Caltrops - Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - I thought it was pretty good.

Forum Overview :: Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

by Arbit 09/08/2011, 9:52am PDT

Lurker 56498 wrote:

7-8 Hours to beat single player on Normal.

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melee is still just right click right click right click F, right click right click right click F over and over for every weapon.

This doesn't cut it on hard. You have to be more tactical, using the kick and shoulder charge stuns as appropriate, and liberally use the roll to keep from being surrounded on all sides.

You can only hold 4 weapons and your first 2 slots are always your pistol and bolter, but some of the guns just feel really really off (sniper and lascannon especially) so I just stuck with the melta shotgun and grenade launcher.

...

After that they start throwing bullshit shooter sections and force you to improvise cover while you have no way of healing since all the enemies are waaaaaaaay over there*.

Yes, if you ignore the long ranged weapons than these sections will be annoying. The stalker bolter is fucking awesome, both fun to use and effective. I don't know how you could possibly complain about this weapon. The lascannon is very effective as it one-shots a lot of things with a head shot, even CSM, but you are correct that it does not have a very manly feel to it. The assortment of ranged weapons was pretty good and let you approach each fight according to mood or situation. It helped keep the game from getting too repetitive.

I agree that the switch from 75/25 to 25/75 melee/ranged was jarring during the chaos sections.

Everyone already knows the story. You're fighting orks. Then the chaos comes. Then you fight the chaos while resisting the warp. It's the same as every other 40K game. They try to spice it up by adding audio logs, but of all the games that have had this feature, this is probably the worst example. Part of that is probably because they're usually a way to expand the universe and characters, but since the 40K universe is already firmly established the whole thing just falls flat. I thought giving the player history lessons on the horus heresy or how space marines are made would have been way more interesting but they were just trying to play it safe.

I thought the audio logs were very well done and captured the grimdark feel of 40K very well. I particularity liked the exchanges between the two doctors - at first it appears that the one doesn't have the stomach for battlefield medicine and is a bit of a weenie, but eventually it's the other one that ends up looking like a lunatic, preemptively euthanizing guardsmen and calling it mercy. The problem I had with them is that 50%+ of them are fucking hidden for no good goddamn reason other than to make them secret collectibles.

One thing I noticed is that when you're doing the execution moves to get back health, enemies can still hurt/kill you. It does feel better than "OK time out while he kills our friend", but it usually leaves you with the same amount of health or less if you got a long animation.

DON'T EVEN COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS. It's part of the strategy. If you end up with less health than you started with, it was a poorly timed execution.

I think they've got a good base game set up. The biggest areas they need to work on
- One on one combat with big stuff like nobs and melee CSM. There's nothing to do but either backpedal and drop 50 rounds into his head, use fury mode and butcher him nigh instantly, or get one or two melee strikes, roll to avoid heavily telegraphed attack, get one or two melee strikes, etc. None of the options are fun.
- Pretty much all the levels are laid out using videogame dream logic and do not resemble anything like a real city, except for maybe the habitation zones and the occasional chapel. Most rooms are gigantic warehousey looking things with no discernible purpose, with boxes and catwalks liberally scattered about. Lots of empty rooms that open up to big empty rooms. Big hit to atmosphere, here.

I would end this post with a positive if this were a coherent review.