Tag: Dawn of War II

A Peek Into the Mind of Sonic Rob

Doop de doo, good morning, computer. Starting you up, dum de dum*. I’m going to go get some coffee while you do that.

Ah, that’s better. Hello, work chat client. Hello, personal chat client. Hello, Outlook; go away now. Hello, web browser. Hi there Google Reader.

Oh, Google Reader. Look at you. You look so healthy right now. Nobody would ever know.

Sonic Rob pours out some coffee for his RSS aggregator.

Penny Arcade, that’s nice. Questionable Content, you’re really more of a routine than something I “enjoy”. Oh Rude Pundit, you so rude. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, argh, I’m incredibly backed up with you. Let’s clear out some articles that I’m not going to get to.

Thing about Settlers: don’t need to read. Thing about graphics cards: don’t need to read. Thing about Battlefield 3 mods: don’t need to read. Thing about PC monitor tech plateauing: open in new tab. Indie game, AAA game, MMO Beta: mlehmpgh. Dead Island 2 review: hm. News that there may be news about another XCOM game: huzzah.

“Relic Foresees ‘Strong Possibility’ Of More Dawn Of War”

*Cough* I’m sorry, who what now?

Continue reading A Peek Into the Mind of Sonic Rob

Chat Box

Sonic Rob: http://www.shacknews.com/article/68921/dawn-war-3-combines-dow1
FyreHaar: “Now Dawn of War III, either way, is going to have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like.”
FyreHaar: how do we feel about this statement?
FyreHaar: that is very DOWI actually
Sonic Rob: sounds like Dark Crusade to me
FyreHaar: indeed
FyreHaar: I liked in DOWI that the planet was going to shit
FyreHaar: you just had very discreet goals within the larger conflict
Sonic Rob: well, maybe they will do a thing in DoW 3 where the results of your games affect the flow of everyone on the server
Sonic Rob: kinda like in the Warhammer MMO
FyreHaar: oohhh
Sonic Rob: world PVP in an RTS
FyreHaar: whoa
Sonic Rob: but honestly, I’d wager they don’t have a line of code yet
Sonic Rob: there are many routes they could take
Continue reading Chat Box

In Other News, Salt is Salty

Via Shacknews, we’re informed that THQ and Games Workshop have announced an extension of THQ’s license to publish games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This initially sounds unsurprising – why futz with a good thing, after all – but it at least suggests that GW is feeling good about what they’ve seen of Space Marine, Dark Millennium, and maybe Dawn of War 3 as well. To be fair, GW seems to feel pretty good about pretty much any licensed project; if someone had sat me down and screened Ultramarines for my approval, I’d have canned the whole thing and eaten the cost.

That’s not to say that there aren’t good GW licensees – I’ve heard the Fantasy Flight RPGs are good, and the Black Library turns out some good stuff – but honestly it doesn’t seem like GW are actually that picky, so good licensed product like DoW seems as much a product of luck as of careful management of the property.

Still, we can hope that there’s more Chaos Rising on the way and less Soulstorm.

-ssr

Game Chat – Dawn of War II: Retribution

Our ongoing chat coverage of Dawn of War II: Retribution continues now that I’ve been playing for about 6 hours and have something to add to my sister’s earlier comments:

Sonic Rob: It’s funny, you know Brotherhood and Retribution are both refreshes of previous titles more than new games or even proper sequels
Sonic Rob: I’m really finding AssBro more compelling, tho
Fyrehaar: more compelling than?
Sonic Rob: than retribution
Fyrehaar: ahh
Fyrehaar: I am now very interested in the single player
Fyrehaar: each has the same missions with different plots
Fyrehaar: I want to see what it is for each of them
Sonic Rob: so far I’ve mostly been playing the marines campaign
Sonic Rob: by and large I don’t give a shit about these marines
Sonic Rob: it is really frustrating not being Poopus
Sonic Rob: Diomedes is a goddamned moron
Sonic Rob: and he is running the show
Sonic Rob: not me!
Sonic Rob: I felt like Poopus was my avatar, you know?
Sonic Rob: that’s me, in the game
Sonic Rob: Diomedes and I disagree on a lot
Sonic Rob: and he’s the one who gets to decide even tho I’m the one who paid the 40 bucks!

Continue reading Game Chat – Dawn of War II: Retribution

Game Chat – DOW II: Retribution, First Impressions

DOW II: Retribution launched on March 1. As DOW II is the official game of fireandsonic.com I had it on day one. Once Sonic gets his spiffy collector’s edition in the mail we will have a more in depth review.

FyreHaar: started playing retribution last night

SonicRob: verdict?

FyreHaar: well,  it runs a bit slow but doesn’t crash

SonicRob: huh.  more demanding

FyreHaar: which is weird.

Continue reading Game Chat – DOW II: Retribution, First Impressions

Chat Box Special – Geek Love

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot?!: allo?
FyreHaar: allo!
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot?!: the new DoW expansion has been released!
FyreHaar: yes!
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot?!: shall I download it for you?
FyreHaar: I am trying to decide if I want the collector’s edition, it has posters
FyreHaar: screw it, yes please!!!
FyreHaar: you are the bestest husband ever!!!!!
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot?!: I think you get bonus stuff for the race of your choice, which is that?
 FyreHaar: oh! Eldar, please, unless you don’t approve, in which case, space marines

Geek Love is a partner who starts the Steam download so that by the time you get home from work, the new expansion pack is ready to play.

2nd DoW2 Expansion Announced; Rob Swears a Lot

Sonic Rob: WAAAGHHHH!!!
FyreHaar: the comments are amazing
FyreHaar: 90% of them are “yay Ork in a pirate hat, yay!”
FyreHaar: and the others are all “DOWII sucks”
Sonic Rob: looks like a Freebooterz Kaptin
Sonic Rob: fucking SC2 nubs
Sonic Rob: fuck off
Sonic Rob: I’m sorry you can’t win a match without turtling up in a base
FyreHaar: they all complain that it’s too fast or that you have to get strategic points
Sonic Rob: DOW makes you get out there and fucking fight!
FyreHaar: exactly!!!
Sonic Rob: CnB was talking about playing SC2 last night
Sonic Rob: apparently a lot of people put together a single rush
Sonic Rob: if it doesn’t work, they sit there and wait to die
FyreHaar: damn
FyreHaar: this dude is talking shit about the story line of DOW II
FyreHaar: and how he has nothing in common with a space marine
FyreHaar: of course you don’t you stupid fucker
FyreHaar: jesus
Sonic Rob: wtf?
Sonic Rob: you wanna play a RTS where the units are all fat gamers?

Now With New and Improved Hellfire

It’s interesting to me that despite the numerous inducements to go corrupted in Chaos Rising – the nifty corrupting wargear, the ever-growing list of corruption traits, and the bullshit difficulty of some of those secondary redemption mission goals – most of the people I’ve seen writing on the Relic forums, as well as both Fyre and me, have gone as pure as possible for at least their first run through the game. This is in spite of the fact that players who strive for purity will only get a single purity-based trait, as well as having to deal with irritating missions and occasionally needing to literally cripple their troops with redemption items that cause them to take more damage in return for purging a bit of corruption after each mission.

Fyre’s turn away from the Dark Gods in particular is a bit of a surprise. Seriously, Kidd, I though Khorne was your boy. What happened?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my case it’s a matter of self-image. I know that the Force Commander, Tarkus, Cyrus, Thaddeus, and (mostly) Avitus are righteous hero types. I’ve been through the fire with them for 20 hours already, and to see them fall to Chaos seems pretty damned wrong. I’m going to try it out, of course; I want to see all of the stuff Relic took the time to craft for my enjoyment, after all. But my initial playthrough, the goody-two-shoes purity one, that’s going to be the canon version of the story for my guys. All the others are going to count as what-if stories.

I did the same thing in the first Mass Effect. The Baker and I sat down to play the game together having already huddled up and determined to make our Commander Shepard a scary badass biotch with incredibly severe makeup. By the second hour of the game we’d gone totally Jimmy Stewart. Our terrifying space lesbian coddled aliens, let criminals off with warnings, and preached tolerance and understanding like it was going out of style. The urge to be good, at least for the first trip through all the content, was just too strong.

Tender, baby-soft spoilers for Chaos Rising and Star Wars after the break.

Continue reading Now With New and Improved Hellfire

Chat Box

SonicRob: new space marine screens
FyreHaar: yay!
SonicRob: ultramarines vs.
SonicRob: goffs?
FyreHaar: sendy el linko
SonicRob: http://us.thq.com/us/game/screenshots/5286/1
SonicRob: I call bullshit
SonicRob: that is maya with photoshop on top of it
SonicRob: when you say you are posting “screens”
SonicRob: do not post concept art
SonicRob: this bodes ill
SonicRob: they are playing us false
SonicRob: these people ain’t got shit
FyreHaar: I’m with you
FyreHaar: there’s no way
FyreHaar: that is real time
FyreHaar: however,
FyreHaar: if it is this is the best looking game ever
SonicRob: that is why it is not
FyreHaar: here
FyreHaar: they could be screenshots from a cut scene
SonicRob: you wanna tell me that these jackoffs are the ones who finally figured out how to get a playstation to properly anti-alias?
FyreHaar: those are not screen shots from a PS3
FyreHaar: maybe from a godbox PC
SonicRob: CGI stills, maybe
SonicRob: I still think concept art
FyreHaar: it’s ad copy
SonicRob: they look too painterly
FyreHaar: very conmetaical
FyreHaar: cinematical
SonicRob: wow
FyreHaar: ?
SonicRob: does it possess the property of meta, en espanol?
SonicRob: con-meta-ical
FyreHaar: portugese, actually!