Dawn of War
As far as real time strategy games go, I've always been a fan of Age of Empires and Age of Empires II. There was also another real time strategy called Battle Realms that I enjoyed immensely.
Then Dawn of War's game play trailer came out, and I was hooked. Units had their own upgrades, their own abilities, and their own killing moves in combat. Age of Empires II had set a standard in real time strategies for me, and Dawn of War surpassed them a bounding ease. While the graphics aren't as awesome as, say, the graphics of a first person shooter, this didn't really bother me after playing Battle Realms and Age of Empires for so long that I thought all real time strategy games were that bad in terms of graphics (I think THQ missed the memo).
In the game there's four races; Space Marines, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines and Orks. Each of these Races has different buildings, different ways of upgrading their technology, different units, and multiple animations for in combat.
Game play is very much like Age of Empires in that you start off with your base and one builder unit and then you go from there. There's two resources that all four different races use; Requisition and Power which are gained gradually through Strategic/Critical/Relics Points/Locations and Power Generators respectively.
The campaign was honestly a bit of a disappointment, but then again I didn't care because I finished the campaign I didn't go back to it, and instead I played multiplayer. A lot of multiplayer, in fact, because at the time the only other game that held my addictions to gaming was Diablo II. The thing about multiplayer however, is that if you can't rush play then the top teir of players can, and will always beat you.
Wait, there's a Bloodthirster in my base and it's only been six minutes?! I've only just started building my Land Raider! It gets worse with Eldar as for the Avatar you need to have all of the building upgrades to even make it.
But the multiplayer is fun, and challenging, and if you liked the campaign then there's nothing to stop you playing it again on a harder difficulty, and if you like computer bot stomping then you can still play multiplayer because there's many people who like comp stomping the bots into the ground with ceramite boot and bolter in hand.
Despite all the good things I can say about Dawn of War there are also bad things, such as units that start capturing a strategic point while only one of their members is anywhere near it, or the others are caught on terrain. Units can get caught against each other which I suppose is a sign of good collision detecting, that said when troops get out of the way for a tank but not another soldier it makes me feel as if my men are being blocked on purpose as if the soldiers are playing a first person shooter in Counter Strike: Source... Hmmm, I think I'm on to something...
