Well, it has been a long time now since this game saw the light of day and
thousand loayl servants picked up their copy of it,
aswell the co-op modes and updates published, is the game worth it?
Let us dicuss about the campaing first,
we have seen the trailers and played the demo, is it as good as they are?
To me, the campaing feels strong.
The level designs, desbide the fact that it is a diamond-dozen
tunnel-running from point A to point B, the game has such huge grandness to it;
everything feels big and grand that it really feels like you are walking in a
forge world, desbide the fact that it feels unoccupied with no random civials running around
and occasionally just stumbeling to a small squad of guardsmens or hordes of enemies,
making it feel alittle liveless desbide the fact there should be civials or random personals
to encounter since I assume the evacuation protocolls aren´t going as planned.
I would have soooooooo much loved to encounter techpriest doing randoms tasks
or servitors doing the designated tasks while being oblivious to their surrounding.
Being such a huuuuuge place it appears liveless, but oh well, that´s just n**-picking.
I do enjoy the architecture of the world you´ll explore thru,
noticing the purity-seals, mechanicus embel and skull-deco on the doors and walls
are nice touch to feel the 41st world.
Fire Warrior´s titan, eat your heart out.
The characters are good, althou the Sergeant Sidonus could have used alittle
different approach, feeling more like he´s from Space Wolfs then from Ultramarines. :-/
Not that there is anything wrong with him, he is a good characters,
he just seems sort of out of place if that makes any sence. <.<”
Worry not old friend... *Blam* *Blam* *Blam* ...I´ve saved some orcs for you.
Character designs are well done and quite reconisable, like the traitor guardsmens
and the nurgle-cyphers from Forge World miniature ranges.
The story is pretty straight foward and kinda predictable,
the cinematic moments are well done and can produce a good plot points to raise players interest,
but other then those its pretty same linear story to give a game a plot and reason to move foward,
but keeps you interested none the less.
The combat system is very fluid,
I can´t remember having this much fun while chopping enemies in a close combat,
giving me the same feeling that I got from when I played God of War.
And I do like the range combats aswell, althou there are times when I feel that
the aiming has some minor issues when there is much more intense combat going on.
The Imperium: F*** YEAH!!!!
The Vengeance Launcher seems like a complete waste of a weapon,
not sure if it´s my computer, but I have issues of not having the mines explode on command,
no matter how much I press the reload button,
so I really don´t pay much attencion to it much to my dissappoiment.
I also don´t really like the power-axe, mostly due to having such hard times on timing my strikes
with the ground-stun, which I get much betterly with chainsword and thunderhammer,
but I don´t deny it´s weapons effectiveness in combat.
The execution animations have little variations per weapon,
but they are enjoyable to watch everytime you peform it just to see what the
Captain can do with the said weapons againts different enemy targets,
like stabbing a chainsword down a chaos marines´ neck.
The game has some minor issues, but not big enought to annoy the players too much.
Minor things like not being able to walk up the metal stairs because of a tiny ledge that
prevents you to do so, and most time the game goes to a ”sluggish” mode,
making the characters seem and feel like they are swimming throu tar while either walking
or running.
Luckily thou this dissappears in smaller areas or when in combat with the enemies,
maybe my windows xp can´t bother with the boooring walk moments and just
want the awesome action already. :b
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And now.... *sighs* ….we come to the multiplayer mode.
On it´s launch-day it was a dissappointing.
While it is quite fun to play,
it lacks substance in comparison to the campaing of the game
and other games in the market in general:
1. No executions
The executions I can understand why they choose to leave this out
due to not having real usage againts players and would make one
class too much overpowering, but on exterminatus and chaos
it would have more use of this.
2. Only 2 modes to play (team-deathmatch and location-capping)
I wasn´t expecting too much modes for this one,
but 2 modes? Really?
And no-one thought of adding a Unreal Tournament´s Assault mode to the game?
More variaties would have made this game standout betterly from other same genre-games,
and would have made the experience of being a Space Marine even more greater.
Now we have 5 multiplayer modes and 2 co-op modes.
The capture the flag is yet again a diamond-dozen you see on most games,
I´m suprised they didn´t add this in the 1st place. :-/
Take and Hold is a randomly spawning capture point mode,
which is kinda cool, but not really that interesting.
Exterminatus and Chaos co-ops are awesome,
giving us not as fun as Last Stand in Dawn of War but a good creation for this game.
I do have to point out that eventhou the exterminatus has 2 modes to it,
it´s truthfully just 1 game mode, with 2 separated 4 maps each survival mode.
But even with these, the multiplayer feels like there´s something still missing.
3. with only 5 MAPS (????),
…....5 maps? Reeaaaaally?
Considering that Dawn of Wars have ten times more maps to play in
and most shooter-games have more then 10 maps to choose from,
this seems really lame.
And the maps themself, they are pretty standart maps that you see from some
boring modern games or older shooter-games,
really seems too much open for all classes rather then build them more creatively.
And with the chaos dlc we got 2 extra maps, plus 2 more from dreadnought dlc, it stills like it´s missing majority of the content. ;.;
4. Unbalanced team balance randomiser
The team builder in the game is quite handicapped to do this task,
way too often I have to withness the game building teams in a way that all the high players
will end up in one team while all the low level ones will be placed in the other,
which is not fair since high level ones have unlocked either most or all the perks for the game
and because of this, have way better weaponry and skills to overcome the opposite team.
What I have also noticed is that more often then not the game always places me in
chaos side waaaay too often then imperial sides.
You have zero controll over the teams setups in public mode,
the privates get waaaay to many attencion to have controll for the the game setup.
5. Perks not working right? (fixed?)
My friend and I noticed this problem when we tried a private match to verify
a problem with the ”one-hit-kills” perk for the thunderhammer and it did not work at all.
Luckily this issue seem to have been resolved, not sure or aware of other similar
problems with other perks.
6. Host Migration gets stuck (fixed)
This happen to me twice during the month of launch day,
the ”host” disconnecting and leaving other players to wait for the game to find a new host
to continue the game..... which never happen...... even long after the games timer goes to zero
and beyond.
I already have this issue randomly happening in DoW land stand,
I don´t want this to bug me here aswell. D:
Luckily this has been fixed, but it still leaves me wonder if this can happen again
like it does in dawn of war.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A solid and enjoyable single player campaing and with a somewhat halfed-***ed,
last minute after thought of a multiplayer game with later on enjoyable last stand version of
a co-op, this game is seriously not a 60$ title game, but it is a good re-attmept to take a step
to the 3rth and 1st person shooter genre, having learned their lessons from the Firewarrior
game and made a 40k shooter game that feels real and right,
a strong tribute to the lore and world that THQ and Relic have been working on for
years now and carefully respected it, which is seen in the Dawn of War games.
I want to give this game a high rating, but taking the multiplayer, the story line and
minor+big issues with the game, I have to settle this game for a 7 out of 10.
But I can give it a 3 purity seal out of 5. :3
Hopefully when they´ll make a new shooter game, they will take these problems
into account and look at other games to see what they have and and maybe even create
something new for the genre.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Exterminatus DLC
This "co-op" mode is really enjoyable.
Bitting a 4 men group againts a horde of orcs just to see if the group
can work together to survive all 20+1 waves with the 3 class options
given for them to choose from.
Maybe alittle better then DoW´s Last Stand,
the challenge this dlc gives you can be one sided.
Depending on the map-layout and what enemies spawn on the current
wave, the orcs can be a real challenge to take down.
Regardless, the dlc is so much fun to play with a group of friends,
giving us a good start for the line of DLC´s THQ maybe publishing.
Chaos Unleashed DLC
You might think this being a carbon-copy of the exterminatus mode,
your only half-right.
Like the exterminatus dlc, your a group of 4 players bidding againts not
only orcs, but also againts Imperial Guards and Space Marines as
Chaos Space Marines.
And if you thought Exterminatus was fun and challenging,
wait ´till you try Chaos dlc.
The dlc suffers having much more of a challenge meter "turned to 11",
the types of enemies spawning on wave will ruin your day
and space marines being as tought as the armoured warbosses.
The only things that will work for your advantages,
is the fact that the guardsmens will be more or less of a braindead
for not realising your standing in front of them and they should shoot you.
Another fact is that if you stay somewhere saver and look carefully,
you will see the orcs and imperium forces fighting eachothers,
which is kinda cute addition to keep the lore´s spirit.
Desbide the difficulty curve the game may throw at you,
it is as enjoyable as the Exterminatus dlc,
which kinda leaves us feeling that it also should have something
as cool as the chaos one.
Dreadnought Assault DLC
The Dreadnought DLC is an ok,
no real opinion to wether it´s worth it´s cost or not.
The basics to this DLC is the same as "Take And Hold" mode,
not just having a randomly spawning capture points,
but also with the addition of having these capture points spawning locked
untill either factions takes a controll of a dreadnought point to unlock
the spawning and having one random player in the group instantly spawned
as a dreadnought, Imperial one is with a assault cannon+power fist,
chaos has autocannon+power fist and has it´s own larger health-bar without a
shield.
The unlock will remain open as long either side has the controll of a
dreadnought and once it is destroyed, random spawns will dissappear
and dreadnought point will appear for a new "capping" attempt.
The dreadnought itself is so much fun, once you get lucky to spawn as one..... sweatdrop
The rest is not so much.
It is quite fun on fighting when the dreadnought appears to foil
the other groups tactics, but I can say that it´s really nothing newish to me.
If you want something extra for the Take and Hold mode,
I would suggest purchaching this DLC.
For everyone else, only if your really interested.
