Chaos Rising: Conclusions

The good folks at Relic and THQ have provided all the new units and gameplay improvements included in Chaos Rising to everyone who already owns a copy of Dawn of War II.

Basically, this means people with only the original can play against people with the expansion, and get to use all the new units for the existing races. In Last Stand, too, the three original heroes can play alongside the Chaos and Tyranid characters. I imagine Relic are hoping that people will load the game up again, see the new faction in action, and be inspired to shell out for the expansion.

 Enemies... We need ENEMIES!

As you can probably tell from my previous post, I really liked Chaos Rising. If you've not tried the previous game, this is the perfect opportunity to grab the whole set.

If most of the content is included, though, is it worth shelling out for just another 15 missions and a new race in multiplayer? Well, if you liked the original game's campaign, and want a bit more of everything, then the expansion is perfect. If you preferred the game's multiplayer... Maybe not. Unless you're mad keen on playing Chaos, all of the benefits and units are included with the recent patch.

Relic and THQ have both listened to feedback from the players while working on Chaos Rising, which bodes well for the inevitable future expansions. I just hope they stick to their guns, and work on improving and building on what made Dawn of War II different rather than adding back in what other people thought was missing.

Realisation

Things That Can Make You Feel Like an Idiot Almost Instantly

I've just realised I'm The Guy Who Hates Everything :(

Rejoice, brothers! Your slavery to the False Emperor ends today!

I've just finished the single player side of Chaos Rising, and thought I should put down what I think!

The original Dawn of War game was widely lauded for its fantastic presentation though it sadly started to look slightly dated by the third expansion), the charming (and, well, gory) character animation, and fast paced action.

Dawn of War II built on these key strengths, but mixed in some other elements Relic had used in their Company of Heroes games. It was generally well received by critics, but if you head over to the game's Amazon's page you'll find a slew of bad reviews, something I have talked about previously. The most controversial change was the removal of base building, something I loved but others hated. 

The single player campaign revolved around small missions with a handful of Space Marines which could level up and be equipped with RPG-style wargear. Unfortunately the missions became quite samey, especially towards the end of the campaign, as they were fought over a fairly limited selection of maps.

Enter the first expansion (or, more properly, expandalone) for DoWII: Chaos Rising.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising (sorry, I had to use the full title just once. From now on I'll use the simple acronym WH40K:DoWIICR... ehhh, maybe just Chaos Rising then) introduces, unsurprisingly enough, the Chaos faction to Dawn of War II. There is a host of new content, including multiplayer game modes, a single player campaign, maps... All that jazz. There might be some balance issues addressed maybe? I don't care that much about it as I mainly love the game for the single player and the odd game of Last Stand (essentially multiplayer for idiots).

The presentation is as good as I've come to expect from the Dawn of War games. The new Ice Planet looks fantastic, though the Space Hulk levels are a slight disappointment to a geek like me. Sounds are appropriately thumping, and the burping, squelching, and drippling noises the Great Unclean One makes are positively disgusting.

The single player campaign takes the Blood Raven characters from the original game up from level 20 through to 30; if you have the original, you can even load one of your saved games and carry on with the same squads. The campaign dumps your characters on a planet recently emerged from the Warp which, predictably enough, turns out to be infested with Chaos Space Marines. 

The story is standard stuff, though the characters do stand out as being quite good... for an RTS, that is (seriously though, can you name any characters from an RTS game? Except for Kane, of course). Still, I enjoyed the appropriately gravelly dialogue from everyone, and was interested enough to pay attention until the end of the campaign.

What I did enjoy was the new corruption mechanic. By acting in particularly un-Space Marine ways your squads can gain corruption points and later new bloodthirsty traits and abilities. So far, so black and white morality system. Where the system shines, though, is that some of the choices you have to make are genuinely tough. For instance, in one mission foul Xenos are squatting in the tomb of a great Blood Raven hero. You can risk damaging the tomb (and consequently gaining corruption) to purge the aliens, or you can leave it alone. Or, you can purposefully destroy and raid the tomb to gain access to a powerful bit of wargear.

It's further complicated by corrupting wargear, purposefully overpowered weapons and equipment which slowly corrupts the wielder each time it's used (offset by redeeming items which weaken your character and reduce their corruption), and by a series of increasingly powerful corrupting abilties.

It has the effect of adding yet another layer of strategy on top of the RPG stylings of the original game, and though it feels a bit heavy at times (seemingly arbitrarily punishing you with corruption if you don't take certain squads with you in particular missions) I thought it was a very good addition to the single player.

The Chaos faction in multiplayer is good fun to play. Many people seemed to worry that they would end up too similar to the Space Marines as they shared several units. This doesn't seem to be the case, and they end up feeling very Chaos; I just hope the ability to build 'shrines' around the map (which provide some sort of localised buff) doesn't indicate a return to the game's base building routes...

I'll put summing up thoughts, including what it builds on over the original and whether or not you should get it, in my next post!

Long Absence

I realise I haven't posted on my blog in ages, so I thought I would take the plunge and write something!

There are a few things I would like to get up over the next couple of weeks... I've got some a new games I want to post up my thoughts on, including a board game I've been playing recently. I'd also like to put up my experiences (brief through they are) of running a Roleplaying Game on Google Wave and maybe offer some tips to anyone else thinking of doing the same.

More X-COM

First things first, I managed to limit myself to only a further two games on Steam: Medieval: Total War and Street Fighter IV. No more. Honest.

I played a bit more X-COM: UFO Defense over the past couple of days. The game is just as good as I remember it... For anyone who's not played it, it's a turn based, squad level strategy game. You spend a lot of the game looking at a view of the planet (the Geoscape), managing bases and budgets, manufacturing weapons for your troops, attacking UFOs wth your fighter jets, all that jazz.

When a detected UFO lands or you manage to force one to crash, you can intercept it with your troop transporter and the game switches to an isometric turn-based form. Here, you stomp your troops about killing aliens (or, more likely, have aliens kill your troops).

There are a bunch of nice touches in the game; for instance, you have to keep your funding countries happy or they withdraw funding from the project and, if you don't monitor the skies above their countries, they may eventually be infiltrated by alien spies and sign a pact with the invaders. In fact, advanced scanners can reveal what mission a UFO is on before you attack it; terror ships land in civilian population centres and scare the bejesus out of everyone, scout ships look for your bases so the aliens can attack you directly and supply ships resupply secret alien bases (so they can be followed to locate those bases or simply ambushed to replenish your stocks).

The other thing that works well is how you research alien technology. Just about all of the alien artefacts in the game can be researched and put to use against their inventors. While you feel completely outmatched in the early stages of the game (especially as your troops' standard armour only provides minimal project against a violent sneeze directed against you), you eventually learn to use the alien weapons and armours and even combine alien and earth technologies to make your own spacecraft.

Anyway, my favourite part of the game is its atmosphere. The music still sends shivers down my spine, and heightens the tension you feel while waiting for your turn; the game only shows you aliens that are visible to at least one of your troops, so you often spend the alien turn staring at a screen saying 'HIDDEN MOVEMENT', listening to doors slamming around the map, desparately trying to work out where the aliens are hiding. I maintain that UFO Defense and its sequel Terror from the Deep are pretty much the only scary strategy games (and turn-based strategy, at that) ever made. I would even go so far as to say they would rank quite high on my list of Scariest Games of All Time.

Right, I'll be back to write more about my new games when I get back home to my PC. Hope everyone had a happy new year!