Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2519 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Focus Multimedia Ltd
• Released on: 2006-10-06
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description
Ten thousand years have passed since the treasonous acts of Chaos toppled the Golden Age of mankind. Fires burn brightly throughout the galaxies, illuminating carnage and slaughter as mankind defends itself from ancient enemies. Hardened forces collide with one goal in mind, the complete extermination of their opposition...

Customer Reviews

Excellent budget title for the non-serious gamer
A major thorn in the side for modern PC users is that we have to fork out huge sums of money for hardware to play games without a stuttering frame rate, this is not the case for this game. I play this on my 1.5 GHz Celeron M laptop with 512 MB RAM, with some lightweight shared RAM videocard and it runs with 800x600 resolution and no jerkiness. If you're looking for a simple strategy game with ham-acted cut-scenes then you will like this title.

Beginning of a great era
This is where it all started. Dawn of War is one of the greatest RTS games I have ever played. Unlike other strategy games such as Age Of Empires, Dawn of War is fast paced game without the emphasis on gathering resources or building a town, the production of units rather than individual men mean that you are more likely to get into battles a lot faster. The animation is better and makes watching a massive dreadnaught rip through an eldar aspect warrior more entertaining. The four armies provide the game with lots of variety as each army has different tactics and units that need to be mastered.

Surprisingly Good RTS
Apart from the Total War series, I avoid real time strategy games. I can't be bothered with gathering nuts, berries and firewood to get enough resources to assemble lots of howitzers to rush my enemy and turn them into matchsticks.
Dawn of War has been in my cupboard after it brought back embarrassing memories of painting the little space marine figures about 20 years ago.
Installing it again after a recommendation, I'm glad I gave it another chance. Addictive it most certainly is.

No gathering of rocks, building mines and organising villagers to grow you a fighting force; Dawn of War sticks you in the middle of strategic zones with limited build resources, enough to get a few squads of marines out and about, to crack a few skulls to take over strategic points, which allow you to build more marines, tanks, and small mechs to repeat the process til you've eliminated everything on the map. Marines are created in squads, losses replaceable if there are enough resources, which mean you don't endlessly have to keep a constant conveyor belt of troops; concentrating on building tech buildings, vehicles or research into new technology.

Tank rushes don't always work, needing a variety of troop types to succeed, and keeping a newly conquered strategic point can be tricky if you've spread yourself too thin.

There's a story in the campaign somewhere, to allow you to fight orks, eldar and chaos marines, cut scenes with the game engine struggling to sync dialogue with lip movements ( roll on a martial arts game that takes advantage of this) put this across, but the aims outlined in the mission briefings don't always have a great bearing on the game itself. Kill everything that moves is usually the best idea.

The campaign is a little short (~10 missions), hence the 2 mission packs now available, but for while it lasts, it's quite enjoyable, and certainly worth playing if bundled with Company of Heroes or on budget.