Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s verdict time again and we’ve all been playing Warhammer 40k: Dawn Of War – Soulstorm. It’s Real Time Strategy in that distant universe where the warring space folks are all vaguely analogous to fantasy archetypes. Hmm. Let’s see what we thought of it.

John : Jim. I’ve heard something about a game called Warhammer: 40,000,000,000 Mark of Chaos: Dawn of War: Soulstorm. Tell us about it.
Jim : Ok, Soulstorm is the ninety fifth expansion pack for Dawn of War, I think? And it’s ONLY WAR in there. No making friends, no talking to the monsters. It’s RTS explosions n stuff, with nine races from the Games Workshop codices of miniature armament. Imagine that!
Kieron : (Count ‘em!)
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I went and reviewed Soulstorm over on Eurogamer. This is one of those reviews that someone is going to fiercely disagree with, isn’t it?

The normal Eldar might be a bit emo, but they’ve got some class. The Deldar are awkward pubescent posers, like they did Chaos but didn’t inhale.

Soulstorm, the latest ‘expandalone’ (Relic’s word, not mine, and one I feel I should loathe, yet somehow don’t. Possibly because it’s simply too ridiculous to be offended by) for Dawn of War is now on Steam (Edit – not until tomorrow in Europe. Pah. Edit-edit – and now tomorrow is today. Jinkies!). It’s also available from the primitive constructs of brick, plaster and listless teenage clerks our ancestors referred to as ‘shops’.

My earliest tinkerings suggest that, as I had worried, the two new races lack the riotous excess and charm of their more iconic forerunners, but I’ll look closer and establish whether I’m just being snobbish and too hung up on Dreadnoughts. This does have war nuns, after all.
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This is something of a sad one. Fresh from working with Relic to complete the imminent Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Iron Lore have just announced that they closed their doors from February 19th. The Titan Quest veterans put this down to “Several unrelated events occurred which resulted in Iron Lore being unable to secure funding for its next project.” They mention that their staff are now looking for work, and mention their ownership of their engine which is available to license. Best of luck to everyone there.

Relic and Iron Lore’s forthcoming fourth (count ‘em!) thing in the Dawn of War franchise has revealed another one of its unit types in action. This time it’s the Celestians. Woo!

Thanks, not-gametrailers.

Three grabs of the Celestians in action, beneath the cut, as well as some explanation of what the Celestians are from our resident 40k experts.
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The second race in the forthcoming Dawn of War: Soulstorm has been announced. It’s the Sisters of Mercy!

Thanks Gametrailers! May you continue to live in a grinning future where there is only game footage.

Battles. No, I mean, Sisters of Battle.

Oddly, it’s been announced two weeks back over at Gamespot (See here to see a member of Relic say so if you frown at quotes) and according to google the only people who appeared to have noticed were one Relic community site. Why the lack of excitement? Probably net laziness. That, or that everyone thinks the Sisters of Battle are just Space Marines in drag.