Dawn of War: Soulstorm Expansion (PC) (Video)

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was a robust strategy gamewhich stunned critics and fans with its solid gameplay, fantasticallyviolent style, and beautiful artwork; it was the first Warhammervideo game in recent memory to not suck. Since then, gamers have beenoffered an expansion pack at a rate of about one a year, most of whichhave been enjoyable additions to the series. Winter Assault,for example, provided a new factio

n to play as and also allowed playersto assume roles other than those of the Space Marines during thesingle-player campaign. Dark Crusade, in turn, provided amuch larger campaign for each race, customizable wargear and honorguards to use with a player's commander-unit, and two more races whichplayed very differently from each other. And now we have Soulstorm,which doesn't seem to actually offer much in the way of new game playfeatures and contains a story that feels surprisingly phoned-in whencompared to its predecessors.

The plot is, essentially, a homicidal version of Gilligan's Island:a warp storm (no explanation as to what that actually is gets offered,but apparently it's a big deal) occurs in a planetary system. Eachfaction arrives in the system to investigate, and then the stormmaroons the fleets across the various planets and moons. Because no oneplays nicely together in this universe, the murderin' begins soonafter. Clues to the nature of the warp storm are occasionally stumbledupon as one progresses through the different planets. The campaignitself covers 31 territories over four planets and three moons, whichallows for some interesting setting changes, but makes for a playexperience that's way too long. If that sounds like an odd complaint,look at it this way: there are 31 territories, each of which takesaround an hour to clear, and there are nine factions to choose from. Ifsomeone wants to play through the game as more than one race, it'sgoing to take them an awfully long time to do so. Artistically, thegraphics are no different than the previous Dawn of War entries.Character models and environments are still just as detailed as before:everything has a nicely war-torn feeling about it, and over-the-topgore and violence are present just about everywhere. The onlyproblematic area can be found with the campaign map, which is so largeand spread out that it's sometimes difficult to discern details whenone looks at the entire solar system.
In terms of new features, Soulstorm doesn't really addmuch to the series. Yes, there are two new races, the Sisters of Battleand the Dark Eldar, but they don't feel all that different from theircounterparts. The Sisters play much like the Space Marines, thoughtheir units can use a "faith" resource to power some heavy-duty spells.It's the same case with the Dark Eldar: sure, they look fairlydifferent and original, and they can harvest souls for specialabilities, but they don't vary enough from their better-naturedcounterparts. M
Most of the races (aside from the Necron, who get the shaft in thiscase) receive a single flying unit to their catalog of war machines,and that's it. The flying units aren't perfect, either, as I noticedthey would fly straight through some of the buildings in a level orwould display some clipping if they flew too close to parts ofenvironments. The only other notable addition is the fact that playerscan get medals for achievements in multiplayer mode, but one can takeor leave these, as they simply amount to bragging rights.

This is the first time I managed to feel bored at times while playingthrough the levels; it didn't feel like anything truly new and uniquehad been added to the mix. The problem with creating a series ofexpansions is that, somewhere down the line, new players are likely tobe put off by an epic storyline they're stumbling into the middle of.Unfortunately, it seems like we've finally hit that point in the Dawn of War franchise. Granted, players who've been with the series since the beginning will most likely enjoy Soulstormbecause it provides some new content and maps to play on, but even themost hardcore of fans will probably admit that things are starting tofeel a little stale. Maybe it's time for Relic to leave the expansionsbehind and start working on Dawn of War 2 instead.
Verdict: Skip
Developer: Relic, Iron Lore
Publisher: THQ
Platform: PC
Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature