4.9.2006

As bang for buck, value for money goes this expansion is looking to be a very meaty addon. I will be the first to say Winter Assault didn't live up to my expectations about what an expansion pack should be. Which quite simply is content, and lots of it!The campaign, while less story driven will be much longer due to a new global conquest campaign. Rather than linear missions one after another, followed by a pretty meagre "one side or the other" choice at the end, Dark Crusade offers a completely non linear campaign, playable with any race, that's 7 whole new campaigns! While I doubt we will see a great deal of voice overed cut-scenes as were abundant before and after each mission in WA,Relic have said that each campaign will be story driven. Whether this will come up in text form or proceduraly generated cutscenes has yet to be specified. As your progress you will unlock equipment and your armour which can be added to your commander, taking him/her from powerful command unit, to a gleaming one man/woman death machine.As well as this Relic are going to add yet another unit to each current playable race, the additions are as follows:Space Marines: Grey Knights: Small, elite, melee proficient squad who specialise in Daemons. They are the Holiest among the Space Marines Chapters, and also gifted psykers which could mean a special ability or two. Each carriers a storm bolter and a Phsycically charged Polearm known as a Nemesis Force Weapon.Orcs: Flash Gitz: A very neccessary addition for the Orc faction due to the New Long range heavy Tau race. The flash gits are large Nob class orks, but with very big guns. They are very similar to The Imperial Guard's Ogryns in terms of apperance,weapons and animations(Relic cutting corners? Perhaps but a very useful addition none the less.) They deal high ranged damage, but are quite weak at taking it.Chaos: Chaos recieve the mighty Daemon Prince. Much like the Space Marines Chaplain, except very very large, the Daemon Prince is a melee whirlwind. Weilding a large Nether Sword, and some sort of glowing corrupted artifact, the Daemon Prince obliterates his foes with brute force and sheer presence, his placement on the battlefield causes serious moral drops in his opponents as they cower in fear of a Space Marine who has been totally lost to the warp.Imperial Guard: Heavy Weapons team. Much in the trend of the Imperial Guard's advance, fortify, advance, fortify style of play, the heavy weapons team are a mobile defense platform. Two Imperial Guardsmen carry one of three heavy weapons: A Heavy Bolter, Lascannon or Heavy Bore Cannon. On the move they have no attack capabilities and must be defended by your other units untill deployed. It takes about 3 seconds for the pair to unpack and assemble their weapon and place some sand bags, but once assembled the Heavy Weapons team will shred their foes with awesome fire power in any direction.Eldar: Harlequins. No real details on these units have been released by Relic, and even in the Gamesworkshop world they are quite are rare and unknown force. As far as I can tell the Harlequins are a completely independant section of the Eldar race. Not tied to the usual bonds of an Eldar clan they act as mediators for their Eldar cousins in political and diplomatic matters, but in war they become feared assasins, who specialise in melee combat.As for the two new races, the Demo which allowed the Tau to be played for 2 missions showed alot of promise.Tau: The tau are a fragile, civilised race who specialise in long range combat. They are unique in the fact they have no Defensive constructions, excluding of course upgraded listening posts. They do however have allies, the Kroots and their large Krootox cousins make up the melee arm of the Tau, engaging and occupying the enemy while the ranged Tau vapourise them with incredible efficiency. A few important units:X15 Stealth Suits: These are you first units and act as a permanently cloaked, but weak offensive force. They can be upgraded to have jetpacks, and once the Tau versions of the armory is built, fusion Blasters which are effective and vehicular weapons. They can be very useful scouts in the later game, creating safe line of sight for your weaker troops to lay down heavy fire.XV25 Commander Battle Suit. You primary commander on the battlefield is a one man ranged army. With several upgrades which allow him to be effective against any foe, when kept relatively safe your commander will be the core of your fire power. And if things get too hot, he can always jetpack to a safer positions.Kroot Carnivores: The first of the Kroot family of units are melee specialist with some weak supressing ranged fire. Up against the real melee heavy hitters like possesed marines these boys will go down fast, but as melee fodder simply to keep you opponents at bay while your main troops lay down fire they handle themselves well, and once upgrade can leap into melee range to avoid being cut down by enemy guns.The Necrons: Unfortunatley the demo did not allow me to play any of the Necron Units. From what has been released so far, the necrons are expensive and slow, but are unmatched in strength and reslience. In a one on one fight a band of necrons will easily take down their enemy counterparts. However their speed does leave them vunerable to hit and run attacks and artillery.The Necrons entire plan of battle is decided around your monolith. A giant floating pyramid structure that have begun to resurface after 60 million years under the sand. At first your Monolith lies Dormant buried beneath the sand. It is your job to gain enough power and resources to bring it back online. It's hard and expensive and will take a significant amount of time, but once done, your monolith becomes your ultimate weapon. A flying fortress that will tear any and all units to shreds, a unti that will take the combined effort of all your opponents artillery and armor to take down, and even then only if they're luckty or if they have allies, the Necron Monolith is by far the greatest unit in the game.So I recommend any RTS fan, or any gamer out there for that matter, buy a copy of Dawn of War (it's very cheap) and then invest in this expansion (£17.99) and you will have one of the most full and engaging RTS experiences of your life. 5/5, 10/10, this is what an expansion should be.

21.10.2006

As the second expansion (but also a standalone game) for 2004's Real Time Strategy of the year, Dawn of War, Dark Crusade breathes new life into what many consider to be the greatest RTS ever made, improving on almost everything, throwing in a great new campaign and two entirely new armies which brings the total up to seven - that's right, seven.For those unfamiliar with Dawn of War and its expansions - it is a wargame set in the roleplaying world of Warhammer 40K, where the Imperium of Man is beset on all sides by aliens, heretics and worse. The game is about fielding armies of ranged and melee infantry, and various styles of vehicles in a game which has a resource model directly tied to map control,forcing aggressive, expansive play.DC adds a ton of great new features and balance issues, but the stars of the show are the two new armies here: the Necrons and the Tau. The Necrons are essentially an army of undead-style robots, very powerful and hard to kill, very slow moving, and capable of resurrecting after death - and with their own resource model, they're a unique and interesting addition to the game. The Tau feel more like a hybrid of anime robots and feral animals, they are the epitome of combined arms - range and melee. The Tau rely on their kroot animals to get in close and tie up the enemy with close combat attacks, whilst powerful ranged droid-like infantry devastate the enemy. Both new sides offer fresh gameplay styles and a unique flavour to what was already a very diverse range of armies.An immense alteration DC brings with it is related to gameplay balancing, which directly affects how the game plays. Making the game more like the WH40K tabletop game which DoW is based on, infantry plays a larger role again as tanks and walking vehicles have stricter population costs, and the higher level infantry also has stricter population caps. This means the game is no longer about rushing to the top levels to be able to field the high tier technology armour and infantry, and also encourages the player to make full use of all available units instead of technology tier 1 units becoming redundant as tier 3 units are unlocked - now the elite high-tech units really are elite. The game is more combat and strategically oriented than ever, and more fun for it.One of the biggest complaints with Dawn of War and its first expansion, Winter Assault, is that the single player campaigns were rather paltry - Dark Crusade has overcome this in an interesting way - a Risk style metamap. This is hardly original, having featured in the Total War series for years, and more recently Empire at War and Battle for MiddleEarth II, but it's nevertheless an excellent addition to the game. Essentially you battle standard skirmish-style games for provinces of the planet, which improve the overall strength of your army - who you attack and in what order is entirely up to you. It's playable by all seven races, each one has a vague narrative, and lasts around ten hours per army. Meaning if you were so inclined, you could spend seventy hours playing the campaign through as every army. And this is just an expansion.Although there are two entirely new armies, the original five haven't been overlooked - all five have had balance tweaks and entirely new units. Ranging from Daemon-killing specialists Grey Knights for the Space Marines to powerful entrenched Heavy Weapons Teams for the Imperial Guard, all of the units feel right from a personality-perspective, and most feel right from a gameplay-perspective, filling gaps in the army. Some of the new units are of questionable ability or balance, but it is safe to say these creases will be ironed out in patches.Although this is an expansion, it also acts as a standalone game - players picking up DC without owning the original DoW will have access to all seven armies in single player skirmish, and the single player campaign - but only the two new armies (Tau and Necrons) for online play. Owning the original DoW along with DC will unlock the original four armies for online play, bringing your total to six armies, and owning the Winter Assault expansion will unlock the Imperial Guard for online play. This means if you prefer single player gaming, DC is excellent value as it essentially packs in a full game and two expansions, but if you prefer the challenge of playing real players online, owning the original DoW and its expansion are essential.The visuals and sound quality are largely the same quality, and although much of it dates back to 2004, it has aged very well. While it lacks the obvious visual flair of the upcoming RTS releases, it still looks great - and the voice acting is as colourful as ever.Dawn of War is already one of the best RTS games out there, and with a full game's worth of additions, tweaks and improvements - Dark Crusade is essential for DoW fans, and a great place to start for newcomers. And as it is essentially a full retail game with an expansion price tag, the value is astounding.

7.11.2006

This has been my most anticipated game for a long while. And it certainly lives up to my high expectations. I didn't doubt the game would dissapoint, but perhaps it was never going to be as good as people were saying it would be. Thank the stars then, that Dark Crusade is amazingly good.Dawn of War is easily my favourite game for about the last five or more years. So to have a second expansion was always going to be a high point of the season (if not the year). Fortunately this expansion offers FAR more than Winter Assault ever did. Let's look at my personal pros and cons of DC.Pros:2 new playable races - Tau Empire and Necron. This is enough to buy the game on its own.Bringing the total number of unique races to 7, which is unprecedented. Not only that, but they're both very different from the standard 5. Moving on...20 new multiplayer maps - I think it's 20, but whatever, that's an awful lot of new maps to blast your way around. It brings the total to about 75 which is certainly more than enough and they're all rather interesting and appealing too, which is more important.New units and abilities - it's also nice to see that Relic have introduced some new units and abilities to step up the standard 5 races. Orks definitely need Flash Gitz for long range, powerful fire power, and Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons are useful considering their troopers and weapons are relatively weak. Plus Grey Knights are tres cool!It's also great to finally see the computer using ALL unit types and various strategies. It was a shame the computer would easily neglect certain units in the other two games. Now you actually see Eldar using Vypers and Rangers!Plus, the change of the basic function of cloaking is now vastly improved. And for the first time ever I'm using the Skull Probes!Main single player feature - The conquest of Kronus. It's a good idea actually. Although actually playing through all this isn't massively exciting, it would have been more boring if Relic just created another linear irrelevant storyline. Plus, having an Honour Guard and being able to use existing buildings in new battles is a nice features and essentially allows this to work.Sound and Graphics - both have been improved. Units say more things, plus battles have been upgraded in both departments. Skirmishes sound better and look better than they ever did before, which is great.Cons:Unit limits - Limits have been put on certain units such as Predators and Terminators, amongst others. Surely this has been done to even the playing field, especially with regards to net gaming. It's a shame though that it restricts single player versus computer.Loading times - Well, they were never fast, but they've certainly gotten way too slow. Oh well, at least it gives me the time to do the odd job round the house. ;)Lack of bikes - I'd love to see Space Marines sport bikes and assault bikes. It's a shame they've not been added for this new edition....Well, there aren't a whole lot of cons, which is a good thing, and the ones I've come up with on the spot will only ease over playing time. Generally though, what it shows is that it's an almost flawless game. It still has the amazing gameplay as it has had since day one, but now it's just been vastly improved. I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially those who enjoy fast paced sci-fi RTS games, because this is definitely the best since Starcraft.Plus, for newcomers to the series you don't even need the original game. This can be played stand-alone, albeit with only Tau and Necron, but that's enough to get anyone started on the series.10/10

29.10.2006

This expansion pack, will be the best because you don't actualy need dawn of war to play it, you only need it for online gaming. the expansion pack features 2 new races.The Tau are race that belives in the greater good and could be the best in long range warfare but takes the hit when it comes to melee.The other is the necrons a race bent on destroying life in the galaxy, they feature an entirely new economy because they don't need requistion only power and time to upgrade their monolith which is their primary building. They are slow but deadly in melee and average in range, but once their Monolith if opperational nothing can stop, nothing can kill them, nothing can stop them,

7.12.2006

Firstly I would like to say that Dark Crusade is an awesome game, and is incredible value for money.Once you install this you will find yourself stepping away from the other versions of dawn of war, as this one provides the definative skirmish version.Limits of squads + tanks have been changed which takes some getting used to but ensures that this game steps far away from the old command and conquer style where you could build just one or two units, and win.Lots of units now have stealth abilities which makes almost all units useful right to endgame (Scouts mostly) though it can be irritating at first as the AI uses this a lot,

2.5.2007

Okay, so, heres the deal.I bought the DOW + WA dual pack a while back, had a great time playing on it. It was just, fun. Hard, evil, blood-spurting fun, but nevertheless, it had some areas to improve on.Next, comes a long Dark Crusade. Now, i wait for a bit before buying becuase im a bit dubious of how good its going to be - then a few friends bought it and i succumbed to peer pressure...So, after playing the originals with friends, Dark Crusade was like trying a new game! Its been a while since i've been so slow to tech up with a new race - it improves the game so much over its predecessor, immersis you in so much more,

11.11.2006

As my title suggests, in my opinion, this is a major improvement from winter assault. in winter assault there was only one new race, which one soon got bored of and the campaign was the same sort of layout as the original dawn of war.Dark crusade in comparison gives you two new playable races, tau and the necrons. the thing that keeps you interested more in this game is that these two new additonal races are so different from each other: the necrons are slow, ancient, powerful and their economy only relies on power. whereas the tau are young, fast, just as powerful and have a regular economy. Relic has managed to make so that these two races are very evenly matched when put to battle.Another improvement is that there are multiple new maps available in the skirmish segment of the game,

13.4.2009

Since I played Dawn Of War, I was hooked on the warhammer gaming scene, I have collected all the add-ons to date bar the last one (Soul Storm), and I have to say Dark Crusade is by far the best addition to the game. The original game lacked length in single player mode, was fun with multiplyer, however, with the addition of the other add-ons the game is now epic! The Necrons are a powerful race to play once you have them upgraded which requires resources gained through the level, and with the addition on the "Hero" unit, you can upgrade him so he is more powerful, adds bonuses to your army. And the style of play has changed with Dark Crusade, you know have an overview of the planet with the different factions: Eldar,

4.12.2006

Excellent stuff - a real improvement on an already excellent game. The changes to the squad / vehicle caps that seem to annoy many people are actually my favourite bits, as they really help bring the background of each race to life - Space Marines would not field ten whirlwinds as that is not what they are about; The guard would not have the resource to field endless Leman Russ tanks as that would make them an armoured legion and not a guard force etc. This means that as soon as you start the level you are forced to plan accordingly for the strategy you will want to play - if you want a space marine tank rush, build enough Rhinos to transport them in etc.

20.12.2006

This a great stand alone 'expansion' of the Dawn of War series. The introduction of the campaign meta map adds new interest and effectively adds a campaign for each race. The two new races (Tau and Necron) are quite different from the other races and require quite different strategies to be successful so again this adds new interest.With regards to gun turret caps mentioned in previous reviews I think this is a great change giving a better balance to the game. However, if you build more bases you can build more turrets!Another good facet of the campaign mode is that it remembers the buildings that you created when conquering an area of the map. This means that if another race attacks that area and you have to defend,

4.12.2006

My review is based upon multiplayer mode only since I do not playing against AI. At first I was a little dissapointed with this expansion over the original game. The problem was that I had just got to damned good at Dawn of War and had come to terms with any imbalance in the races and start modes (QS or standard). Initially this game felt a little alien, almost like all prior play in DOW was useless. Ofcourse this is rubbish and after a few games online I began to develope an admiration for this new title. Despite what some people say, i think the game is at its most balanced; this is subject to mapsize and starting resources etc - i.e, some races can churn out more advanced units initially so therefor suit small maps for rushing etc.

25.8.2006

I am an avid gamer of strategy games and this current DoW series is an excellent example. It has pretty amazing graphics(the ability to zoom in all the way, combat animations, not just hack and slash). It is very user friendly in my opinion and has a variety of races, units etc. thanks to a seemingly ever expanding selection of expansion packs like this one. These things give it a good replay factor in the long run as there is always something different to do somewhere, much like The Sims, Half-Life and Total War series.As for the future of the game, I read somewhere, maybe a FAQ page for the company or on one of the game forums that the Tyranids weren't going to get added,

20.9.2010

I admit, it's not the best game, but, having played the campaign in DoW and WA and finding them so easy, this was actually a breath of fresh air, you seriously have to fight your way hard to gain territories. But there is some reality issues in that the enemy does appear to have excessive abilities to counter attack you rapidly after you gain ground, never mind that you have wiped out loads of units, it's almost as if the sides are not equal. Maybe I should have started on the Easy difficulty! lolThe missions are sadly repetitive in that if you have to fight over a territory you already gained, then you have the same mission again, takes the fun away a bit.Graphics are nice, maybe a little dated now,

22.11.2006

This game is very good, simple but true. Two new races, The Tau Empire and The Necrons. I only had the first Dawn of war and not winter assualt so I did not think i was able to play this game. But then I found out that it is a stand-alone, so you don't need DOW or winter assualt.When I started playing i tried out the new races. I found the Tau empire to be good (the tau dont do mele attacks except for Kroots) and have a nice variety but I found the Necrons to be very boring and all their units are the same. You can always win easy with Necrons, all you need to do is resurect the Monolith and it wipes everything out.Seeing as I did not purchase Winter assualt I had never played with the Imperial Guard and I found that they were the most enjoyable,

28.12.2006

I recently got this game, and while its only been a few days, I cant get off it! It is truly excelent, the new races are fantastic and the new units are pretty cool too. The way that with each expansion they add a new race, AND new units for old races really just draws you back to your good ol' Space Marine Terminators.HOWEVER!!!!I am beginning to get off this game, the campaigne, while interesting the first few turns with each race, really cant stand up to campaignes on any Total War, which I think is what it is trying to do. So now i have played several of the more interesting races, I am beginning to back off it. Also, the Skirmish mode and AI are quite disappointing, because (at least in 6/8 player games)

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade (Add-On) (PC) - Reviews

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