Dawn of War: Soulstorm

 

For those who already know about this game, this will seem like a boring post made out of sheer desperation to keep this little corner of the internet alive. For those who don't, I do wish that it will make a good read. If only wishes ever came true.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm is an expansion on the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game-based real-time strategy war game, name *drumrolls* Dawn of War. It is set in a world where crazed nuns and monks wield chainsaws and laser guns to hunt heretics, such as the (not so)technologically advanced Orks (Orcs), to name one.

The Graphics
Well, the game was released in 2004, which makes this post kind of obsolete since you could probably wiki about it and read all you want without having to endure jokes that aren't even funny, but that's not the point. The graphics are good, to say the least. Of course, being a 2004-release, you won't be able to see every change in facial expressions, but the general look and feel of it is still rather realistic and well made. Credit should also be given to the size and scale of things, unlike certain games in the RTS genre where the units are larger than the barracks they supposedly came out from (cough*warcraf*cough*3).

Gameplay

Like most RTS games, a worker is required for construction of buildings, but unlike most other RTS, massing them to collect resources is not needed. Duh, who needs wood in the space-age, we use laserz! Instead, players capture strategic locations that generate requisition over time, and construct power plants that produce power (duh again) for construction and army requisition purposes. I believe the logic behind it is that holding key locations pleases your superiors, prompting them to deploy more troops to assist. There are also "slag deposits" where bigger power generators can be contructed to produce power at a higher rate than the normal generators, and "relics" that are sort of an upgraded version of strategic points.

Units move in squads instead of as individuals, and upgrades can be purchased for every individual squad. So you can have two teams of identical-looking chainsaw-wielding nuns, except that one squad uses heavy machine guns, and the other uses flamethrowers. In addition, leaders can be added or attached to a squad, augmenting their abilities. One thing worth noting is that infantry fire does next to nothing to vehicles, which is certainly not the case in most, if not all RTS games of that time. This makes sense, what can a measly handgun do against tank armour? dent it?

Of course, no RTS game would be complete without different races. The original Dawn of War had 4 races, Winter Assault introduced a new race, Dark Crusade introduced 2 and Soulstorm increased that number by another 2, giving it a grand total of 9. All the races are similar, yet comes with a twist. While understanding each race is rather easy, mastering their playstyles is far from that. The following is a short introduction of the 9 races.

Space Marines: Genetically modified super-soldier monks who serve the Imperium of Mankind
Orks: Greenskin space-travellers who can never spell right
Eldar: Space-travelling Elves who view other races with distaste.
Chaos Space Marines: Heretic monks, the evil twin of the Space Marines
Imperial Guard: Regular soldiers who serve the Imperium of Mankind, your run-of-the-mill soldiers
Tau: Stormtrooper lookalikes, nuff' said
Necrons: The undead have received an upgrade, a technological one.
Dark Eldar: Sex-craved Elves on drugs, steroids, and weed, the whole nine yards
Sisters of Battle: Chainsaw-wielding nuns of the Imperium, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

The presence of morale adds another twist to combat, where troops can be, well, demoralized and as a result, miss a great deal of their shots. This often happens when they are severly outnumbered; they actually shout "we're being overrun!") This brings me to my favorite part of the game, the unit speech which is nothing short of fanatical and sometimes maniacal cries of war, ranging from religious phrases like "We go to spread His word", to repeated maniacal cries of "Maim, kill, burn!", and some philosophical sounding ones like "Many aspire, few attain."

Space-age airmail

Burn the sonuva*****es

Shiny weapons are better, it's a proven fact

Looks like a manhole

Chainsaw-wielding nuns ftw!

Cue imperial march

Playing dress-up with Orks

P.S. The screenshots were taken with graphics and video set to lowest. I wish I had a better PC.