With the release of Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, the DOW: Anthology also came out. For just $99.95nz this is a great deal that throws all three Dawn of War games (DOW, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade) into a single large box.
I’ve played friend’s copies of DOW and WA for years at local LAN games so couldn’t resist grabbing all three at once and picked up the anthology late last week. I’ve managed to get a bit of play over the weekend and am really enjoying the Dark Crusade Campaign. It’s a simple map based campaign, exactly the sort of thing you’d play with friends on the tabletop but it works suprisingly well when combined with the excellent Dawn of War RTS engine.
Reviewers have given DOW:DC high points all round (click the image to go to the Meta Critic page), largely I expect because of this new campaign mode which differs from the slightly tedious linear campaigns of DOW and Winter Assault. I’m only playing it on Standard and am still getting solidly challenged which is a good feeling when dealing with AI players.
Although possibly that reflects my own skills more than anything! I generally loathe PC RTS games and the DOW family is really the only RTS game I’ve played in the last three years.
Necrons and (boo hiss) Tau arrive in Dark Crusade and I have to say the Necrons feel a tad overpowered. However like all of the races in DOW they’re very true to their tabletop originals – being a small but very tough army. The ‘Get Back Up’ rule is still in effect and it’s more terrifying on the PC because you do actually see the damned Necron Warriors get back up!
I’m enjoying hunting the Tau in the campaign as well, at this point I can’t quite bring myself to play them though…