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| From: THQ
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $26.98
You Save: $3.01 (10%)
New (8) Used (8) from $13.98
Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 1278
Format: Cd
Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows Xp
Genre: real_time_strategy_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 49328
UPC: 752919493281
EAN: 0752919493281
ASIN: B000Z7G77S
Release Date: March 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Just what it sounds like. This PC DVD-ROM is new and has never been opened or played. This is the official full version PC DVD-ROM release. This is not a remainder, CD-R or cheap import. The slip cover does show some shelf wear, nonetheless this PC DVD-ROM is in new and unopened condtion. Buy from a trusted seller. Check our feedback.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 32
 Same game with a couple of new twists. April 19, 2008
The Dilettante
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
I can't get enough Warhammer products. I first played Rogue Trader on my neighbor's ping pong table in 1988 with lead figures purchased in GB pounds. Against my better judgment, I continue to buy Black Library novels well into my middle age. There is something so thrillingly atavistic about the game's values. Very few contempory institutions openly celebrate willful ignorance, blind faith, intolerance and martyrdom. Warhammer allows me to indulge my inner stormtrooper in a safe and secure environment.
But even I have to admit that this expansion adds very little to the gameplay of Dark Crusade. Again, gameplay occurs at two levels: strategic map and the tactical battlefield. Soulstorm's strategic map is slightly larger, with several moons and planets, and a limited number of connections between territories. This means that capturing stategic hubs is much more important and it further reinforces the first-mover advantages of Dark Crusade. Start winning and you'll keep winning. Start losing and you're cooked. I like this, because it seems to me to mirror a crucial aspect of actual warfare (and, unfortunately, life). Even more challenging is the "lumpy" nature of the rewards and incentives the designers have created. Armies are unequal in strength, territories unequal in value, making for some interesting emergent strategic challenges.
Bottom line is that it's tons of fun, but it's also the logical conclusion of this incarnation of the game. Rumor is that it's the last expansion pack for DoW 1, and that the next thing coming down the pipe is DoW II. This is probably a good thing.
Dissapointed March 8, 2008
Kain Rowd
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'm a huge fan of DoW, and in no small part against having two new races to play until Relic gives us the sequel. Unlike lots, I didn't scream and cry that the Tyranids aren't in Soulstorm, and I'm perfectly happy with DE and Sisters.
The gameplay itself is still superb, the type of RTS you'd expect from Relic by now. Aside from a bit more slowdown in the actual gameplay than in previous DoW titles, it's everything that DC was, plus the two new races.
What's disappointing is that this was clearly a rushed job. There are huge issues with the game engine itself, resulting in massively absurd load times and unexplainable slowdown. I consider myself more patient than most, willing to wait 20ish seconds for something that should really only take two to three. Unfortunately, twenty seconds would be a blessing as far as Soulstorm is concerned.
On a system that loads a Dark Crusade map in just over five seconds, and runs the largest DC maps on maxed settings with no apparent slowdown or freezing, the wait is over a minute for your average Soulstorm map to load. Medium sized maps produce the random jerky motion when more than eight or ten squads are fielded at the same time. Fourty-five seconds is the wait which I counted while twiddling my thumbs after clicking on the "Campaign" button from the main menu before the DC-style Campaign interface began to load.
The most irritating thing about this all is that there are so many re-used aspects of the game. From interfaces, to sounds, and textures (expect to see and hear high imperial guard influence in SoB), you can tell that the engine is beginning to meet it's limits. That's fine too, but the game itself shouldn't suffer the way it does right now. The campaign interface is just a slightly retextured version of DC's, which loaded in the blink of an eye, so why does the Soulstorm one take nearly a minute? I wasn't expecting anything ground-breakingly new this late into the DoW series, but it just doesn't justify the load times.
It's really too bad that the game is in it's current condition. It's nothing a patch or two won't fix, but for now I may just put the game down until a patch is released to speed up this clunky engine.
 Love it!!! March 9, 2008
T. Ching (Nellis AFB, NV USA)
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
I love this game! The air units are a blessing to the Imperial Guard who can not maneuver as well as the other races plus it adds new strategies to the game. People complain about the load time but is 30 more seconds really that big of a waste of life? The new maps are awesome and who can complain about more maps? Sure there are some bugs but this game just came out. I'm sure there will be patches to correct the pathing problem which is my only real complain. Also I hope or rather wish they would return the assassin to his former glory. Actually I would have liked to have seen a few more units such as bikes, noise marines, swooping hawks, mortar teams, piranhas, and a larger troop and vehicle cap but hey who knows? Maybe another DoW with Tyranids? Either way though this is worth the buy and is a fun experience especially with 2 or more people playing multi player. Even the campaign itself is a blast. All in all total worth it.
 Until Dawn of War 2 March 18, 2008
Arthur Gardner (Tucson, AZ USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
We all know why we bought or are going to buy this expansion-- it's to acquire the next two races which would otherwise complete a whole series that all equivalent races in the Warhammer 40K realm exist on; the Tyranid being a sad displacement (and THQ claims the game engine for DoW just can't support them...) but about the game itself? It's a revival in the DoW franchise with an unprecedented NINE races to be played which makes skirmishes all the while fun though you'll most likely be skimping out on one spare race out supposing you skirmish all 8 races in a maniacal Free For All is all fun and games.
The addition of air units is a surprising addition though control over them is a bit tedious if you ask me; it almost feels unnecessary at times but they do make up for good measure in the diversity of tactics you choose to use, they're invaluable hit and run maneuvers prove worthy for last ditch efforts to mix things up and can actually save your life when you least expect them to.
The best fun of the 2 new races is to be dealt with first hand-- exporting my experiences to anyone reading this review now does no justice. There's just so much diversity with them as well as an even better, improved feel to just how far THQ has gone with the character model and interaction in combat and movement. Movement? If anyone remembers how WH40K felt when moving an army en masse, you had to actually move them individually, micromanaging them, while if you're an avid RTS gamer, that's fine, but if you simply just want the job done with less effort, it can be a hassle and it was about time THQ had worthily dealt with the trailing movement; now movies move as one large force and actually act alot smarter than I last remember them. In all honesty, it really does feel more like a battle is going on, just as DoW should have been from the beginning when all the excitement about its gameplay died down.
I play this game for the singleplayer aspect. I used to be big on multiplayer, but whenever I do it's usually to play against the computers with someone as tactics seem to become cookie-cut with everyone, seeing to whoever can rush who first and win the battle in less than 2 to 5 minutes in the game... I see no fun in rushing the experience of combat not even being able to get through the second or third tier of technologies so campaign was all the way to go for me. This is where I felt the franchise was skimped on... just slightly. The Dark Crusade expansion implemented an awesome End of Turn style campaign where you moved across battlefields as anyone whose played it can remember, and I actually liked that one, in fact, LOVED how that game played.
In Soulstorm however, it's like the campaign size was scaled down to complement the immense diversity of races now present and accounted for. There are four planets to conquer in the campaign, and in about an hour or two you can clear one planet if you chose to do so, and it almost feels like that's how you should play it. In comparison to Dark Crusade, tactically choosing where you wanted to go and subverting your direction made it feel like an awesome chess game, or Risk. In Soulstorm, not so much. They did keep some of the cool aspects of Dark Crusade with the Crusade such as the hero upgrades, the special 'Honor Guard' unit acquisition; but it really doesn't matter when you begin to play through the skirmish. If it weren't for my previous experience to Dark Crusade, and had I played Soulstorm for the first time through the skirmish, perhaps I'd thought Soulstorm's campaign to be an awesome experience, but since my run through Dark Crusade, it just doesn't feel the same.
In all, if you're a continuous fan to the DoW franchise, more than likely you will or have already gotten this game and I needn't say more on that. As such there really isn't anymore to add on to this except that if you haven't hopped on the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War bandwagon yet, you might say you're missing out on a bit of RTS fun in ways not many games as such get to see-- diversity, continuity, commitment and just all sorts of good fun to be had.
9 Races to play with, lots of awesome eyecandy to look at, if you're a fan of Warhammer 40k this definitely won't disappoint, and it's all we have till THQ figures out a way to make the Tyranid work for their DoW franchise... but of course there's always DoW2, whenever that may be ;) until then though, we'll still have all that THQ has to offer with this invaluable addition to Dawn of War.
Give me more! March 6, 2008
Sean M. Wills (freeville, ny)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
No there isn't anything terribly new or progressive with this game, but with so many lame RTS's out there I'll take a new dawn of war expansion any day!
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