the single-player matches) in 30 minutes or less. It's heart-pumping, adrenaline-rushing action from start to finish--and it's great the whole time. Overall, DoW is very well put together and should be in the collection of any strategy gamer.

Gameplay: W40K is much like other RTS games in which you build buildings which produce units which seize territory and kill enemy units. However, all of the collecting of resources has been nicely steamlined. Instead of hoarding the usual food, gold, timber, stone, and so forth, you seize strategic points and build plasma generators. That's it! Your peons are used only for building and repair, no collecting. Thus, the game allows you to concentrate much more on battlefield strategy. And believe me, you'll need to. Unlike Age of Empires or Rise of Nations in which national borders or walls can protect you for a while from your foes, your enemies in this game often stop by within the first 30-60 seconds of gameplay. And they don't send a nice welcoming committee either. The gameplay is visceral, bloody, and furious from then on. You absolutely can't win without capturing strategic points and to do this means that you have to always be expanding. Of course, this means that you are always at war.

Thankfully, each of the four sides that you can play are all designed for war. The space marines (my personal favorites) are the human faction. They are tough and well-rounded and fight well in close quarters and at a distance. The Chaos marines are an evil version (but not a duplicate) of the space marines and employ demons and dark magic, as well as a good mix of infantry and artillery. The Orks lust for war and often attempt to wipe out enemies by their sheer numbers. The Eldars are a very advanced race of aliens who specialize in various military tactics and have teleportation abilities. Overall, the races seem pretty balanced with the 1.3 patch, though I have only played single-player games and always play with the space marines.

The single-player campaign has 11 missions, and it is quite good. However, I wish the game had shipped with one or two more campaigns. Very surprisingly, the game does not ship with a map or scenario editor, though the developers released a rather complicated one later on their website. Fortunately, there is a good variety of maps which come with the game (and the patches included a few more), which should keep both solo players like me as well as the online crowd happy for a while. (...) You can also replay recorded games to see how the computer plays. This will probably be worthwhile to some gamers, since the computer plays very well on the standard and hard difficult levels and is probably near impossible to beat on the insane difficulty setting (which I haven't tried yet).

Graphics: A beautiful, well-polished, fully animated game. This is really where the game shines. The landscapes give you the sense of a future torn by perpetual war and grim carnage. The units all have their own unique animations and finishing moves. Even if you zoom the camera in close they still look great. Combat is actually very entertaining to watch, even when you are losing! And all of the special effects are done well. I wish that the camera could be zoomed out a bit further so that you could see more of the battlefield. However, this is a very minor thing, since the mini-map allows you to focus in on various hotspots. And I must say a word about the introductory movie. It is probably the best cinematics I have ever seen in a game. It's very high quality and captures the mood of the game perfectly.

Sound: Very good voice acting (except for the Chaos side), well-done music, and the sound effects are perfect. There are a lot of little sound bites in the game that are witty and dark at the same time. I have no real complaints in this area, except the Chaos forces sound a bit too whiny.

Technical Issues/Documentation: At least with the 1.3 patch installed, the game has been perfectly stable on my machine. No crashes, freezes, or any other problems, even after playing for 8 hours straight. I wish I could say that for all of the games I've bought over the last few years. The manual does a decent job giving you the basics, but should have said a bit more about the units and buildings. Thankfully, the tutorials are very useful and the single-player campaign also eases you into the game nicely.

Replayability/Value: Tons of replay value, even for solo players like me. There is also a fairly active online community for those into the multiplayer scene. There are enough maps that come with the game to allow you to configure all kinds of match ups and scenarios. Also, there are many more player-made maps and mods that can be downloaded from various DoW-related website. RTS games are known for their replayability and this game does not disappoint. I bought this game for $50, and it was worth every cent. I highly recommend it to all computer gamers, particularly those into strategy games.

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)