Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War — Soulstorm (PC)

Introduction

“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war,” is the motto of Warhammer 40k and it’s a little misleading– I mean, there are plenty of hiveworlds filled with paper pushing Imperials who’s only real civil risk is the occasional food riot. That being said, you are not on this rather boring world. You’re in the Kaurava system and shit’s gone whack every since a Warp Storm showed up and started wreaking havoc across the system. The nine factions on the four planets of the system are embroiled in an all out brawl to take it once and for a little while. Choose whichever faction you like most and kick some Xenos and or Heretic ass in this fast paced Real Time Strategy game.

This is the campaign map. That pink thing would be the Warp Storm and it’s causing a mess of trouble for everyone involved.

History

Warhammer 40k is a table top tactical miniature game in which each player has a series of painted miniature figurines and use a series of rules to destroy each others. Warhammer 40k is based on the Warhammer series which are both produced by Games Workshop and both basically work the same way.

Pictured: Space Marines (in blue) deploying via drop pod to get rid of some troublesome Space orks (In the greenest of greens.)

It should be no surprise that this game isn’t the first in the Dawn of War series– considering all those subtitles. Each game in the series unlocks playable race and some additional units and buildings. Unfortunately this meant that back in the day if you wanted to play Dawn of War — Soulstorm with your friends and play Tau, for example, then you’d have to have Dawn of War — Dark Crusade as well as Soulstorm. This disgruntled many because it made the previous games nearly mandatory to play who they wanted.

This was also the fourth game in a series and it’s largely unchanged from the previous installments. The only thing that Soulstorm added were flying units, which were hardly game impacting from my casual point of view.

Dawn of War — Soulstorm was realeased on March 4th, 2008. It’s competition was Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), Silent Hill: Origins (PS2), and Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3, XBox 360).

Experiences

Despite being released in 2008 this game’s graphics are surprisingly adaptable to a crappy computer. Particularly the crappy computer I was using in 2008– it’s great when a plan comes together. Even though I was graphically challenged I was still able to play with my friends.

I remember one match that ended in a figurative draw. His base was across a narrow bridge and was so well defended that I couldn’t get enough men into it. I controlled the rest of the map and it still wasn’t enough to force my way inside. I was playing my favorite faction, the Orks — I mean they’re the only beings in this grimdark future who are having any fun. They were numberless, they were deadly, they were too dumb figure out how a choke point works. We like to think that they’re still fighting to this very day.

Gameplay

The game is real time strategy with an emphasis on base building– there are no gold mines or trees to chop this time though. In a Company of Heroes style the map is covered in strategic points, critical locations, relic points, and slag dumps. Strategic points, critical locations, and relics provide the player with requisition which they can use to build mostly infantry units whereas slag dumps and power generators create well… power. Power is used to make vehicles.

It’s less of a “base building game” and more of a “get into your opponents head and build a better set of units” game. It’s really hard to turtle because you can only build a limited number of base defense turret and they’ve typically got low health. This promotes focusing on making units and more aggressive tactics.

Behold, the chaos of war. BTW, Sisters of Battle love fire.

The defining difference between a single match and the campaign is that the player starts with a rather powerful commander unit. These commanders can be decked out with sweet battlegear by taking territory and performing other impressive tasks like defeating 3 times as many enemies as you lost. This battlegear can turn your commander into a one soldier army and it gives the campaign a real sense of progression.

The Gush

The battlegear is a really cool system for upgrading the commander. Besides their mechanical benefit they also usually look badass.

Behold the Tau Commander in all of his decked out glory.

The campaign also offers the player honor guard units for capturing territory. These units seem really small and not useful but they’re actually really powerful despite being single units sometimes. They’re deceptively valuable.

Each of the factions has a pinnacle unit that’s unleashed when if you claim a relic. These units are extremely powerful and just cool to look at. It’s always satisfying to finally create one and then crush your enemies — even if they get totally destroyed in 20 seconds by a huge wandering army.

Fun fact, this Living Saint is nearly the size of a tank. I see the Imperium has some new steroids.

The Kvetch

The story element of the campaign is really barebone and shoehorned in to ensure that everyone is fighting everyone at the same time. I know it’s really hard to put nine different giant factions in the same sandbox and make them all have a good reason to fight but it would have helped this a lot.

The only way to see how to get awarded wargear is to catch the awarding messages and bring up their tooltip. It would be nice to know what I was aiming for to turn my Big Ork Warboss into an unstoppable behemoth.

This is your only opportunity to see the criteria for getting awarded wargear.

The game can be really rushed based. My friends used to call this game “Hell-Hound Rush Extravaganza” it was so popular. I like a short game as much as the next guy but 5 minutes is a little too short for me.

The Verdict

I really like this one but it’s age a little poorly for me. I like playing it but I don’t really get anything out of it. Each campaign’s missions are the same so it feels really repetitive to play through each of them to see the minute changes in story. I’ll give it a play every once and awhile but it’s just for nostalgia’s sake. If you love 40K and want to stomp your friends with you Space Marines then give it a shot. If you’re looking for a great RTS then maybe you should look elsewhere.

Next Week: Bastion

Audiosurf (PC)

Introduction

A jet bike flying through three lanes of traffic, hitting colored blocks and dodging the boring grey blocks. I don’t know why this jet bike needs to get to a space portal at the end, how the blocks help it, or why the world has all these trippy shapes in the background– who cares? It’s fun.

Look at the colors maaaan.

History

The game was basically made by one guy, Dylan Fitterer. He was a big fan of the game REZ (A game I should review sometime) and a music visualizer. He wondered what else could be done with music in three dimensional space.

Audiosurf was released on August 15th, 2008. It’s competition was Stalker: Clear Sky (PC), Too Human (XBox 360), and Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty (PS3).

Nostalgia

I found a weird glitch when I was playing this with a friend. When a Steam friend is playing the same song that you’re playing it’ll show where they are in the song. We saw the display for the song and that someone was already playing it, it was us. We were apparently already playing the song which didn’t make sense. We tried to make our selections quickly to try and “catch up” with ourselves but we never did.

Medals give you a general indication of how well you’ve been doing, but it’s all about he fun.

Gameplay

There are a bunch of different game modes but they all boil down to the same thing. Your bike will go down the road and you need to pick up colored blocks and avoid the grey blocks. After a little bit the colored blocks that are connected will disperse and you’ll get points, the more blocks you connect the more points you get. The colors shift with the intensity of the music. There are general increases in difficulty but it doesn’t really matter, just have fun.

Songs have very active leader boards. It seems like people get dropped of the leader boards for a little while but it’s good to be king for a day. On the flip side, that guy who’s been at #1 forever might not be forever. It feels really rewarding to get in the top 10.

There are also a series of bonuses that will increase your score if you perform certain tasks.

The game can be controlled with either the keys or the mouse. The mouse control but the keys are more precise. I’ve been in a lane when I thought I wasn’t because I was half way into it. Using the keys moves you to the center of the chosen lane so there’s no ambiguity but it’s hard to hit the keys as fast as you can flick the mouse.

The Gush

I really like how the complexity of the map isn’t based on the intensity of the music but the complexity of the music. A guitar solo doesn’t make the field intense but a 12 piece orchestra or static makes the game go berzerk.

The rings represent moments of intensity.

I love the capacity for this game to help people have fun sharing music. Sharing music is already cool but it feels so passive, this game eliminates this passivity and turns it into a crazy time.

It’s really interesting to see that other people have been listening to the crazy stuff you have. I’ve found active rankings for crazy songs that I thought no one else had heard of.

I don’t know what causes it but sometimes the track does loopety-loops and it’s the most awesome thing.

The game works on a variety of older machines. My compaq from 1999 was able to play it at the lowest settings.

Sharing music has never been more fun than playing Double-Vision mode.

The Kvetch

Some of the game modes are a level of crazy that I can’t even begin to comprehend. Apparently Pointman and Pusher allow huge scores but I have NO idea how they work. Maybe you’ll like them.

The Verdict

I highly recommend this game as one that utilizes your music. The only other game that comes as close to the coolness of Audiosurf’s use of music would be Vib Ribbon. It’s silly fun and a great way to do something else while you listen to your music.

Because I missed posting last week there will be another post on Monday. This Monday I review All of Our Friends are Dead.

Mount and Blade (PC)

 

Introduction

The night is wet and cold. You’ve surrounded the city of Veluca with your group  of loyal and trusty warriors. You’re wearing the best armor and weapons money can buy and are the first climbing the ladder to mount the walls. You reach its precipe and get nailed with like, 6 crossbow bolts. What were you thinking? Never be the first over the wall– who do you think you are, Alexander the Great? I bet you thought it was so cool to have a giant axe and charge forward. Seriously, get a shield, it’s useful.

Pictured here are shields being useful. Do you believe me now?

 

History

Mount and Blade was developed by TaleWorlds, located in Turkey, and was published by Paradox Interactive, located in Sweden. You might know Paradox Interactive for Magicka, the Crusader Kings series, and Runemaster– these guys really like their medieval/fantasy roleplaying games. The game takes inspiration from games like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Daggerfall. It’s meant to feel like the player is a vital character in a historical fiction novel.

Fun Fact:  The review scores for Mount and Blade varied greatly. Ranging from Eurogamer’s 5/10 to Gamepros 5 stars.

Mount and Blade was released on September 16th 2008. It’s competition was, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (PC), Stalker: Clear Sky (PC), and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC).

Oh man, check out those… 2008 graphics?

Compare that still shot with Stalker Clear, mentioned above and released in 2 weeks before.

 

Nostalgia

Game Mods. I remember seeing the guys at my college computer club playing this game and they all had all sorts of crazy mods for it. I’ve seen Star Wars mods where being wookie is just about wearing special wookie armor and all the swords were replaced with lightsabers. This game is easily modable and I think that’s a huge point for it. I know it’s no excuse for its lacking appearance and its semi-limited gameplay options but it is really cool. I’ll admit that I haven’t installed any mods for it but that’s not for lack of them. The internet is brimming with mods for this title and I urge players to seek out and try them.

Freaking skeletons. You can mod a skeleton army! Sign me up.

 

Gameplay

Mount and Blade is difficult to describe when it comes to its gameplay. It’s certainly a bit of a sandbox, there are any number of things the player can do. They can become a trader, become a bandit, a mercenary, a gallant  knight, a despicable scoundrel, the protector of a village, the lord of a castle, or try to take the world for themselves–key word ‘try’. The character’s skills are the main influence on what the player can do. If they want to make a character who’s good at trading it will behoove them to put extra points in trading or looting if they wanted to be a bandit for example.

Look at all these skills! They’re all also cleverly related to different attributes.

But if you want to do what the game “intends” you to do you’ll end up becoming the vassal to a king and conquering castles and cities… until he doesn’t shower you with the attention that a brave and valiant warlord deserves and has consistently given fiefs and castles to Lord Bulba and then you defect and he flips his shit and then you’ve got to flee to the nearby kingdom and hope they’ll accept you after to took over 2 of their cities… I think this one got away from me. But the point is that you can do a lot of things and you never know what’ll happen.

Maybe if you could extract your lips from King Ragnars butt then you might be able to actually accomplish something instead of having me do all your dirty work you stag bannered, stubble faced prick… I might hold a grudge.

Your path to success is based on the troops that you recruit. Each of the different factions has a recruit that can be upgraded into different units. And each factions troops lends themselves to different roles, certain factions have troops that a better suited to different tasks on the battlefield. In taverns across Calradia there are mercenaries and “heroes” to hire. Mercenaries are generic units that perform their tasks admirably but don’t excel in any real way. Heroes are characters that always get knocked out in battle and never truly die. They also can gain skills like the player can which allows very skilled heroes to contribute to each other’s skills, if applicable. These heroes also have opinions of other heroes and of the player’s actions. Some heroes revel in being bandits, other will leave the party if they raid too many villages.

 

The Gush

Do you see that face? That’s Jeremus and he’s the best hero money can buy, by which I mean he’ll join the party just to save peoples lives. How… Why? Because he’s a surgeon. I know medicine from this era isn’t great but Jeremus has got some good ideas and he just wants to keep people alive. He’s not too keen on bandits and imposing on villagers but he’s the only surgeon that needs no training.

All of the factions have grounding in different cultures of the time. Each one feels uniquely like themselves. It’s easy to identify who you’re fighting just by looking at their troops.

There are lots of different ways to alter the difficulty. From increasing the damage you deal to decreasing the damage you take to decreasing the general AI levels.

Being part of a cavalry charge is awesome and it’s something that not a lot of games offers.

Hold formation! Strike like a rogue wave!

I love the Nords, they assault castles and don’t afraid of anything.

I also love the Khergits, they are based on the mongols and that’s all you need to know.

The map is well decorated and looks like a real geopraphic location

It’s a pretty sweet map.

The interactions and dialogue of the heroes is really great. Hearing a superstitious and uneducated assassin accuse an engineer of black magic because he’s doing math in the sand is just hilarious.

 

The Kvetch

The music in this game isn’t very good. That’s all there is to it. It tries to have sweeping orchestral pieces but it’s plain to see it was made in some sort of program and not put together too well.

There’s only 1 different type of swing for every angle of attack. You’re always right handed and you can swing right, left, overhead, and stab and it’s always the same.

Cattle escorts. The cattle escort missions are the worst type of quests to get. They’re damn hard to control and it’s just tedious and not fun.

All the prisoners are only worth 50 denars because a Swadian Knight is just as valuable as a Swadian recruit.

The food system is really simple and seems merely ornamental.

 

The Verdict

This game is pretty good but after playing the sequel it feels incomplete. Mount and Blade: Warband has so much more polish and it really improves the games feel end experience. So I can’t recommend this, but only because Warband is better. Nostalgia status: Unblinded.

Next Week: Max Payne