Winter Assault Review I: Overview
Any errors in this review of Winter Assault, please comment or send an email to me.
Overview:
I’ve been trying out this RTS expansion to Warhammer 40K for the past few weeks. This game had been released since 21 September 2005. Basically, an expansion pack is an addition to an existing game, released as a supplement to the original game.
An expansion pack has the following features:
1. It continues the story from the original game.
2. It adds a whole new race and new units to the existing races in the original game.
3. It adds new single player campaigns to the original game.
4. It serves to make the original game more interactive and also improve bad features of the original game.
5. It adds new visual game effects as well as new game soundtracks.
6. Some of the units from the original game undergo modifications.
7. The cost of the expansion pack is cheaper than the original game.
8. The expansion pack in most cases require the original game installed in order to play.
9. It is usually released due to the popularity and success of the original game.
10. Improved multiplayer experience.
And so on…..
Winter Assault has most of the features of an expansion pack, except for the fact that it does not continue the story from Warhammer 40K. This is probably due to the case that an entire new game has to be developed as a sequel to Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War because the ending of Dawn of War requires it to be so. Hence, Winter Assault has an entire new storyline that focuses on an artifact called the Titan – a war vessel of untold power that was owned by the Space Marines/Imperial Guards, but have been lost to them, when the planet of Lorn V had been conquered by the forces of Chaos. In Winter Assault, players can assume the role of any of the four races in the game, in order to gain control of the Titan, for their own purposes.
Winter Assault and Dawn of War combines science fiction with fantasy to give a whole new experience of Real Time Strategy gaming. Space Marines are inspired from science fiction stories, where they are humans modified to perfection as combat soldiers due to genetic manipulation which enhances their anatomy. The Eldar are inspired from J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Elven race: Their anatomy are similar, their skeletal structures are thin and long, with graceful movements, and they are both an ancient race. The imperial guards are likened to our present day soldiers with similar military equipments.
Differences between Winter Assault and other RTS games:
Winter Assault is different from other traditional RTS games like Warcraft and Command and Conquer in the following respects:
1. Winter Assault infantry units are produced in squads/groups instead of 1 single unit.
2. Players do not gather resources from a certain location by using builder units. Instead, players capture a strategic location to acquire resources: the greater number of strategic locations the player capture, the faster the inflow of resources to the player.
3. Winter Assault is the first game to produce squad based hero units, eg. The command squad.
4. Winter Assault does not continue the storyline from the original game.
5. Winter Assault has new visual effects – the persistent bodies effect allows dead infantry corpses to remain in the battlefield after the original units are killed, adding to the realism of the game.(But you need a higher end graphics card and more system memory to prevent lagging of the game)
6. Winter Assault does not have air and sea based units.
7. Winter Assault units unlike Command and Conquer units do not gain combat experience when fighting, instead they are upgraded through their own military buildings.
Etc, etc…….
Similarities between Winter Assault and other RTS games:
As usual, Winter Assault is a RTS games like any others with the flowing features:
1. It is still a resource gathering game.
2. An unplayable guest race appears at the end of the game.
3. One can only win the game by fulfilling certain requirements, the most basic being to annihilate the opposition.
4. It employs a top down view on the battlefield.
Etc, etc……
Strengths and Weaknesses of Winter Assault:
Drawing from the feedback of the original game Dawn of War, the developers of Winter Assault sought to make it a better game. Players can now take command of any of the 4 different races of the game instead of only taking command of the Space Marines only in the original game. Incidentally, this means that Winter Assault has 4 different endings with a victory scenario for every race at the end of the game. The addition of the Imperial Guard race adds a defensive style of gameplay which would appeal to players who like to stay back at their base to upgrade their technology before striking out at their enemies. Every race has an additional new unit to complement and make the races to become more balanced in gameplay. Also some units become modified in this expansion and new abilities added to some units. New graphical effects have also been added: features such as persistent bodies and persistent scarring add to the realism of the game while the soundtrack of the game has been expanded. I especially like the Imperial Guard soundtrack as it reflects the heroic attributes of their race. The opening screenshot of each mission do not lead directly into the game but allows the player to click a button called start mission before the game starts, this allows players to have more control over the game. There are several eye candies in the expansion which would appeal to players which I would not reveal further here, but would say that they involve “spectacular” fighting between super units. The developers have created the Ork race as a rather low intelligence race, and they have exploited this characteristic of the Ork and bring out laughter and humour for the players in the Chaos campaign, this is an important aspect that helps to move the story along and keep the player interested in the game. Finally, players can enjoy a new surprise at the last mission of the game.
There are few areas that need improvement in the expansion. One of which is the movement of the Imperial Guard units. When infantry and the Imperial Guard Baneblade are moving together, the movement of the group tends to become disorganised. Also, players need to be careful not to place Imperial Guard structures too close together, I have got the problem of the Baneblade being stuck in between some buildings and hence have to rebuild this unit at another location from scratch. Due to the large size of the Baneblade, it needs a larger amount of room to navigate. Another problem in the game is in the 2nd last mission of the campaign where the mission branches into either only one race that can get into the final mission. The feature that allows players to switch sides in this mission can confuse the gameplay, as the player has to take charge of 2 races in this mission. Also, for the disorder missions, when the Psychic Gate is opened, it will result in mission failure a few minutes later if the player does not get their units to inside the Psychic Gate in time. Hence, players can only focus on playing only 1 side of the disorder race: Orks or Chaos, as there is not enough time to take charge of both races. As for the voice over for General Sturnn and Lord Crull, it is overly done, which makes it unappealing, besides this, the rest of the in-game audio is nice. Finally, the developers can add air and sea units to the gameplay, as Winter Assault only currently support land based units, which would make the gameplay even more interesting.
Overall, I would give the expansion a 8.5/10 grading.
Strategies Of the 5 different Races:
The 5 different races in the game all employ different strategies of gameplay.
The Imperial Guard is best suited for defensive strategies, as they are weak at the beginning of the game due to lack of powerful offensive units that can take a lot of punishments and also dish out large amounts of damage. The player may possibly have to stay back and research to the 3rd tier of technology before he can safely go on the offensive. Tunneling and garrisoning strategies are hence important to the player at the beginning of the game.
The Eldar’s infantry units cannot take large amounts of punishment, hence they are more appropriate for hit and run tactics, and also surprise attacks. Due to the webway technology of the Eldar, their units can launch surprise attacks on their enemies from any locations on the map as long as there is a webway gate and their units can teleport instantaneously from one webway gate to another. The Eldar is also extremely mobile. Their buildings can be relocated to any location on the map as long as there is a webway gate at that other location.
The Space Marines can focus on both offensive and defensive strategies as their units are extremely versatile. Each space marine squad can be upgraded to specialize in one type of equipment according to the strategy of the player. The space marine squads are genetically enhanced super humans, hence being able to take more amounts of punishments than the other races of the game. The space marines have access to some of the most power vehicles and units in the game which include Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Predators, as well as the Land Raiders. Hence, they can be a very offensive race.
The Chaos Space Marines, evil counterpart to the Space Marine race use the power of chaos to enhance their already formidable abilities as former space marines. Their similarity to space marine troops and also the addition of chaos powers makes them even more appropriate to be played as an offensive race. The strongest infantry that can be produced is the possessed space marine, and the obliterator squad, the equivalent of the space marine’s terminator squad. Finally the super unit called the Bloodthirster is almost unstoppable.
The Ork race dominates and is most effective in large swarming populations: The larger the population, the more powerful they become. Hence, Orks are also considered as offensive race, due to their unit’s innate desire for war and bloodshed and most importantly, this race has no fear(For more history on the races of Winter Assault, you can refer to the relevant entries in Wikipedia.)
My Favourite Unit Of The Game:
Although the Avatar of Khaine is not the most powerful unit in the game, I like this superunit because its attacks are visually stunning. Here’s a few screenshots:
Overview:
I’ve been trying out this RTS expansion to Warhammer 40K for the past few weeks. This game had been released since 21 September 2005. Basically, an expansion pack is an addition to an existing game, released as a supplement to the original game.
An expansion pack has the following features:
1. It continues the story from the original game.
2. It adds a whole new race and new units to the existing races in the original game.
3. It adds new single player campaigns to the original game.
4. It serves to make the original game more interactive and also improve bad features of the original game.
5. It adds new visual game effects as well as new game soundtracks.
6. Some of the units from the original game undergo modifications.
7. The cost of the expansion pack is cheaper than the original game.
8. The expansion pack in most cases require the original game installed in order to play.
9. It is usually released due to the popularity and success of the original game.
10. Improved multiplayer experience.
And so on…..
Winter Assault has most of the features of an expansion pack, except for the fact that it does not continue the story from Warhammer 40K. This is probably due to the case that an entire new game has to be developed as a sequel to Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War because the ending of Dawn of War requires it to be so. Hence, Winter Assault has an entire new storyline that focuses on an artifact called the Titan – a war vessel of untold power that was owned by the Space Marines/Imperial Guards, but have been lost to them, when the planet of Lorn V had been conquered by the forces of Chaos. In Winter Assault, players can assume the role of any of the four races in the game, in order to gain control of the Titan, for their own purposes.
Winter Assault and Dawn of War combines science fiction with fantasy to give a whole new experience of Real Time Strategy gaming. Space Marines are inspired from science fiction stories, where they are humans modified to perfection as combat soldiers due to genetic manipulation which enhances their anatomy. The Eldar are inspired from J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Elven race: Their anatomy are similar, their skeletal structures are thin and long, with graceful movements, and they are both an ancient race. The imperial guards are likened to our present day soldiers with similar military equipments.
Differences between Winter Assault and other RTS games:
Winter Assault is different from other traditional RTS games like Warcraft and Command and Conquer in the following respects:
1. Winter Assault infantry units are produced in squads/groups instead of 1 single unit.
2. Players do not gather resources from a certain location by using builder units. Instead, players capture a strategic location to acquire resources: the greater number of strategic locations the player capture, the faster the inflow of resources to the player.
3. Winter Assault is the first game to produce squad based hero units, eg. The command squad.
4. Winter Assault does not continue the storyline from the original game.
5. Winter Assault has new visual effects – the persistent bodies effect allows dead infantry corpses to remain in the battlefield after the original units are killed, adding to the realism of the game.(But you need a higher end graphics card and more system memory to prevent lagging of the game)
6. Winter Assault does not have air and sea based units.
7. Winter Assault units unlike Command and Conquer units do not gain combat experience when fighting, instead they are upgraded through their own military buildings.
Etc, etc…….
Similarities between Winter Assault and other RTS games:
As usual, Winter Assault is a RTS games like any others with the flowing features:
1. It is still a resource gathering game.
2. An unplayable guest race appears at the end of the game.
3. One can only win the game by fulfilling certain requirements, the most basic being to annihilate the opposition.
4. It employs a top down view on the battlefield.
Etc, etc……
Strengths and Weaknesses of Winter Assault:
Drawing from the feedback of the original game Dawn of War, the developers of Winter Assault sought to make it a better game. Players can now take command of any of the 4 different races of the game instead of only taking command of the Space Marines only in the original game. Incidentally, this means that Winter Assault has 4 different endings with a victory scenario for every race at the end of the game. The addition of the Imperial Guard race adds a defensive style of gameplay which would appeal to players who like to stay back at their base to upgrade their technology before striking out at their enemies. Every race has an additional new unit to complement and make the races to become more balanced in gameplay. Also some units become modified in this expansion and new abilities added to some units. New graphical effects have also been added: features such as persistent bodies and persistent scarring add to the realism of the game while the soundtrack of the game has been expanded. I especially like the Imperial Guard soundtrack as it reflects the heroic attributes of their race. The opening screenshot of each mission do not lead directly into the game but allows the player to click a button called start mission before the game starts, this allows players to have more control over the game. There are several eye candies in the expansion which would appeal to players which I would not reveal further here, but would say that they involve “spectacular” fighting between super units. The developers have created the Ork race as a rather low intelligence race, and they have exploited this characteristic of the Ork and bring out laughter and humour for the players in the Chaos campaign, this is an important aspect that helps to move the story along and keep the player interested in the game. Finally, players can enjoy a new surprise at the last mission of the game.
There are few areas that need improvement in the expansion. One of which is the movement of the Imperial Guard units. When infantry and the Imperial Guard Baneblade are moving together, the movement of the group tends to become disorganised. Also, players need to be careful not to place Imperial Guard structures too close together, I have got the problem of the Baneblade being stuck in between some buildings and hence have to rebuild this unit at another location from scratch. Due to the large size of the Baneblade, it needs a larger amount of room to navigate. Another problem in the game is in the 2nd last mission of the campaign where the mission branches into either only one race that can get into the final mission. The feature that allows players to switch sides in this mission can confuse the gameplay, as the player has to take charge of 2 races in this mission. Also, for the disorder missions, when the Psychic Gate is opened, it will result in mission failure a few minutes later if the player does not get their units to inside the Psychic Gate in time. Hence, players can only focus on playing only 1 side of the disorder race: Orks or Chaos, as there is not enough time to take charge of both races. As for the voice over for General Sturnn and Lord Crull, it is overly done, which makes it unappealing, besides this, the rest of the in-game audio is nice. Finally, the developers can add air and sea units to the gameplay, as Winter Assault only currently support land based units, which would make the gameplay even more interesting.
Overall, I would give the expansion a 8.5/10 grading.
Strategies Of the 5 different Races:
The 5 different races in the game all employ different strategies of gameplay.
The Imperial Guard is best suited for defensive strategies, as they are weak at the beginning of the game due to lack of powerful offensive units that can take a lot of punishments and also dish out large amounts of damage. The player may possibly have to stay back and research to the 3rd tier of technology before he can safely go on the offensive. Tunneling and garrisoning strategies are hence important to the player at the beginning of the game.
The Eldar’s infantry units cannot take large amounts of punishment, hence they are more appropriate for hit and run tactics, and also surprise attacks. Due to the webway technology of the Eldar, their units can launch surprise attacks on their enemies from any locations on the map as long as there is a webway gate and their units can teleport instantaneously from one webway gate to another. The Eldar is also extremely mobile. Their buildings can be relocated to any location on the map as long as there is a webway gate at that other location.
The Space Marines can focus on both offensive and defensive strategies as their units are extremely versatile. Each space marine squad can be upgraded to specialize in one type of equipment according to the strategy of the player. The space marine squads are genetically enhanced super humans, hence being able to take more amounts of punishments than the other races of the game. The space marines have access to some of the most power vehicles and units in the game which include Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Predators, as well as the Land Raiders. Hence, they can be a very offensive race.
The Chaos Space Marines, evil counterpart to the Space Marine race use the power of chaos to enhance their already formidable abilities as former space marines. Their similarity to space marine troops and also the addition of chaos powers makes them even more appropriate to be played as an offensive race. The strongest infantry that can be produced is the possessed space marine, and the obliterator squad, the equivalent of the space marine’s terminator squad. Finally the super unit called the Bloodthirster is almost unstoppable.
The Ork race dominates and is most effective in large swarming populations: The larger the population, the more powerful they become. Hence, Orks are also considered as offensive race, due to their unit’s innate desire for war and bloodshed and most importantly, this race has no fear(For more history on the races of Winter Assault, you can refer to the relevant entries in Wikipedia.)
My Favourite Unit Of The Game:
Although the Avatar of Khaine is not the most powerful unit in the game, I like this superunit because its attacks are visually stunning. Here’s a few screenshots:
posted by Snow Angel at 4:14 AM
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