Product Details
 | Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Dark Crusade |
| List Price: | $29.99 |
| Price: | $4.99 |
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Product Description
Expansion pack to internal THQ studio Relic Entertainment's critically-acclaimed real-time strategy hit Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War. Dark Crusade features an all new single-player experience and 2 new races - The Necrons and The Tau - allowing the gamer to play up to 7 unique races from the Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War universe. Based on the world of Warhammer 40000 - the dark futuristic universe from Games Workshop - Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade offers massive non-linear strategy. System Requirements:Windows® 2000/XP DirectX 9.0c (included on disc) 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD Athlon XP processor 512 MB RAM 3.5 GB free hard drive space (not sure about this one yet) 4x CD-ROM drive 32 MB DirectX 9.0b compatible AGP video card with Hardware Transform and Lighting DirectX 9.0b compatible sound card 16-bit Keyboard and Mouse. Format: WIN 2000XP Genre: ENTERTAINMENT UPC: 752919492987 Manufacturer No: 49298Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3305 in Video Games
- Brand: THQ
- Released on: 2006-10-09
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platform: Windows XP
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.50" w x 7.00" l, .50 pounds
Features
- Two new playable races, each with individual features - Tau and Necron
- Brand new Single Player Campaign experience
- Playable by all seven races
- Non-linear game-play - conquer an entire planet in the way you choose
- Watch a unique, non-linear story unfold from your race's perspective
Customer Reviews
A review kinda like I like to read...
The kind of review I like to
read tends to be full of all sorts of info on new units and how they do
in the game. I guess we will find out if anyone agrees.
So far in
my Dark Crusade career I have beaten the game with the new T'au race
and the Space Marines. This is what I have learned.
First the new
style of campaign play. Many have equated it to the board game Risk not
unreasonably. But it's both simpler and more complex. The "board" is
the planet of Kronus blocked into about 15 "provinces," each with a
unique property/special ability. However, unlike Risk, the only unit
that moves is your commander. And although some provinces provide units
you can buy to take in with the commander for each attack/defense,
essentially each time you attack a province it is a skirmish game. You
must destroy the other's command building to win.
Pros: Because
of this style, players can actually pick which race they want to fight
against and how hard it is likely to be. Most provinces allow players to
buy "honor guards" who start the mission with the commander and give an
early advantage. The maps are universally fun, ranging in size from
tiny to massive. A few other provinces come with "special abilities"
that enhance your game, like the star port that allows attacks anywhere
(almost) and the industrial section which starts you with more money.
These special maps, as well as the race specific "strongholds" or
starting points, are more than simple skirmishes. Various objectives are
given, like having to kill 140 enemy units to gain the "rage" special
ability. These maps tend to be a good escape from the simpler head on
matches and require skillful unit management.
Cons: It's great to
run amok on the Risk style board but so does everyone else. Having
taken a Chaos province early in the game, I was forced to defend it
against an attack every turn until I finally took their stronghold. This
meant essentially replaying the same map at least 6 times. Since
buildings built while taking the province or defending it stay on
afterwards, I could field top tier units immediately while my enemy had
only its honor guard. With little effort I could "usually" rush their
base and just kill the main building. Still, it grew boring.
Furthermore,
the special missions one goes through to win unique abilities, while
fun, were questionable. If I had been Orcs fighting Space Marines, could
I have achieved the kill ratio necessary to get 140 guys before the
computer? In another mission one side gets only units and the other gets
only its buildings. The attacker has to kill all buildings but can't
get more men. Fine... except the attacker gets a VERY powerful line up.
Playing as Space Marines I got 3 Predators, 6 Dreadnoughts and 2 Land
Raiders. Plus a bunch of infantry. That's pretty overwhelming.
Finally,
while the strongholds are the FUNNEST mission to play, they are also
decidedly easy compared to most others. By this I mean besides an
initial rush of units, players are given plenty of breathing room to
slowly develop a base, gather units, and overwhelm sections of the enemy
defense. Rarely does one have to face the overwhelming sorts of attacks
that can be found in regular skirmishes.
The New Races:
So
now that that is covered, time to move on. The two new races in Dawn of
War are both visually stunning and tastefully different from everyone
else. Having now played the Necron, I can speak about playing them.
Necrons(REVISED):
By and large the advantage of the Necrons is in their infantry. These
tough little units take a pounding and keep going. The base Necron
Warriors alone can stand up against a determined attack. Added to that
the ability to be revived by other units and a Necron player can
literally storm through anything. As a plus, the Flayed Ones, the Necron
close fighter units, can be dropped anywhere on the map. This means,
not unlike the Space Marines, that Necron players can disrupt unit
formations when up against large numbers of ranged units. Equally
important, the Wraith, a Necron scout unit, is an actually useful "true
sight" unit that is difficult to kill. It comes at a cost though. Necron
vehicles are universally underwhelming. They have no tanks with
multiple guns or siege units to blast stuff from afar. Only getting a
mobile Monolith going seems to equal this out and that takes a bit of
doing. So while I suspect the Necrons will be played by plenty, their
online usefulness is suspect.
As for the vehicles themselves,
they are not entirely without merit. Necron counter grav vehicles move
faster than most other races stuff such that a strong force can cross
large distances in time to make an impact. As a final note, the Lord
Destroyers ability to posses enemy vehicles is nice... but smart players
can easily defeat this with infantry support. Be that as it may, the
Necron Tomb Spyders offer an interesting problem. Each Necron player
gets 4 max and they are sitting inert in his/her base at game start. If
one dies, it lies in its place of death until it is bought again. So if
you lose your spyder in the middle of a turret field... it could be hard
to get it back. By the same token, let a tomb spyder die in the middle
of a big lost battle, move the fight elsewhere, then use its special
ability to ressurect some of the lost Necrons lying on the field.
Suddenly you have a second attack force built nearly instantly.
But
it is the Necron buildings that are the show stoppers. Necrons only get
one unit production building. The Monolith covers all your bases for
production. Thats both nice and not. Its an expensive building so if you
need men faster, its a chunk o change to double your production. But if
you get the Monolith mobile, it can build men as it moves about the map
breaking stuff. As well, all Necron stuff only costs power. And there
is no limit(such that I have hit) of how many generators you build. With
enough time on map, Necron players can get enough power to buy
anything. If the Monoliths get moving, you would not even need to worry
about holding strategic points as much, since they only increase unit
cap.
The T'au Empire:
In the first game, most people I
talked to decided the Space Marines were unquestionably the best. They
hit harder, lived longer and could teleport stuff all across the map.
Now... the Tau are in a position to challenge the champs.
Tau
units are all awesome. The initial unit, the Stealth Suit, requires no
research like Marine Scouts to be invisible and can take flags while
cloaked. They have good firepower and can EMP vehicles, stopping a
vehicle rush. Beyond them the Tau have units to fill every gap. Close in
is covered by Kroot Carnivores and Hounds who can tackle enemy units
and do good melee damage, though less than some of the other melee units
in the game. Long range has the Tau Missile Hovercraft whose ability to
plaster an area with a missile barrage destroys defenses quick as well
as breaking up infantry concentrations. But most important, the Tau have
three units which are nearly impossible to kill. Their top unit, a
giant dino bird kinda thing can be sent into an enemy base, ignored, and
when you come back to it it will have killed most the buildings,
wrecked the infantry and still it will be in the green. Behind the
"Greater Knarloc" in damage but not in toughness are the Krootox. These
ape like things tear through infantry and vehicles alike and are nigh
indestructible. Plus a total of 5 can be fielded, making them
unstoppable as a unit. As well the Tau can field a tank not far under a
Marine Land Raider in damage potential but faster as well as being able
to build two instead of just one.
Besides being indestructible,
the Tau have a good line up of stealth units, the most important being a
stealth troop transport that can carry three infantry units. Since the
Tau commander can also get stealth, it is possible to field a totally
stealth unit with enough firepower to take on a determined assault. And
probably kill any sensor units quickly.
An equally devestating
(read cheap) tactic is to load the new XV88 Broadsides into the
transports. Not unlike Dreadnoughts, XV88s are the mobile turrets for
the Tau and as such, can dish out massive damage to vehicles OR
infantry. And three units of three can be places in a stealth transport.
So it is possible to sneak in just one vehicle and suddenly have 9
"turrets" built in an enemy base. Add more transports for greater
effect.
What are the weaknesses? They are pretty small actually.
Tau cannot build turrets, relying instead on the walking turret
Broadsides. However, with three to a unit and coming equipped with uber
powerful guns, this is not much of a weakness. It can actually be a
strength since the transports can carry Broadsides, allowing a player to
quickly move them to where they are needed.
The Tau also suffer a
lack of tough Hero units. Unlike the walking meat tank who is the Space
Marine commander, your Tau commander is actually a soft target. The
secondary commander, the Ethereal, is even softer and losing him cuts
the damage and moral of ALL Tau units. But again, this in no real
handicap. The Tau commander can gain stealth, making him hard to find
and target. And the Ethereal's special benefits are global, meaning
there is no reason to take him along for attacks.
Finally, though
I don't know how much of a weakness this will be, the Tau must choose
what top tier units they want. One way is big tanks and armored suits
somewhat like Marine Dreadnoughts. The other way is the afore mentioned
Krootax and Hounds. Either way works fine but a special building must be
built and a 400 requisition + 400 energy research is needed to get the
main units. In a tight game this heavy cost may be too much to pay and
thus the top units can't come online. Online play will show this to be
true or not.
It should also be noted that each older race got a
new unit. The Grey Knights of the Space Marines are useful but are
little more than Assault Marines without jetpacks. The rare Daemons
which they are supposed to be good against are only a small portion of
the enemies likely to be faced. For the Imp Guards the Support Weapon is
a little underwhelming. Little more than a semi-mobile turret, the new
Guards tend to be easy to kill and less effective than a regular turret.
Equally as unimpressive is the Harlequin Eldar unit. Its good in close
and is fast to employ but hardly makes a definitive impact on the
battlefield. However, the new Orc Flash Gitz are great units, finally
giving the green guys a useful gun infantry. And the Daemon Prince the
Chaos get is big and burly and, alongside a Bloodletter, can be awful
hard to stop.
Beyond all that, there is little left to say. The
various story lines of each race are fun enough I plan to play through
as each. And since I can select difficulty, I can save some time on
races I don't like. But as it stands, there is plenty of game here for
30 bucks.
(Revised Again)
For a lark, I tried this game on
Hard once I beat it with all the races on Easy. In just one skirmish I
realized it is totally beyond my abilities. I was Tau and my enemy was
Necron. I had a team of three Stealth Suits attack a unit of Necron
workers. I checked another section on map and when I came back, at least
fifteen seconds later, I hadn't even damaged them. The same went for
better units attacking lowly Necron Warriors. I appreciate the inclusion
of a Hard setting in this game and I even looked forward to it. But to
make enemy units nigh unkillable isn't hard... its unfun. Still a great
game though
Dawn of War just got even
better!
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War
Dark Crusade offers a chance for new players to jump into Dawn of War at
the bargain price of $30 or less, as the original Dawn of War (DoW) is
not required to play the Dark Crusade expansion. For existing DoW
players, the new content should make the purchase of this latest
expansion well worth the time and money.
First, the new
single-player campaigns are not just linear stories as in the original
DoW or Winter Assault (WA). Instead, players get to play with the two
new races, Tau and Necrons, and they get to run the campaign and conquer
an alien world in a strategy game similar to Risk. Players will be able
to play using any one of the game's seven races. Even better, the
storyline will be different depending upon which race is played. For
multi-player fans, players will be able to customize their commanders
with special equipment, referred to as "wargear" in the tabletop version
of Warhammer 40,000 (aka 40K). Skirmish mode will still be present,
providing endless playability with a near limitless combination of maps,
opposing forces and difficulty settings. As always, the emphasis in DoW
is on action, not resource gathering or building, so the streamlined
resource and construction system from the earlier versions of the game
are back again. As before, however, certain races implement this system
slightly differently than others. For example, the Orks have the
additional "Waaggh" resource unique to them and the newly playable
Necrons will have to consider whether or not they wish to use their
resources to build military units or raise their formidable "Monoliths."
Second,
in addition to two new fully playable races, Tau and Necrons, each of
the existing races is getting a new unit. For example, Chaos Marines get
a Daemon Prince (a giant demonic being), Eldar get Harlequins (elite
acrobatic war dancers), Orks get "Flashgitz" (sort of like well-to-do
pirates with extra fancy kit), Imperial Guard get Heavy Weapon Teams
(similar to heavy machine guns and artillery pieces) and Space Marines
get Grey Knights (elite Marines with awesome force weapons and
anti-demon psychic abilities).
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War Dark
Crusade is being released at a price of around $29.99, considerably
cheaper than many new PC games often priced at up to around $50. Anyone
who has been thinking about trying out Dawn of War should be tempted to
finally jump into it with this release of the game, as it has more
content than ever, seven playable races, and a reasonable price. New
players and veterans of DoW should be thrilled with the latest version
of one of the finest RTS games ever released. DoW really does make the
40K universe spring to life. The animation is wonderfully detailed and
fun to watch, the game play is challenging and adjustable for many
different skill levels, and the huge amount of content provides hours of
replay value. Recommended for all aspiring Chaos Lords, Space Marine
Commanders, Eldar Farseers, Tau Commanders, Necron Lords, Imperial Guard
Colonels and Ork Warbosses! "Let the Galaxy Burn!"
Ninjas on Fire
Bungie software famously said
of Halo 2 that: "it's Halo 1 on fire going 120 miles per hour through a
hospital zone chased by helicopters and ninjas. And the ninjas are all
on fire too." As a sequel, Halo 2 couldn't quite live up to that
extravagant claim, but DoW: Dark Crusade does.
I played the
original DoW to death, so my astonishment threshold was pretty high.
Nevertheless, this game met and exceeded it. Relic has taken the
original game and transplanted it into a totally new environment, but
all of the new elements blend seamlessly. The new strategic mode is
reminiscent of the board game Risk, and involves capturing territories
on a world map.
The best part of this is the fact that the armies
and structures garrisoned on these territories persist (to a large
extent, anyway) from battle to battle. This means that the first-mover
advantage/inertia factor that made the first two games so interesting
has been exported into the strategic mode. Advantages gained in one
encounter may be pressed in later ones. This makes the whole game feel
like an extended battle, not an isolated series of battles.
Every
important bit of the first two games is here, but they have been
polished to a fine gleam. Graphics are improved, new units have been
added. A nice touch is the updated and varied dialog, which had become
pretty damn stale in playing the first two games. [The servitor unit
(the builder for the Space Marines) no longer repeats "build routine 721
initiated" over-and-over again.]
That said, the water is deep
here, and I would hone my skills by playing through the first two
episodes before wading in here. The play is multidimensional and quite
difficult to master. Moreover, you can't play all of the races without
the serial numbers for the first two games. That's not bad, though - the
other two games are good enough!
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