Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #302 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: THQ
• Released on: 2008-03-07
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Platform: Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description

Soulstorm is the third & final expansion to the genre defining & critically acclaimed RTS, Dawn of War. In Soulstorm, two new armies are introduced, raising the total number of playable armies in DoW to an unprecedented count of nine while also adding additional units to all existing factions. The revolutionary meta-game that was introduced in Dark Crusade is further expanded to an interplanetary scale, allowing players to battle across a star system. Combined with its sister products, Soulstorm makes Dawn of War the largest and most detailed RTS ever released.

Two New Armies: Two new armies open up a world of strategic and story possibilities. Raising the total number of available armies in DoW to nine, these two new factions fight with a new resource derived from the souls of the faithful and the fallen.

New Air Units: Strategic warfare in the 41st Millennium gains a whole new dimension as each army gains new air units to rain death from the skies.

Brutal Domination: Wage war across an entire solar system as the metagame map introduced in Dark Crusade is expanded to an interplanetary scale. Liberate, enslave, or destroy entire worlds as you unleash your armies fury across the galaxy. Players will now strive to conquer an entire solar system with multiple planets & moons to be conquered - in total 34 maps are available to the player (25 for DC).

Enhanced Customisation: Customise your hero's weapons, items & abilities as he grows in power & personalise your army's insignias, colors, banners & names. Earn & unlock achievements & medals as you prove your superiority online.

Customer Reviews

Just buy Anthology...
Seriously, Soulstorm just isn't worth paying anything extra for really.

For a lot of people there's been on big problem, and that's that the game won't install as it won't register in some peoples DVD ROMs, maybe that's down to the DVDROMs, but it still seems stupid as Dark Crusade (also DVD ROM only) works just fine. Other ideas have been down to copy protection. Either way, it's not really acceptable. So I've had to play my friends copy on his computer.

Another thing is this game was rushed, simple as that, whether this has anything to do with Dawn of War II is another matter but so many little details and finishes have been missed in this one and this is one thing that can let a game down big time, almost makes me glad I can't install my copy. I'd rather have waited another month or two than get something half 90% polished.

Generally the new races are...uninspiring. The Dark Eldar are tricky to get used to and by far the better of the two, but the Sisters of Battle just feel like Space Marines in skirts with a few fancy powers (though hey, I guess they can only be what they are). Graphically they're ok, and not bad considering the engine that's being used and the fact it is effectively 4 years old.

The campaign mode is merely an expanded version of the Dark Crusade planetary campaign, more planets but they are sparse in their territories.

One of the more impressive things are the 114 total multiplayer maps.

Honestly...if you're expecting the big changes that came each with Winter Assault and Dark Crusade...don't bother, just get DOW Anthology and avoid the Complete Collection/Soulstorm. Of course if you just like SoB and DE...go for it.

Soulstorm
A contender for one of the worst expansions ever? Quite possibly.

"You get to battle across an entire solar system!"

... Four planets, each with about 5 provinces each, and 3 moons. Our solar system has 8 planets. It only adds nine more provinces than Dark Crusade.

"Rain death from the air!"

Hardly. The new air units are awful. They're not very fast for air-craft of the 41st millennium. You can't even do decent bombing runs. Essentially, they're just land speeders raised a little higher off the ground. Even Command & Conquer (which in my opinion is one of the worst games of all time) did a better job with air units!

"Customise your commander and personalise your army!"

You can't "customise" your commander. It's exactly the same as Dark Crusade, where you just give them new bits of equipment as they are unlocked. In fact, with the races that were in Dark Crusade, most of the equipment is just the same. And you can't really personalise your army either. There's only the army painter, and that can't be used in the campaign.

As for the new races...

The Sisters of Battle are disappointing. They're buildings use the same construction animations as the Imperial Guard, and their building sound sets are exactly the same as the Space Marines. I think the word sloppy is a bit of an understatement. The Sisters of Battle are pretty much all geared towards fighting infantry, and lack any considerable firepower or any decent anti-tank weapons. The best they can muster is an immolator with multi-meltas, but even that is nowhere near as good as say a predator with lascannons. Also, the Living Saint is the worst ultimate unit. And their unit sound sets are laughable. Most of the sisters sound like little girls, especially the immolator.

The dark eldar are better. The idea of harvesting souls is good. They have a better mixture of units, such as the scourges who can take on infantry and the raiders and such which can take on tanks. Personally I found that the dark eldar took a little getting used to, what with harvesting souls and all that, but I think they were good. Really, I think Relic should have had the tyranids (anyone who's a fan of Warhammer 40,000 will know what I'm talking about). Having another Imperial faction wasn't the best idea.

And as for the campaign... The lack of effort there is astounding. Its almost identical to the Dark Crusade campaign, but with a few things added. The reasons they give for 3 Imperial factions fighting each other are almost as bad as it was in Dark Crusade. Of course, for the sake of the campaign and gameplay, they can't be allied, but they just should have come up with a decent reason. Surely it isn't that hard?

Like with Dark Crusade, a story-based campaign, like in Dawn of War and Winter Assault, would have been better. Although the stories weren't brilliant, the campaigns just had more variety and were a little more interesting. The campaign in Soulstorm is basically just a string of skirmishes. It's not very exciting.

Overall, I found Soulstorm very disappointing. As it went along, each expansion just got sloppier and sloppier. Soulstorm was the worst of the lot. It doesn't add much, especially compared with some other expansions I could name.

Oh, and just like in the other Dawn of War games, the unit pathing is still awful.

Still, if you liked Dark Crusade, I'd recommend it.

deeply dissapointed :(
i had really high hopes watching the relic forums and trying to guess what is in the game, and as a game its half decent, but it does seem far too rushed. some details and shading is off, some of the layers are out of sync, (the tau hq and sisters of battle immolator are two examples)

the flying units are a great addition though, but they tend to either be too weak or too strong, maeing you'll either play the game and forget they ever created flying units, or just spawn on mass millions of flyers, send them to the enemies base and destroy the vital buildings with no thought or skill required.

the animations have basically stayed the same as the original dawn of war, which were brilliant, but now seem a little exhausted. the mea campaign (one of the games major selling points) is good in the long run, having a different strategic element to it, like supply lines etc and the maps are great. But where did the banter between the generals go, they were one of the greatest touches on dark crusade, but now have dissapeared, leaving you feeling like your army has no personality which devoids gameplay, i have to add though, i think this is a huge step down from dark crusade, but hopefully an upcoming patch will sort some of these problems out.

however there is one problem that has put me off playing this game untill the patch comes out, i have a computer that can run dark crusade full specs without a hitch, and loads campaigns and skirmishes in a flash, but it took 7:34 seconds to load a single campaign map, (i got bored while waiting so had to keep myself occupied somehow), then i had to wait again (about a minute) for the mission result screen, (thats right 1 minute to load 1 screen) and then at least 2 minutes for the campaign menu to pop back up again so i can choose my next mission and wait for it to load once again.

its not balanced like the tabletop game but it never really has, but it has never detracted from gameplay so its not really worth noting about, overall then this game does have potential, but need some serious fixing work, and the patch to be a great game!!!