I’m a beta tester for a new Warhammer 40000 game due out the end of next month (wow – double geek points). Man, it’s tons of fun. It’s a Command & Conquer style war strategy game with beautiful sets, gorgeous animations and real balance. There are new ideas (e.g. when a squad loses moral they also move faster, meaning you can retreat them quickly) and it’s multiplayer on the internet as well as vs a computer opponent, with a story driven single player mode. The big thing for me is that while Command & Conquer never held my attention, Dawn of War is very difficult to put down. The style, Warhammer universe, religion, control, mods and pace are powerfully seductive. I’ve been losing hours to this.
It’s running at 1280 x 1024 on a 9800, and at that level you can zoom in and around to see some amazing action. The detail is just infinite. It starts to slow down when you get 250 Orcs running around. Upgrading the RAM by another 512MB and the CPU to 2400+ should solve that.
Maybe this’ll keep me entertained until Doom III comes out, but I doubt it.
More. Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the Unclean.
