Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Dawn of War is one of those games that takes something old and breathes new life into it. In this case, that thing is Strategy gaming. It seems that these days RTS games are nothing but clones of the last one, where greater numbers wins the day and huge armies are the norm. Enter Dawn of War.

DoW offers a new perspective on the genre, where instead of massive armies, the player takes control of a number of squads. With the exception of the Ork race, an army will consist of around 10 squads of infantry and a number of vehicles. This small number of units allows much greater strategic control during battle, as opposed to the "charge and hope" tactics of previous titles.

In addition to this, Relic have taken class-based damage to a new level. Where in previous games infantry could quite easily overpower a tank and destroy it, DoW forces the player to take control of what his troops are shooting at. Infantry armed with bolters will do virtually no damage to tanks, while lascannons are the same against infantry. This means that in order to win a battle, a player must specifically pick targets for his anti-vehicle squads. This allows a much deeper immersion into the game than there otherwise would have been.

All of this, however, is irrelevant when discussing the single-player campaign, which seems to have only been included as a training run. Whatever you do, don't buy this game expecting a deep, immersive single-player storyline. Instead, what this game offers is multi-player. Playing against my friends is the major reason I bought this game, and it's paid off very well. Supported methods of connection are: Internet play (battle.net-style servers), LAN, and direct IP connect. Unfortunately, with the direct connection, only two players may play (the host and the client).

All in all, Dawn of War is a terrific game, in my opinion the best game of last year (2004).