Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm

There were many games in 2004 that caught the media’s attention including the insanely popular World of Warcraft, the zany Katamari Damacy, or even the beautiful Team Ninja developed Ninja Gaiden. While all are fine and dandy, none of them did anything for the beloved real-time strategy genre. What stood out for the RTS genre was Relic’s introduction of the Warhammer: Dawn of War series that focused on capturing points on the map with a plethora of units rather than building up your bases.

Now four years and two expansions later, we see the third – Soulstorm—released on the PC. What does it offer? If you’re a fan of the first two expansions, it isn’t nearly as much as they offered previously, but Soulstorm has some depth to it when you examine it closely.

For those who look at the content rather than the gameplay, they’ll be happy to hear that there is quite a bit here to experience. Two new armies make their debut in the form of ‘Sisters of Battle’ and ‘Dark Eldar.’ Sisters of Battle are a female-based faction that wants to purge and convert those who aren’t aligned with them. The Dark Eldar on the other hand is primarily a group made up of mercenaries and pirates that thirst for action. Of the two, the Dark Eldar should interest fans with that take a liking to the Punisher, Han Solo and any other working mercenary out there that has the “don’t give a darn” attitude.

In terms of how they play, the Dark Eldar units have quick movement and unique spell powers that reduce resistances and break the enemy morale. They also can harvest fresh corpses on the battlefield to gain soul essence, which is then used to use their powers that add effects to the battlefield.  The Sisters of Battle are slower and need faith resources that then can be used to power commander units that will tear up the opposition. The Sisters’ best attribute lies with beefing up their infantry groups. You’ll find that customizing your units with weapons and perks to ransack buildings is very effective. 

Also new to the game are a new aerial unit for each race. The aerial units aren’t the most interesting unit to play with since they won’t alter tactics on how to play. They’ll hover and at times become a nuisance for the opposition to take care of, but outside of a few select times, they aren’t as useful as they could have been. If anything, the aerial units are served as a preview for the future installments where Relic and THQ may take the series.

Now, if you are a fan of the campaigns of the original and the expansions, then you’ll be pleasantly entertained with the single-player campaign. The campaign has players fighting across four planets and three moons which are in turn broken into 31 territories. If you’re wondering about the story, it pits all nine races stranded within the Kaurava system battling to conquer the system and discover the reason why they were drawn to the peculiar system.

While the campaign isn’t excellently told as it could have been – the cut scenes tend to lack personality and character – the gameplay holds up throughout. Staying close to what the earlier Warhammer titles delivered, fans of the series will feel right at home with controlling their units to domination over their opponents. You’ll still have the ability to use special gear and powered-up units with your heroes when you enter battles. What’s even more entertaining is that in mid-game, your units and heroes will provide more insight on their stance on what is going on within the galaxy. What the campaign does focus on is getting straight to the point to enter combat as soon as possible.

Lastly, the art design is terrific and stays true to the Warhammer 40K mythos. With the units and races being faithful as ever, the animations and characters are excellently detailed. Unfortunately, compared to today’s standards, the game isn’t as pretty as it once was considered.

Gameplay: 8.0
The two new races add something totally different and enticing for fans to revisit the Dawn of War series. The combat itself is still entertaining as it always has been.

Graphics: 7.4
The maps are dull in design, but the art design is impeccable.

Sound: 8.0
The murmurs from your units are entertaining, the sound effects are exciting and the music is what you should have come to expect with the series.

Difficulty: Easy / Medium
Online it’s hard since everyone has their strategies, and playing against longtime veterans will prove to be difficult to triumph in victory. The single-player campaign is on the easier side of the spectrum through.

Concept: 7.0
For another expansion to the series, Soulstorm introduces two interesting races, but it doesn’t do much more outside of that.

Multiplayer: 7.5
The multiplayer is decent, but it had lots of bugs at the time of writing. THQ has stated that they’ll be fixing the bugs as soon as possible. As for the actual online play, there is a lot of fun to be had, but it isn’t anything different than what was offered in previous iterations.

Overall: 7.8
For the fans of the series, this is a definite must-have. If you are new to the series, it’s recommended that you start from the beginning. In terms of what it brings to the table, it’s a bunch of the same ole, same ole, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing since the series was very good to begin with.