I love Dark Crusade, the epic clash between eight races was pretty awesome. I also loved the character, Davian thule, Eliphas the inheritor, Gorgutz, they're like some of the best characters in the Dawn of war series (at least in my opinion). The voice acting was pretty awesome for Eliphas, considering his voice actor also did Gabriel Angelos, one of the most epic voices in the franchise. No doubts about it.
Dark Crusade did a lot of things right, and is rightfully my favorite of the dawn of war games although soulstorm had some better mods for sure. (i'm talking about you Ultimate Apocalypse) It was also where i was first introduced to the Tau and have played as them ever since. Shas'O Kias has led the Tau to victory many times over the course of Dark Crusade.
I completely preferred DoW2... I would choice it over DoW1 almost every single time. The reason for this is that as much as I like RTS games, I tend to grow tired of them very quickly... I don't always manage to get through an entire campaign before I have grown tired of each particular game. But DoW2 is not completely an RTS... there is RPG elements to it, which makes all the difference to me. Since RPG is my Nr1 all time favorite genre in games. I thing I finished DoW1 , but I am not compleatly certain... I do know though that I did not finish any of it's expansions... where as I finished all of DoW2 (even played it a second time, which is not common for me), and I did finish it's expansions. At least the Loyalist Space Marine side of things... since the other races/armies are just... boring... There is another HUGE reason as to why I completely prefer DoW2 over DoW1. When I played DoW1 (as the SM's of course) I had this feeling that I plowed through more then one (maybe even more then 2) full Chapter worth of Space Marines through out the entire campaign, and that just felt completely wrong. Not to mention that my play-style in RTS games is usually that I build up my base first, with of course enough units to protect it, and then I build up a massive army and basically swarm attacks the opponent. And due to that when ever I reached the point where I was ready to attack the enemy in DoW1, it never actually felt like I was playing SM... it more felt like I was playing something like Imperial Guard, who wins over the enemy by sheer force of numbers rather then any particular superiority. Space Marines did not feel right when playing DoW1 to me. Where as I think that DoW2 did a hugely better job representing what an actual Space Marine unit would/could be. How they fight, and what not. SM's don't always fight as a full chapter unless it is something as huge as Armageddon or something. Heck it's not even all that common that an entire Company is sent to deal with things. No most of the time SM's come in a a few units only, maybe half a company or so if the threat is pretty high... but almost never as an entire Company, let alone as a Chapter. So in my book DoW2 beats DoW1 on every single front as a game. DoW1 was at best forgettable to me, where as I will always remember DoW2 as having "done it right" when it comes to SM's. I think the perfect DoW3 would probably be a mix of DoW1 and DoW2... and the only reason I include DoW1 here, is because I am aware of that DoW2 was not all that RTS'y like most RTS fans would have wanted. If I got to choice, DoW3 would be pretty much exactly like DoW2. So I will play nice and let the RTS fans get some love... as long as I get some love to. DoW2+DoW1=DoW3
I like to see all the different reasons that people prefer one game over the other. Personally I want another RTS heavy dow game like the first one but with HD textures and more units, and they could do another game like dow2 for those who prefer that game while they're at it. Although right now we're in the age of spacehulk for 40k video games.
whole of dawn of war 2 with expansions but...... only if they add all units and more epic campagins dow 1 was great but for me it was mostly mass number army=win so dunno in dow 2 u need to think more in my opinion
Dark crusade, love my t'au and eldar and will still only play them when i hop on from time to time hah.
I loved Dark Crusade. However, I feel the games haven't aged very well. Especially after playing so much DoW2. I voted Chaos Rising because it definitely touched me on an emotional level. When I played through, Tarkus was the one who ended up betraying me and I felt huge remorse for having to kill him. Especially while he was quoting the Codex Astartes, I felt like Tarkus had lost everything but the codex, and it really made me feel bad. Same with Avitus. Avitus was such a hardass and the strongest of the group, and when he betrayed he really seemed like he just had enough, and he broke. To see that and have to put him down was just huge. Chaos Rising was really well done. That and the mods for DoW2 definitely brought up the epic level with new units and squad sizes. The voice acting for the entire series is just amazing. Some units have half an hour of dialogue. And those are your generic no-face units. Not only that but now that I've got into MP it forces you to actually care about your units and not just a-click like in other RTS'. Retribution's campaign was very lackluster, but the Last Stand additions it made were very entertaining and I now have over 160+ hours on Retribution.
story DoW (and all the expansions) hands down are better than Dow2 but multiplayer DoW2 had better options and got me to come back more
