High: Top-notch graphics, interesting cinematic, very unique gaming experience for the first few times, , very easy resource/military management. An overall very satisfying game in terms of blood and carnage.
Low: The campaign is a bit too short for a RTS game, very repetive gameplay in campaign, awful ending to the game.


Warhammer 4000: Dawn of War is a real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by Relic Entertainment, best known for Homeworld, and published by THQ.The game is entirely based on the board game of the same name. Players of the board game should be familar with most if not all of the game concepts.

Warhammer 4000: Dawn of War is set in the year of A.D. 4000. The player controls the Space Marines, a race of powerful human defenders. The planet the marines made home has been invaded by a mysterious force made up of Orks, a long-time enemy of poor technology. It is your duty to lead the Space Marines to eliminate this resistance and perserve the peace.

Warhammer 4000: Dawn of War is a very unique strategy game when it comes to resource gathering. Instead of the old villagers-gathering concept, this game provides a rather painless method of dealing with resources. Most of the resources are gathered by capturing strategic points across the map. The more strategic bases you have, the more resources you get. This way, you an spend less time managing the economy and more time eliminating your enemies. The other good thing is that there are only two types of resources. One of them, requistion, can be gathered by the method above. The other, power, can be gathered by building a few generators. Requistion is required for most of the basic stuff. In short, the more powerful your military is, the more resources you have.

Most military units in the game come in squads. This can range anywhere from 2 to 10 memebers per squad. The number is usually determined by the unit that forms the squad. This made micromanagement your army much more easier. You can order your units by squads and quickly deploy them to the front line. Vehicles don't come in squads but they are few in number. They can rival the firepower of a full squad of the most fighting unit.

Upgrade system in this game is very unique. Instead of researching everything on your base and waiting for units to upgrade into them, you can upgrade on the spot. It only requires a few click of buttons on the unit screen. Upgrades appear instantly on the unit when the upgrading process is finished.

Reinforcement is a new concept in this game. Instead of rebuild and retrain every unit you lost, you now have the ability of calling reinforcements. There is a button on your unit screen that can be clicked to add memeber/reinforce your current squad on the fly. The reinforcements appear in the same spot as your current squad. There is a limit on how many reinforcements you can call. Vehicles cannot be reinforced. This concept ensures a fast pace of combat.

With those concepts I mentioned above, the gameplay of Warhammer is both fast and entertaining. I do however, miss a few functions like organizing my units into a group and number them for easy acess. The game's graphic engine allow you to zoom very close to the action. Blood splatters and beheadings are some of the things you might be rewarded for your hard work on making the assault into your enemie's units.

The game includes a short main campaign and a skimish mode. The campaign is only 11 missions long. Most missions can be fnished in an hour or so. So the game should take you a max of 20 hours to finish it. You only get to play the Space Marines for this campaign. Other races are playable only when you are in skimish mode. There is not much strategy involved in the campaign. The strategy for most missions are: build a base, mass an army, send army, kill enemies, rinse and repeat. Some missions do seem to have unique objectives. These objectives might take the edge off sometimes.

The current game has only 4 races available for playing. There is, however, a rumor that Relic Entertainment will add more races in the future. The four races are: Space Marines (humans), Chaos Marines (evil humans, very deformed), Orks (orcs), ,and Elders (tech-savy aliens) Chaos Marines play mostly the same when it comes to base building and stuff. Very similar concepts. Both Space and Chaos Marines are balanced between unit number/strength and technology. Orks are the real noobs who focus on mass numbers than anything else. Their equipment are very weak but their numbers are great. Elders are a race whose technology is far more advanced than the others. They process some of the most advanced weapons and machinery available. Their weakness in troops balances that advantage out. As you can see, all four races are balanced against each other.

Each of the four races also process a hero unit and a special god-like creature. If you have played Warcraft III before, you should be familar with it. These creatures are like hero units. They are superior to other units but they can be killed quite easily if outnumbered. They are quite fun to play around since they cause endless chaos whereever they go. Orks get a huge elephant, Chaos get a huge winged demon, and Elders get a giant robot nerd. I havn't saw the Space Marine's creature so I can't really comment on it.

Warhammer looks good. Very good in fact that graphics are in the top 3 when it first published. It is still in the tops now I am pretty sure. You do, however, need a very good video card to be able to enjoy that awesome graphics. A top -down view is present for most of the game. You can zoom in and see the action if you like. The graphics are also very detailed, everything down to the badge on each unit's armor are clearly present. Lag is almost non-existant in this game. I rarely experience any even when I have huge amount of units on the screen. Cinematics are present at the start and end of the mission. They are rendered in the game-engine itself. They sure look good even though sometimes they can be a bit too lengthy for my likes.

Sound is average. Nothing to get excited about. The game is made of mainly peaceful music that changes to fast-paced combat music when the action starts. All units are equipped with a voice and they sound quite good. All cutscenes are voice equipped, nothing new.

The game should keep you happy for the first 20 hours with its campaign. Afterthat, anywhere from 24 hours to 6 months with its skimish mode. Replay value is not too good. Campaign all play pretty much the same second-time around.

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