Winter Assault is the first add on to 2004's Dawn of War, once again taking you on a planet of the Warhammer 40K universe named Lorn V, where a long lost warmachine of the imperium lies buried under ice and snow. The "Titan Dominatus" was left behind by the Imperials during the defending of the planet against the forces of Chaos which now rule the planet. The humans plan to retrieve this powerful war machine while the other races want to use it to their own advantage. Once again all 4 DoW races meet and clash, but there is another dark menace that threatens all of them...
Graphics:
The fighting and killing is still fun to watch, thanks to the great and brutal battle animations although it has lost much of it's "WOW"-factor. There are lots of other, better looking RTS now. Don't get me wrong, WA still looks good but it can't rely on being the only visually appealing RTS game anymore. Tanks to the setting on one single iceplanet there is also not that much visual variety on the maps you play on.
A new inroduction movie like the one DoW had would have been great but is missing, and still there are no videos between the missions so WA disappoints on the FMV front.
Sound/Music:
The orchetral score is still great and playing in some of the most massive battle scenes in single player to support the epic feeling. Sound effects have remained believeable. Artillery grenades exploding, heavy guns firing, flamers spitting fire, and the bone crunching sounds in close combat are just great and give the battles an authentic feel.
The units voices can get repetetive just like in any other RTS game because there are just too few commentaries spoken by your inferiors. Voice acting in the cutscenes between the missions varies. All the voices are very fitting to the characters, but seem just a little exaggerated sometimes.
Gameplay:
WA is still Dawn of War, meaning if you liked the main game, you will likely enjoy the add on too. Relic tried to enhance the weakest point of DoW, which was the single player campaign. There are now 2 campaigns, one for the forces of order and one for the forces of disorder. This means that you get to play all 3 races from DoW and the new Imperials in single player now. The campaigns are rather short but at least they are not strictly linear. The last but one mission lets you decide whether you want to play the final battle with one or the other race. This results in 4 different endings overall. Single player is at least more varied than in DoW and the storyline around the Titan is interesting.
The new race called the Imperial Guard play a little more tactical than the old races, because they are not that strong in open battle but have some interesting abilites like gathering inside a building and shooting out. This is fun and fresh in single player but can be frustrating in multiplayer. The new race just isn't well balanced in my opinion, so you won't stand a chance against a seasoned Eldar or Space Marines player with the Imperials. So I hope there will be patches to fix balancing problems that emerged with the new race.
Winter Assault is a fun expansion for Dawn of War fans with fresh and improved single player mode and a interesting yet a little unbalanced new race that might appeal to some players that don't like the straightforward gameplay of the other races. If you enjoyed Dawn of War you shouldn't miss Winter Assault.
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