And you are all about e-sports right? Also e-sport has something in common with this review due to the fact that DOW3 IS made to look/be played as the only other competetive RTS - SC2. Good games "become" esport because they have huge fanbase and are fun to play/watch. Developers behind this one clearly wanted to jump over the "liking the game by players" part and force the game streight into competetive zone where it can be further carried by sponsoring companies.
It actually has a lot of relevance. Unless you've missed the part where many potentially great games were squandered because publishers pathetically attempted to cater to esports?
Green Purple I agree. And this is one such game that they are trying to push as an e-sport. There are subtle clues to it such as the models being more pronounced, the removal of sync-kills, and the removal of cover. These changes drastically reduce the chance of RNG in various unit engagements, making it more e-sport friendly.
I thought the fans made it clear what they wanted. DoW1 with DoW2 cover system and 2017 graphics. I still play DoW1 and 2 to this day. Like literally today. I agree DoW2 had a shitty single player, but multiplayer is still frickin awesome!
No, the fans have no clear consensus. Some people hate DoW2. Some people didn't like DoW1. Some people like DoW3. Even the people who hate DoW3 can't agree on what they hate. The fanbase is massively split.
Your description of Esports commentators are spot on, especially for hearthstone and sometimes it's so absurd it's funny. For example when a commentator talked about how good one guy was because he was playing with his entire deck instead of his hand when he played aggro hunter lol. Also when someone top decks it's really hilarious how they scream of excitement
All they needed to do was refine DOW1 and mix it with DOW2 not copy off MOBA and Starcraft..ironic too since Warhammer 40k are the originals and they existed ages long before Blizzard properties
Sgt. RiceFarmer Amen. I like the uniqueness of DOW2 squad based covered mechanic , they could've included that and transfer the morale system and base building from DOW1 and make wonders with both. Instead, the developers were too "inspired" by modern MOBA and couldn't look back on what made DOW1 and it's expansions great. DOW2 wan a failure by any means, it's a good game and a very decent overlooked RTS
Maverick5588 That be totally fine ! The developers needed to revisit DOW1 & 2 to conjure up ideas and not look elsewhere like MOBA thinking those type of genres are popular thus following in their footsteps..
lordzon Exactly. I hope this is a repeat of DoW 2 where chaos is in dlc again. Imperial Guard assets are in this game so they will probably get a dlc aswell.
I make sandwiches without butter. This is more like making a protein shake without the protein powder. You get to pretend you're a pro gamer and wh40k fan, without any of the effort.
E-Sports isn't ruining anything. It's devs who don't know how to make a good game. SC II is a great game and a good esports title. Supporting esports is a good thing for many modern developers. Developing a game and trying to force it to become an esport is the problem.
When it comes to recently released WH40K, you should definitely try WH40K:Sanctus Reach. Not a graphical powerhouse, but it's great. Tactical, fun, replayable. Final Liberation, Chaos Gate and the first Dawn of War were really, really good. I liked Space Marine and Rites of War, too. So no, good 40K games most definitely exist in my book. :P
This looks like another generic modern day RTS with limited base building, dumbed down boring resource gathering system and overly convoluted combat. A small Dev team could dominate the market with a C&C clone with modern graphics and strategic zoom from Supcom FA And SOASE.
Yesterday, I played DoW3 for the first time (also, I didn't play I and II) and I was surprised by the number of things that CoH2 does just so much better. Like camera, abilities, mods (no Steam workshop), cover mechanics and defensive play in general. In the other hand, battles in DoW3 feel just like battles in CoH2... small scale. In CoH2, it makes sense. But in the lore of Warhammer 40K (as far as I understand it), you see all of those massive armies, mechs the size of Burj Khalifa, planetary scale invasions... and then in DoW3, you move like 50 guys and fight another 50 guys + mechs the size of a slightly bigger fridge. Also, what is it with inconsistency across W40K games, considering the strength of units? So in W40K Space Marine, Titus annihilates like planet worth of Orks and slaps the demon prince. In W40K DoW3, Space Marines are expendable unit, that can loose 1v1 against teenage Orks wielding axes. It feels like 60-70 % of Imperium units in DoW3 were supposed to be guardsmen, not Space Marines. I understand, that small scale and micromanagement play some role in competitive play, but what is the point of another W40K game, if it feels like a worse version of Starcraft?
Some abilities like grenade and artillery are designed so that it doesn't stack activate and are set to closest unit uses ability. Jump abilities like assault marine one can stack activate so all of them activate at once Edit: so you have to activate grenade for every unit but if you have a group of units selected you dont need to select the individual ones to use ability, it just looks like you can use the same ability multiple times
This game is pretty shite in my opinion, Cartoony graphics and arcade combat. What made the original so great was the gritty realism, watching your Guardsmen fight Chaos in a huge battle with tanks,dreadnoughts and giant fucking daemons, it was truly a WH40k game true to the lore and universe
It was but not to the point where it doesn't make sense at all in the lore or the world, for example the Space Marine in terminator armour doing fucking backflips
Great honest review Mack. I think the micro aspect is even more prevalent today because of MOBA's. To be fair, though, micro-management of units has been a staple for awhile in modern RTS games. For an interesting example, Starcraft 2 was criticized for awhile because the streamlined gameplay led to macro-heavy deathball play where the gameplay was basically churn out the biggest deathball army before your enemy could then dance around his deathball army like idiotic synchronized swimmers until the one giant battle which was over in seconds. They added a lot more micro-intensive units because that's part of what made Starcraft 1 so great - it was the balance between a macro focus with timings and build orders and the skill to properly micro your powerful units like Ghosts and Templars. Some of those Koreans were godly in their ability to micro skills mid-battle, but you also needed the macro game to win. It was the balance that made it great, and it sounds like this didn't hit that balance quite right. Just some food for thought. Keep on trucking, Mack man.
I love how balanced your reviews have been recently. I mean, obviously it's loads of fun when you tear something to shreds, but this one and the one about Sniper Something are a nice counterbalance.
9:46 - 10:54 A+, spot on description of E-Sports scene. What I do know, and this is grade A fact meat, is that it makes sense to make a game for the 200 people that still watch E-Sports religiously, rather than the millions of fans of the " Warhammer 40K" license and the 2 previous "Dawn Of War" games.
Thank you for your review, just saved me a butt load of disappointment and some cash. Undoubtedly there will be a million and one nickel and dime expansions for extras that should have been in the game. Forcing people to use melee units RING the BELL!!!!
God the progression system in unlocking new units after every match really turns me off. What happened to just having all the tools from the get go in an RTS? Everything has to have a fucking RPG unlocking system nowadays. Also yes one of the marketing points for Dawn of War 3 was that it was made specifically for eSports which is just as appealing as stapling my balls together. Because every fucking online game has to be made specifically for eSports nowadays.
Thanks Mr. Mack for the positive balanced review with tons of info and excellent gameplay left out by others. Appreciate you talking about the story and how it switches from faction to faction with a developing arc that works. I was not planning to buy this but after your review i guess i'll be stepping into the dreaded sunlight to pick up the game on this eighty degree spring day. Ooo a girl in short shorts... think i'll stay out here a bit longer... Cheers and happy gaming.
Great review, thanks. Totally agree that they should have just taken the best/most well received aspects of the first 2 games and give it a next gen paint job. Ah well.
I like the game - but the micro management is painfully annoying I agree. Maybe if you could right click on your abilities and they would do it automatically when available. I mean wasteful at times but better then not using it at all.
Can you make a best games of the month type series? I find it very hard to discover new quality pc games and would take a long time to go through all your latest videos
Back in the original day of Dawn of War 1, you could place all the turrets you wanted. Then they nerfed it to 4, then you never saw turrets again, apparently even in DoW III.....
thanks for this, when they release a dlc (with is bound to come) I hope they do what they did in dow 1 where you get to take over continents at your own pace and make your own story, I also hope they make this game worth a buy in future, give us what we want and stop tugging their pickles, all they had to do was talk to a lot of fans, it's not hard to find out what people liked about the previous games. mildly upset because I was looking forward to this game way too much.
True developers have to drop comic styles in action games. Overwatch looks like a Saturday morning cartoon, droppoing a nuke in Civ6 looks like a children color plate and Dow3 really needs grim, muddy, gritty graphics to sell the fantasy part of it. They are tearing each other heads of! Give me graphics that support that!
A. Coulthard so two expansion packs were a little dark and that's why DoW 3 is sucky for not being like the two expansions...... DoW 2 is nothing like DoW 1 and DoW 3 is nothing like DoW 1 and DoW 2 see the pattern? They made a new game and not an expansion of the previous games so because of this and the fact that is isn't as grim dark as two expansion packs were the game must burn?
DOW 3 replaced alot of the gameplay aspects with a much more hero focused gamestyle aswell.. Both DOW 1 and DOW 2 had much deeper unit upgrading and hero upgrading. The animations were better done and both ALL of DOW 1 and DOW 2 have much less cartoony graphics. All of DOW 1 was pretty grim dark, DOW 2 is also very grim dark and has a great campaign. The campaign in DOW 3 is extremely limited and the map variation is almost nothing. DOW 1 and DOW 2 had way more maps to pick from, I could go on and on. DOW 3 is not horrible but its hardly a DOW game and copied too much from other RTS games.
Quick question for you Mack. If you went to live on a desert island (it could happen :) ), what 3 PC games would you take with you ? (assuming you could also take your PC and had electricity).
Good review with actually reasonable complaints. I'm most looking forward to mods for this game that will tweak it to make it even closer to dow1. Also at least we'll be getting workshop maps soon! I'm sure the community will give us some less-symmetrical maps to play which would be cool.
I played this during the open beta and had a blast. I'm also a 40k player (miniature version) just thought that was worth mentioning. The epicness of the battles made me feel like an apocalypse game. I will say its not as fast paced as starcraft 2 but every bit as intense.
I'm a huge fan of the series and even I'm in the middle of this game and how it stands. Right now I've poured in 6 hours into the multiplayer and the campaign and they both are pretty wonderful. Its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Agreed with Mack where it feels like its being held back in some elements and I still really hate the whole TURRETS/MOBA/CORE added to it, its a huge pain. I didn't find any paywall problems as I can get Skulls by doing campaign missions over and over again to earn them and I like the leveling up my Elites in some respects. Its up to the player to really decide. The game isn't perfect but if anything else, pick it up when the price drops down. That would be my best suggestion to you DoW fans out there.
micro management is important in any rts, take starcraft for instance, there you have to focus on your macro and micro at the same time in order to be any good in it. But I can see this being similar to dota with the heroes
Yeah but not on this scale, it's one thing micromanaging groups but it's another when you have to do the units inside the groups as well, individually too :S
Yeah but not on this scale, it's one thing micromanaging groups but it's another when you have to do the units inside the groups as well, individually too :S
Control groups are the answer for that. ctrl + # (the # denoting whatever number you want to assign the group to). Then, just hitting the number later on will select that group no matter where it is, and double-tapping that number will jump your camera to it.
Chill review. Cool! :) Yeah, shame the game didn't live up to everyone's high expectations. The Whirlwind micro is admittedly annoying. Stormboyz are an elite for balance reasons I guess, so you wouldn't spam them. Turrets were added as a doctrine later. Annihilation was also added later with another mode, for a total of 3 game modes in MP and VS AI. Lol the rant about E-sports. Generalizing there a lil'. :D Here's hope they make another DoW and hit it out of the park!
I want an rts like c&c Tiberian Sun with slower paced gameplay, less micromanagement, more strategy and more base building and defense, guess this is another rts that I'll skip /sigh
I LOVED dawn of war 2. You just get to jump right in and fight. It was so fun. I didnt really care about not having base building....literally every other RTS game has base buildling so you can just play one of those instead if you want that...I enjoyed the quick games and there is still a decent sized community playing it to this day with bunch of awesome modders keeping it fresh and updated...they even added a new faction which is crazy...all for free.
"I'm a huge RTS fan, and what I don't want to be doing is controlling twenty units at a time" Something doesn't quite add up here.. You are under no obligation to control 20 units at a time, but some good RTS players can do this, and these people will be better at the game because of this, nobody wants to play an RTS game where you are capped at 5 units because some cry-babies don't want to learn how to micro. Just use hot-keys, casters are a part of every RTS game. I haven't played though so maybe the mechanics are really really terrible and you have a point.
I agree with you on e sports Mack but that's just the mainstreams- league, dota, CS, but the less mainstreams stick to what they should be: competitions. e sports in the mainstream sense is shit but you can't generalize
Just built myself a new PC. Got this game free with my ASUS motherboard and For Honor free with my GTX 1070. Two games I would otherwise not have bought myself... Thanks for the review, Mack. Fuck... ...the gits... lol
I bet some suit in the office looked at moba's, and wanted this game to be more like it. Make a fucking RTS more like a different genre, wow. Lets put I-pads on my car instead of tires, because they sell better. Thanks mac, saved my cash.
I didn't see a mention in your video Mack so i'm guessing it's not there, but is the last stand mode in there from Dawn of war 2? I really used to enjoy that mode.
'Its all in game currency, there is no microtransactions that involve cash'........im calling that it will go like COH2 in game store for extra elites, skins and doctrines in no time at all. The only reason its not there on day one is of player backlash on release day....but it will come £2.99 for elites £1.99 for a heavy bolter team reskin etc...
I didn't like it at release, but once they added settings to make Elites and Ultimate abilities optional I really like it. It's back to being a proper RTS then.
i realised that i love turn based strategies way more than rts. I love for example C&C3 Kanes Wraith, love it do death, but the micro managment, i just can't do it, i dont udnerstand how people do it, like in competitive matches, what is the fun of doing fucking 300 actions per minute. I enjoy just watching them more. Im not a noob allright, im pretty competitive fps player, i like getting better and better at shooters, for example Klling Floor 2 great game to have fun and master your aim and reaction on HoE, but in RTS games i just can't do it. But i spend shitload of time palying games like Red Alert 2 in my childhood. Maybe my brain just isn't good enough i can't micro manage, i tend to panic and fuck things up. What i did i was TURTLING all the time. Way more enjoyable for me to plan you game and strategy in Shogun 2 or Crusader Kings, games like that. After all , the greatest game of all time, the Chess is turn based)
Same here , I was already to spend the $60usd on steam but thanks to your honest review I'm taking a pass .. guess I'll stick to SC2 for the time being , keep up the honest reviews , I better off sending you the money to get a decent game these days !
Micro management is a good thing in an rts it allows for higher skill instead of just having a dumbed down game. I guess I've always liked warcraft 3 and sc2 games though. I mean their a pain in the arse at times but it can be rewarding if palyed enough and have the right keyinbings. One problem I found with this game was that I couldn't rebind keys in the beta which made me think wtf. Its not hard to implement something like that.
Ashes of the singularity: escalation, which rolls over dawn of war 3 fair and square, is only 4€ on g2a (extremely poor sale due to very low advertisement campaign). Much better game imo.
If it's fun, then I'm not worried about the rest. Never played any Warhammer title before, but I got this one as part of the Humble Monthly Bundle. So no risk to me. lol
E-sports are as interesting at the pro-level play can make them. That is to say, you could make solitaire and e-sport if the pro-players could do things in that game that the average player simply couldn't. I find Pro-Dota and SC2 very interesting, and I don't even play SC2. The point being, seeing really top level players working a game to its limits is entertaining. Dawn of War 3 didn't have to be designed to be "e-sports friendly" it just had to have a really high skill cap. Thats all. The idea that copy-pasting DOTA design into an RTS and calling it an e-sport is retarded. FIrst off, if there's no player base, there will be no big tournaments... and the player base cried for months for them to turn back from this... so, yeah... good luck with that.
I hate it when devs have a golden opportunity staring them in the face and they just completely fuck it up. With two past games to learn from, they could have really made one of the greatest RTS's we've had in years, but instead they went groveling to the e-sports crowd.
Man I could not give two fucks about E-Sports but I almost had a stroke when I read that an E-Sports event pulled over a hundred thousand spectators to watch that shit. To put that to perspective Joshua- Klitschko this weekend has a crowd of only 90 thousand. (It's the biggest boxing match of this year)
I Feel your pain man. the special actions units can do, is what put me off red alert 3. See, the the tabletop game its turn based, so you have plenty of time to decide to use special abilities. It seems like they've De-evolved, very disappointing. In fact mack, I know you're having fun with it (important) but I'd say it's shit. That Esports rant had me pissing myself because it's so true, unfortunately it just shows how fake and retarded the gaming industry has become. I've been throwing red pills at most of my pals about AAA games and they just dont listen so i have to hear them complain about the 45 quid they keep losing twice a month. I wish they'd just listen to you Mack, saved me 1000's of spondulies already! thank you so much for your work!
ouch. That's to bad for this game. There was an announcement this week that Relic is not putting out any additional content for the game. So I guess the rest of the world felt the same. Then it went on sale for $16. I thought it has to be worth that. So I picked it up. We'll see. I think 40k is a great setting. I'm a fan of that art and lore. I go in for the 40k and Spacehulk games. But you really are taking your chances. There is so much potential, but so many bad or just average games with that name on it.
I'm loving it really. Yes, it needs more online content, I'm sure it'll get it, Relic add content to their games for many years after release, but other than that it's really intense and fun. The only thing I don't like is the often unresponsive UI, there are weird bugs in it. You can't scroll while holding CTRL down, which is jarring, trying to hotkey your units and that freezes the camera, also you click things and they randomly decide not to work, like I double hit a keybind to center on a group and it doesn't work, I mash it 4-5 times more and ohhh now it worked. Why? That's a bit shit, it needs more polish.
Worth A Buy I have to show you my thumb-down too mate. You might feel like a huge RTS fan, however you don't understand how a competitive scene can elevate a game's multiplayer. You suddenly become entitled to say that 8 maps are not enough, when you didn't even touch or review SCII's multiplayer in the first place. And by multiplayer I mean ranked, unranked and co-op. Only wankers call playing against AI in skirmish mode "multiplayer". It does not need dozens of maps at release, it needs good maps that will generate a rich meta and keep the competitive scene busy defining builds and their corresponding counter-builds. Having a strong vocal competitive scene (forums, streamers...), as well as eSports championships, helps the developers keep the game alive through balance patches add-ons etc.
I completely agree though with the criticism about the esports casters. Many other common sport casters have been doing that for ages specially in USA, like the new K-1 and Glory casters for instance.
DLC Mack. That's what it's all about. Sega is known for this. They cut MASSIVE portions of the games out, and sell them as DLC. Trust me, there will be LOTS of map, unit, and faction DLC's. I guarantee it. I saw this coming from a mile away.
Did you like StarCraft 2 Mack? I feel like that game had a fair amount of extra unit abilities as well in the way that this game does. Did you feel the same?
your description of Esports is spot on and should be voted to be put on wikipedia and other sites alike to define it. its just garbage the comentators etc
All we wanted was a more up to date DOW 1. Why mess with a game concept that's already good?! It's like the married all of the bad parts from 1 and 2. I want to build a base, I want lots of units, I want to turtle behind turrets and defenses. As a DOW 1 fan, they have ruined it. What a shame
I think there's also a lot of frustration from blatantly obvious games that should be made in the setting not getting made because of games workshop's pathological hatred of making money. It doesn't take a genius to know that a wargame or supreme commander with a 40k skin would be perfect for the setting, or a homeworld knock off, or a red orchestra 2 knockoff. Why aren't there any horror games for the setting? This setting is one where you can milk it harder than star wars because of how much lore there is and how many different settings and factions and worlds there are. All we get is half finished games where like you said there's tonnes of potential in not only this game but others as well.
Great review. Going to sink some more time into the original instead. As you say, such a shame. Maybe it's time for a spinoff which actually does go for the classic experience. Longing for a proper RTS! Base building, less micromanaging.... oh well. One day. (Not really feeling the 8 Bit Armies aesthetic or I'd give that a go....)
I just want a traditional RTS with simple units, base building, technology to research and a good lenghty campaign! Why doesn't developers get it?
I wanted the original Dawn of War, coupled with the Company of Heroes cover mechanic. F.F.S. 😩
Disappointed. All I want is a game like Dawn of War 1. Taking this game off my wishlist.
Yeah... Install Dawn of War 1: Soulstorm + Ultimate Appocalypse mod. You will not regret! )))
Same m8, I always wanted DoW 1 with some imprvements from DoW 2 added in and a gfx overhaul instead we got shit.
Игорь Санду is there a hd mod for Dawn of war 1? i mean The blood ravens chapter on tartarus.
My fictional blue haired girlfriend doesn't appreciate this generalization Mack
Hahahahaha!
💔💔😭😭😭😂😂🤣😅😅🤣🤣😅😅🤣🤣🤣😅🤣🤣🤣🤣
HAHA Macks e-sport rant, I love when he starts talking about something that has nothing to do with the review, best reviewer ever.
salty? what about
And you are all about e-sports right? Also e-sport has something in common with this review due to the fact that DOW3 IS made to look/be played as the only other competetive RTS - SC2.
Good games "become" esport because they have huge fanbase and are fun to play/watch.
Developers behind this one clearly wanted to jump over the "liking the game by players" part and force the game streight into competetive zone where it can be further carried by sponsoring companies.
majority does not care about esport, it never became a thing.
It actually has a lot of relevance. Unless you've missed the part where many potentially great games were squandered because publishers pathetically attempted to cater to esports?
Green Purple I agree. And this is one such game that they are trying to push as an e-sport. There are subtle clues to it such as the models being more pronounced, the removal of sync-kills, and the removal of cover. These changes drastically reduce the chance of RNG in various unit engagements, making it more e-sport friendly.
I thought the fans made it clear what they wanted. DoW1 with DoW2 cover system and 2017 graphics.
I still play DoW1 and 2 to this day. Like literally today. I agree DoW2 had a shitty single player, but multiplayer is still frickin awesome!
Shit just make DoW Dark Crusade with modern graphics and all the races. I'd buy it.
Or even a remaster of DOW 1 would be fine.
When you have 2 gtx 1080s installed then ask for objectively "better" graphics. The graphics actually work on my rig
I like the game but what you just said sounds amazing. I wish they did that haha
No, the fans have no clear consensus. Some people hate DoW2. Some people didn't like DoW1. Some people like DoW3. Even the people who hate DoW3 can't agree on what they hate. The fanbase is massively split.
Your description of Esports commentators are spot on, especially for hearthstone and sometimes it's so absurd it's funny. For example when a commentator talked about how good one guy was because he was playing with his entire deck instead of his hand when he played aggro hunter lol. Also when someone top decks it's really hilarious how they scream of excitement
trust me, the try hard geeks watch esports like the game 7 of the world series.
All they needed to do was refine DOW1 and mix it with DOW2 not copy off MOBA and Starcraft..ironic too since Warhammer 40k are the originals and they existed ages long before Blizzard properties
I'm pretty sure you haven't played much StarCraft if you think this game copies it at any level. Is it the tiny units and the visible cursor?
Star Wars :Rouge One agreed. 65% dow 1 and 35% dow 2 would have been perfect
Friendly Fire sc2 is very similar to this. the custom game modes mostly
Sgt. RiceFarmer Amen. I like the uniqueness of DOW2 squad based covered mechanic , they could've included that and transfer the morale system and base building from DOW1 and make wonders with both. Instead, the developers were too "inspired" by modern MOBA and couldn't look back on what made DOW1 and it's expansions great. DOW2 wan a failure by any means, it's a good game and a very decent overlooked RTS
Maverick5588 That be totally fine ! The developers needed to revisit DOW1 & 2 to conjure up ideas and not look elsewhere like MOBA thinking those type of genres are popular thus following in their footsteps..
No chaos. Who The fuck makes a sandwich without butter? I hope they pull a DoW 2 because chaos were left out until Chaos Rising.
Chaos DLC. 100% guarantee. They did it with Total Warhammer as well.
Chaos were in the first expansion for DoW2. They weren't at release.
lordzon Exactly. I hope this is a repeat of DoW 2 where chaos is in dlc again. Imperial Guard assets are in this game so they will probably get a dlc aswell.
I make sandwiches without butter. This is more like making a protein shake without the protein powder. You get to pretend you're a pro gamer and wh40k fan, without any of the effort.
Green Purple You make sandwiches without butter? bloody hell.
E sports is ruining gaming as much as microtransactions. Devs are just sheep to 'trends'.
E-Sports isn't ruining anything. It's devs who don't know how to make a good game. SC II is a great game and a good esports title. Supporting esports is a good thing for many modern developers. Developing a game and trying to force it to become an esport is the problem.
Agreed
Once again - I like 40k universe but games are pure cashgrab bullshit.....
Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.
WorasLT That's pretty much the entirety of Warhammer lol. Hundreds of dollars for 10 cent plastic models.
Good 40k game is like HL3 :D
When it comes to recently released WH40K, you should definitely try WH40K:Sanctus Reach. Not a graphical powerhouse, but it's great. Tactical, fun, replayable.
Final Liberation, Chaos Gate and the first Dawn of War were really, really good. I liked Space Marine and Rites of War, too.
So no, good 40K games most definitely exist in my book. :P
it is...thats why people should not support it.
That E-sports rant made me subscribe LOL xD
The best summary of eSports I've ever heard in any context.
hahahaha "A lot of badly painted miniatures!!"" good one Mac!!
This looks like another generic modern day RTS with limited base building, dumbed down boring resource gathering system and overly convoluted combat.
A small Dev team could dominate the market with a C&C clone with modern graphics and strategic zoom from Supcom FA And SOASE.
Remember when you could build bases with concrete floors, doors & turrets? Yeh well those days are gone because "Fuck you give me Money".
Yesterday, I played DoW3 for the first time (also, I didn't play I and II) and I was surprised by the number of things that CoH2 does just so much better. Like camera, abilities, mods (no Steam workshop), cover mechanics and defensive play in general. In the other hand, battles in DoW3 feel just like battles in CoH2... small scale. In CoH2, it makes sense. But in the lore of Warhammer 40K (as far as I understand it), you see all of those massive armies, mechs the size of Burj Khalifa, planetary scale invasions... and then in DoW3, you move like 50 guys and fight another 50 guys + mechs the size of a slightly bigger fridge. Also, what is it with inconsistency across W40K games, considering the strength of units? So in W40K Space Marine, Titus annihilates like planet worth of Orks and slaps the demon prince. In W40K DoW3, Space Marines are expendable unit, that can loose 1v1 against teenage Orks wielding axes. It feels like 60-70 % of Imperium units in DoW3 were supposed to be guardsmen, not Space Marines. I understand, that small scale and micromanagement play some role in competitive play, but what is the point of another W40K game, if it feels like a worse version of Starcraft?
Some abilities like grenade and artillery are designed so that it doesn't stack activate and are set to closest unit uses ability. Jump abilities like assault marine one can stack activate so all of them activate at once
Edit: so you have to activate grenade for every unit but if you have a group of units selected you dont need to select the individual ones to use ability, it just looks like you can use the same ability multiple times
This game is pretty shite in my opinion, Cartoony graphics and arcade combat. What made the original so great was the gritty realism, watching your Guardsmen fight Chaos in a huge battle with tanks,dreadnoughts and giant fucking daemons, it was truly a WH40k game true to the lore and universe
It was always arcade. Take off your rose tinted glasses man. No offense. I get what u mean :S
It was but not to the point where it doesn't make sense at all in the lore or the world, for example the Space Marine in terminator armour doing fucking backflips
lmao. really? damn. Feels like i pass on the vast majority of games these days :
A fantasy game or a game set in another universe can still be immersive and realistic? I don't understand your comment here
how is that not real? scientifically recognized entities lol
Great honest review Mack. I think the micro aspect is even more prevalent today because of MOBA's. To be fair, though, micro-management of units has been a staple for awhile in modern RTS games.
For an interesting example, Starcraft 2 was criticized for awhile because the streamlined gameplay led to macro-heavy deathball play where the gameplay was basically churn out the biggest deathball army before your enemy could then dance around his deathball army like idiotic synchronized swimmers until the one giant battle which was over in seconds.
They added a lot more micro-intensive units because that's part of what made Starcraft 1 so great - it was the balance between a macro focus with timings and build orders and the skill to properly micro your powerful units like Ghosts and Templars. Some of those Koreans were godly in their ability to micro skills mid-battle, but you also needed the macro game to win. It was the balance that made it great, and it sounds like this didn't hit that balance quite right. Just some food for thought. Keep on trucking, Mack man.
I love how balanced your reviews have been recently. I mean, obviously it's loads of fun when you tear something to shreds, but this one and the one about Sniper Something are a nice counterbalance.
9:46 - 10:54 A+, spot on description of E-Sports scene. What I do know, and this is grade A fact meat, is that it makes sense to make a game for the 200 people that still watch E-Sports religiously, rather than the millions of fans of the " Warhammer 40K" license and the 2 previous "Dawn Of War" games.
Thank you for your review, just saved me a butt load of disappointment and some cash. Undoubtedly there will be a million and one nickel and dime expansions for extras that should have been in the game. Forcing people to use melee units RING the BELL!!!!
God the progression system in unlocking new units after every match really turns me off. What happened to just having all the tools from the get go in an RTS? Everything has to have a fucking RPG unlocking system nowadays. Also yes one of the marketing points for Dawn of War 3 was that it was made specifically for eSports which is just as appealing as stapling my balls together. Because every fucking online game has to be made specifically for eSports nowadays.
Yeah & it's not about stapling your balls together.
Thanks Mr. Mack for the positive balanced review with tons of info and excellent gameplay left out by others. Appreciate you talking about the story and how it switches from faction to faction with a developing arc that works. I was not planning to buy this but after your review i guess i'll be stepping into the dreaded sunlight to pick up the game on this eighty degree spring day. Ooo a girl in short shorts... think i'll stay out here a bit longer...
Cheers and happy gaming.
The campaign keeps you "hewked"
I knew someone would say that :p
I love your "I'd rather have..." euphemisms, they're pure gold haha
Your E-sports rant was an instant classic!
Lol watching in 2021 cause I loved dawn of war 1 and 2 and gave 3 a pass but it is less than $4 on steam now on sale so might be worth it for sure
Great review, thanks. Totally agree that they should have just taken the best/most well received aspects of the first 2 games and give it a next gen paint job.
Ah well.
I like the game - but the micro management is painfully annoying I agree. Maybe if you could right click on your abilities and they would do it automatically when available. I mean wasteful at times but better then not using it at all.
Can you make a best games of the month type series? I find it very hard to discover new quality pc games and would take a long time to go through all your latest videos
I was on the fence about getting this due to the price, but thank you very much for your honesty Mack. Saved me.
I love ALL the 40K games. The first ones with all the expansions with a zoom out mod for single player only was alot of fun :)
Back in the original day of Dawn of War 1, you could place all the turrets you wanted. Then they nerfed it to 4, then you never saw turrets again, apparently even in DoW III.....
thanks for this, when they release a dlc (with is bound to come) I hope they do what they did in dow 1 where you get to take over continents at your own pace and make your own story, I also hope they make this game worth a buy in future, give us what we want and stop tugging their pickles, all they had to do was talk to a lot of fans, it's not hard to find out what people liked about the previous games. mildly upset because I was looking forward to this game way too much.
Also there is not enough grim dark in this title. It´s all bright colors and shit like that.
Come on, don't flaunt your stupidity that openly.
Google Dawn of War 1 and 2 and look how colorful they were...
Yeeshhh
DOW 1 winter assault and dark crusade were both dark.
True developers have to drop comic styles in action games. Overwatch looks like a Saturday morning cartoon, droppoing a nuke in Civ6 looks like a children color plate and Dow3 really needs grim, muddy, gritty graphics to sell the fantasy part of it. They are tearing each other heads of! Give me graphics that support that!
A. Coulthard so two expansion packs were a little dark and that's why DoW 3 is sucky for not being like the two expansions......
DoW 2 is nothing like DoW 1 and DoW 3 is nothing like DoW 1 and DoW 2 see the pattern?
They made a new game and not an expansion of the previous games so because of this and the fact that is isn't as grim dark as two expansion packs were the game must burn?
DOW 3 replaced alot of the gameplay aspects with a much more hero focused gamestyle aswell.. Both DOW 1 and DOW 2 had much deeper unit upgrading and hero upgrading. The animations were better done and both ALL of DOW 1 and DOW 2 have much less cartoony graphics. All of DOW 1 was pretty grim dark, DOW 2 is also very grim dark and has a great campaign. The campaign in DOW 3 is extremely limited and the map variation is almost nothing. DOW 1 and DOW 2 had way more maps to pick from, I could go on and on. DOW 3 is not horrible but its hardly a DOW game and copied too much from other RTS games.
Quick question for you Mack. If you went to live on a desert island (it could happen :) ), what 3 PC games would you take with you ? (assuming you could also take your PC and had electricity).
Good review with actually reasonable complaints. I'm most looking forward to mods for this game that will tweak it to make it even closer to dow1. Also at least we'll be getting workshop maps soon! I'm sure the community will give us some less-symmetrical maps to play which would be cool.
I played this during the open beta and had a blast. I'm also a 40k player (miniature version) just thought that was worth mentioning. The epicness of the battles made me feel like an apocalypse game. I will say its not as fast paced as starcraft 2 but every bit as intense.
Steel Division Normandy, You'll love it Mac!
It's really good mate, it's Wargame WW2 without spamming due to the 3 phase battle system now.
I couldn't agree more with your views on e-sports!
Keep up these gem like videos man. :)
What's the background music at around 2 minutes? So good
I'm a huge fan of the series and even I'm in the middle of this game and how it stands. Right now I've poured in 6 hours into the multiplayer and the campaign and they both are pretty wonderful. Its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Agreed with Mack where it feels like its being held back in some elements and I still really hate the whole TURRETS/MOBA/CORE added to it, its a huge pain. I didn't find any paywall problems as I can get Skulls by doing campaign missions over and over again to earn them and I like the leveling up my Elites in some respects. Its up to the player to really decide.
The game isn't perfect but if anything else, pick it up when the price drops down. That would be my best suggestion to you DoW fans out there.
Thankfully the game released with workshop support & a map editor.
micro management is important in any rts, take starcraft for instance, there you have to focus on your macro and micro at the same time in order to be any good in it. But I can see this being similar to dota with the heroes
Yeah but not on this scale, it's one thing micromanaging groups but it's another when you have to do the units inside the groups as well, individually too :S
Yeah but not on this scale, it's one thing micromanaging groups but it's another when you have to do the units inside the groups as well, individually too :S
fair enough
Control groups are the answer for that.
ctrl + # (the # denoting whatever number you want to assign the group to). Then, just hitting the number later on will select that group no matter where it is, and double-tapping that number will jump your camera to it.
I agree with you about the E-sports commentators in generall, but i really enjoyed watching some csgo majors with the german commentators.
Chill review. Cool! :)
Yeah, shame the game didn't live up to everyone's high expectations. The Whirlwind micro is admittedly annoying. Stormboyz are an elite for balance reasons I guess, so you wouldn't spam them. Turrets were added as a doctrine later. Annihilation was also added later with another mode, for a total of 3 game modes in MP and VS AI. Lol the rant about E-sports. Generalizing there a lil'. :D Here's hope they make another DoW and hit it out of the park!
I want an rts like c&c Tiberian Sun with slower paced gameplay, less micromanagement, more strategy and more base building and defense, guess this is another rts that I'll skip /sigh
Since they added the annihilation game mode and a couple more maps do you think it's gotten better? Just a little bit?
I think this game needs a pause button like Total war warhammer. I think it would help with all the multi-tasking
I LOVED dawn of war 2. You just get to jump right in and fight. It was so fun. I didnt really care about not having base building....literally every other RTS game has base buildling so you can just play one of those instead if you want that...I enjoyed the quick games and there is still a decent sized community playing it to this day with bunch of awesome modders keeping it fresh and updated...they even added a new faction which is crazy...all for free.
"I'm a huge RTS fan, and what I don't want to be doing is controlling twenty units at a time"
Something doesn't quite add up here.. You are under no obligation to control 20 units at a time, but some good RTS players can do this, and these people will be better at the game because of this, nobody wants to play an RTS game where you are capped at 5 units because some cry-babies don't want to learn how to micro.
Just use hot-keys, casters are a part of every RTS game.
I haven't played though so maybe the mechanics are really really terrible and you have a point.
Well said.
Terminators kind of are elites when you think about it. Look how OP they are in Space Hulk.
silk *Fires bolter*
*Miss*
*Miss*
*Bolter jams*
*Killed by genestealer*
silk in lore its rare for a chapter to have alot of terminator suits.
lol dude, that one reminded me a lot of frustating times...You should have kept some command points it seems ^^
I agree with you on e sports Mack but that's just the mainstreams- league, dota, CS, but the less mainstreams stick to what they should be: competitions. e sports in the mainstream sense is shit but you can't generalize
Mack you just crack me up with that e-sport description and voices
Just built myself a new PC. Got this game free with my ASUS motherboard and For Honor free with my GTX 1070. Two games I would otherwise not have bought myself...
Thanks for the review, Mack.
Fuck... ...the gits... lol
I bet some suit in the office looked at moba's, and wanted this game to be more like it.
Make a fucking RTS more like a different genre, wow.
Lets put I-pads on my car instead of tires, because they sell better.
Thanks mac, saved my cash.
Let's read the words... of the gits...
Fukkin' love that; can't stop laughing about that!
Great review, Mack! Greetz from Germany
As a huge fan of both halo and W40k I'm surprised the Halo RTS this year felt like a better successor to its franchise than the W40K RTS this year
I didn't see a mention in your video Mack so i'm guessing it's not there, but is the last stand mode in there from Dawn of war 2? I really used to enjoy that mode.
'Its all in game currency, there is no microtransactions that involve cash'........im calling that it will go like COH2 in game store for extra elites, skins and doctrines in no time at all. The only reason its not there on day one is of player backlash on release day....but it will come £2.99 for elites £1.99 for a heavy bolter team reskin etc...
After working in the shithole that is a GW shop, the DoW series was the last thing in the series that wasn't dead to me. Oh well.
mack after the second experience after playing outlast 2 will u still consider WABing the gaming ?
Hey Mack, would you ever do Company of Heroes (the first one) on one of your retro reviews? It's 11 years old and is better than any RTS today.
MACK! Has a RTS game witch habilities even targeted is autocast, OUTLIVE. Give a Try, is a old game, but is amazing and is up to today
I didn't like it at release, but once they added settings to make Elites and Ultimate abilities optional I really like it. It's back to being a proper RTS then.
I was looking forward to this game so thanks for reviewing it. I had no idea it would be released so soon.
Very good comment on e-sports :)
i realised that i love turn based strategies way more than rts. I love for example C&C3 Kanes Wraith, love it do death, but the micro managment, i just can't do it, i dont udnerstand how people do it, like in competitive matches, what is the fun of doing fucking 300 actions per minute. I enjoy just watching them more. Im not a noob allright, im pretty competitive fps player, i like getting better and better at shooters, for example Klling Floor 2 great game to have fun and master your aim and reaction on HoE, but in RTS games i just can't do it. But i spend shitload of time palying games like Red Alert 2 in my childhood. Maybe my brain just isn't good enough i can't micro manage, i tend to panic and fuck things up. What i did i was TURTLING all the time. Way more enjoyable for me to plan you game and strategy in Shogun 2 or Crusader Kings, games like that. After all , the greatest game of all time, the Chess is turn based)
Same here , I was already to spend the $60usd on steam but thanks to your honest review I'm taking a pass .. guess I'll stick to SC2 for the time being , keep up the honest reviews , I better off sending you the money to get a decent game these days !
He didn't mention the lack of sync-kills...which was the straw that broke this very hyped camel's back. :(
Micro management is a good thing in an rts it allows for higher skill instead of just having a dumbed down game. I guess I've always liked warcraft 3 and sc2 games though. I mean their a pain in the arse at times but it can be rewarding if palyed enough and have the right keyinbings.
One problem I found with this game was that I couldn't rebind keys in the beta which made me think wtf. Its not hard to implement something like that.
Thanks for the review, Mack! I've been waiting for it. Keep up good work
i recon it would be hilarious drinking beer with this bloke talking about e sports at the pub
dow 3 is 34 € on instant gaming so i m going to get it but as always thank you for the honest review :)
Ashes of the singularity: escalation, which rolls over dawn of war 3 fair and square, is only 4€ on g2a (extremely poor sale due to very low advertisement campaign).
Much better game imo.
If it's fun, then I'm not worried about the rest. Never played any Warhammer title before, but I got this one as part of the Humble Monthly Bundle. So no risk to me. lol
I just found your videos awesome job!!
I agree 100%! couldn't have said it better myself. such potential, so many opportunities wasted, but still I am having tons of fun with it
Yeah me too
E-sports are as interesting at the pro-level play can make them. That is to say, you could make solitaire and e-sport if the pro-players could do things in that game that the average player simply couldn't. I find Pro-Dota and SC2 very interesting, and I don't even play SC2. The point being, seeing really top level players working a game to its limits is entertaining.
Dawn of War 3 didn't have to be designed to be "e-sports friendly" it just had to have a really high skill cap. Thats all. The idea that copy-pasting DOTA design into an RTS and calling it an e-sport is retarded. FIrst off, if there's no player base, there will be no big tournaments... and the player base cried for months for them to turn back from this... so, yeah... good luck with that.
I can't be objective when i talk about W40k, so i won't. But i'm loving the game.
I hate it when devs have a golden opportunity staring them in the face and they just completely fuck it up. With two past games to learn from, they could have really made one of the greatest RTS's we've had in years, but instead they went groveling to the e-sports crowd.
no proper cover system killed this for me .
Man I could not give two fucks about E-Sports but I almost had a stroke when I read that an E-Sports event pulled over a hundred thousand spectators to watch that shit. To put that to perspective Joshua- Klitschko this weekend has a crowd of only 90 thousand. (It's the biggest boxing match of this year)
10/10 for the Esports rant hahaha keep it real Mack love your content
I Feel your pain man. the special actions units can do, is what put me off red alert 3.
See, the the tabletop game its turn based, so you have plenty of time to decide to use special abilities.
It seems like they've De-evolved, very disappointing. In fact mack, I know you're having fun with it (important) but I'd say it's shit.
That Esports rant had me pissing myself because it's so true, unfortunately it just shows how fake and retarded the gaming industry has become.
I've been throwing red pills at most of my pals about AAA games and they just dont listen so i have to hear them complain about the 45 quid they keep losing twice a month.
I wish they'd just listen to you Mack, saved me 1000's of spondulies already! thank you so much for your work!
9:29 this rant made you a legend in my book, Mack. FUCK E SPORTS. Games are games! Not fucking sports!
Does it have mod support? I hope for the "Elite Mod" guys to come in and save the day.
You said you like rts, I have a great one for you. Company of heroes : Europe at war mod, great game with a great mod. All on steam.
ouch. That's to bad for this game. There was an announcement this week that Relic is not putting out any additional content for the game.
So I guess the rest of the world felt the same.
Then it went on sale for $16. I thought it has to be worth that. So I picked it up. We'll see.
I think 40k is a great setting. I'm a fan of that art and lore. I go in for the 40k and Spacehulk games. But you really are taking your chances. There is so much potential, but so many bad or just average games with that name on it.
This video wraps up my thoughts on the game 100%. Could have been so much better! Nice video
I'm loving it really. Yes, it needs more online content, I'm sure it'll get it, Relic add content to their games for many years after release, but other than that it's really intense and fun. The only thing I don't like is the often unresponsive UI, there are weird bugs in it. You can't scroll while holding CTRL down, which is jarring, trying to hotkey your units and that freezes the camera, also you click things and they randomly decide not to work, like I double hit a keybind to center on a group and it doesn't work, I mash it 4-5 times more and ohhh now it worked. Why? That's a bit shit, it needs more polish.
Worth A Buy I have to show you my thumb-down too mate. You might feel like a huge RTS fan, however you don't understand how a competitive scene can elevate a game's multiplayer. You suddenly become entitled to say that 8 maps are not enough, when you didn't even touch or review SCII's multiplayer in the first place. And by multiplayer I mean ranked, unranked and co-op. Only wankers call playing against AI in skirmish mode "multiplayer".
It does not need dozens of maps at release, it needs good maps that will generate a rich meta and keep the competitive scene busy defining builds and their corresponding counter-builds. Having a strong vocal competitive scene (forums, streamers...), as well as eSports championships, helps the developers keep the game alive through balance patches add-ons etc.
I completely agree though with the criticism about the esports casters. Many other common sport casters have been doing that for ages specially in USA, like the new K-1 and Glory casters for instance.
DLC Mack. That's what it's all about. Sega is known for this. They cut MASSIVE portions of the games out, and sell them as DLC. Trust me, there will be LOTS of map, unit, and faction DLC's. I guarantee it. I saw this coming from a mile away.
Did you like StarCraft 2 Mack? I feel like that game had a fair amount of extra unit abilities as well in the way that this game does. Did you feel the same?
Loved SC2 it had way less micro management than this game.
Dang, must be really rough then. I loved me some SC2 so I'm with you there but DoWIII might be too much then.
not played an RTS since Red Alert and would love to play 1 again, so would you say a person who never played the other Dawn of Wars love it ? :)
your description of Esports is spot on and should be voted to be put on wikipedia and other sites alike to define it. its just garbage the comentators etc
All we wanted was a more up to date DOW 1. Why mess with a game concept that's already good?! It's like the married all of the bad parts from 1 and 2. I want to build a base, I want lots of units, I want to turtle behind turrets and defenses. As a DOW 1 fan, they have ruined it. What a shame
Micromanaging units with all their abilities doesn't work on RTS? Isn't that exactly what you do in one of the most popular RTS game, the Starcraft?
Haha love your comments on E-sports :)
I think there's also a lot of frustration from blatantly obvious games that should be made in the setting not getting made because of games workshop's pathological hatred of making money. It doesn't take a genius to know that a wargame or supreme commander with a 40k skin would be perfect for the setting, or a homeworld knock off, or a red orchestra 2 knockoff. Why aren't there any horror games for the setting? This setting is one where you can milk it harder than star wars because of how much lore there is and how many different settings and factions and worlds there are. All we get is half finished games where like you said there's tonnes of potential in not only this game but others as well.
Great review. Going to sink some more time into the original instead. As you say, such a shame. Maybe it's time for a spinoff which actually does go for the classic experience.
Longing for a proper RTS! Base building, less micromanaging.... oh well. One day.
(Not really feeling the 8 Bit Armies aesthetic or I'd give that a go....)