To tie in with the early access to the Dawn of War beta kicking off, I wrote up some impressions over at Eurogamer. I had to resist just making Tyranid impressions for my entire word-count, because I’m weak like that. The beta turns open on January 28th, but until then anyone with a Dawn of War: Soulstorm key can play. It’s now available at 75% off on steam – so about four quid – which sounds a highly acceptable price for a game we weren’t totally enamoured with. (Actually, if you’ve never played DoW at all, I think for four quid, Soulstorm is where I’d suggest you start, even without the early access stuff). Alternatively, Eurogamer are giving away 3000 (count ‘em!) keys at the weekend.
Press release beneath the cut? Sounds about right.
THQ AND RELIC’S WARHAMMER® 40,000T: DAWN OF WAR® II MULTIPLAYER BETA EARLY ACCESS ON NOW
Dawn of War – Soulstorm Now Available on Steam for 75% off
January 20, 2009 — In celebration of THQ and Relic Entertainment’s highly anticipated Warhammer® 40,000T: Dawn of War® II multiplayer beta, Steam is now offering Warhammer® 40,000T: Dawn of War® – SoulstormT for 75% off the suggested price. Anyone with an electronic or retail copy of Dawn of War – Soulstorm and a valid CD key may register their game with Steam and join the early access to the Dawn of War II beta today.
Also beginning today, the full version of Dawn of War II may be pre-purchased via Steam. And on January 28, the beta is scheduled to open to gamers around the world (free of charge via Steam).
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, developed by THQ’s internal studio, Relic Entertainment, is a Real-time Strategy (RTS) game set in the grim, war-ravaged world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 science fiction universe. Featuring vicious front-line combat, destructible environments, a fully cooperative multiplayer mode, four unique playable races, and a non-linear single player campaign with branching storylines, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II delivers the ultimate sci-fi fantasy RTS experience. The game is scheduled for release on February 19, 2009 for Windows PC, and will be available through worldwide retail and online outlets. For more information on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, please visit www.dawnofwar2.com.
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Dr. Quincy, enable the in-game steam community features. That solved it for me. For some reason.
I love this game. It’s everything the original should have been, and then some. And I haven’t even sampled the campaign yet. Truly epic stuff. Shame about the victory screen crash, but hopefully that will be fixed by release (which I have little doubt it will be, if they’re using this time wisely).
Strangely, despite its micro-intensiveness (it seriously rewards keeping every single one of your squads alive for as long as possible), I’m having a total blast. Probably helps that all of my CoH skills transfer over virtually 1:1. Fun times.
@Zyrusticae
Yes! Amazing game. a couple of 2 v 2′ with a mate against 3 AI’s, hard, hard, easy, was great fun. Mechanics-wise it is very much CoH in space, which is all good. One thing that is even better in dow 2 though, is that it seems like movement orders now are just as important as other orders! you can royally screw up your squad with a single bad move order, with now chance of rectifying it with a counter move order, because movement is so slow and cover so important. Anti-dance functionality FTW!
what do you need to run beta
A goat, a jagged obsidian blade and a large stone to complete the ritual.
Sorry, that was unhelpful.
Get Steam, and download the Beta, it’s free and available to anyone now. You need a computer. Follow the link on my name and you can find the specs. Other than that, you also need resilience to deal with the bugs that are throughout the beta. After all that, it’s incredibly fun but vastly different than DoW or CoH, keep that in mind and don’t expect DoW 2 to actually be a spiritual successor and you’ll have fun. Think FPS paced RTS.
well, no wonder its a beta. Their intentions are good, but the controls are totally shut. The interface is kinda messy and overly plotty, and the unit grouping has a really weird feeling. I like their idea, and hope they do some serious changes b4 launch, and we have a game again ! Yay!