Soulstorm demo

[IBBoard]

The demo of Soulstorm is now available and weighs in at a hefty 1.1GB! Apparently it includes two missions and lets you see how fliers behave, now that they've been added.

Has anyone tried it yet? I would download it, but 1.1GB is over half of our monthly bandwidth allowance! I might have to see if they'll let me download it overnight at work.

Reactions I've read on forums have been mixed. Some people thing the new fliers are good but can see some places they might be over powered (like, sensibly, being untouchable by melee only troops), some people think the Dark Eldar weren't worth putting in, and someone I saw complained about the graphics not getting an improvement (which would be somewhat difficult when it is running on the same old game engine).

[IBBoard]

I downloaded the Soulstorm demo overnight at work (the joys of a fast network!) and have just installed it. Considering I installed it in Linux under Wine then it was surprisingly pain free.

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade works under Wine in Linux, so Soulstorm should do as well


[edit] No problem playing the game, which was good Just gave the tutorial a quick run through (it's an old DoW map for the tutorial) and all seems good.

Despite some complaints I've seen, the Dark Eldar look quite intriguing. Relic/Iron Lore have managed to get an interesting new style of play with them. I'm not sure how easy soul harvesting will be in a big battle (because you'll be distracted by other things) but the fact that their builder unit just needs to place the building, start it and leave it to finish itself is quite interesting. Definitely adds to the "raider" style.

The imagery seems about right as well. Much like the buildings I've seen in screenshots then the Dark Eldar buildings seem quite fitting. Plenty of spikes and a lot of malevolence! The addons and abilities are quite well themed as well.

The only graphical thing I didn't like was that, as with other races, the Raider vehicle is a bit small. You can put a squad on it and they stand on the outside (like in Warhammer 40,000) but because the vehicle isn't at full W40K scale then the troopers have to shrink a bit. Only minor, but a shame they can't do full scale vehicles and get the pathing/game mechanics right.

I'll investigate the two battles later. For now I'm going to see if I can have a quick poke at the data and then get on with some coding on WarFoundry

[stfas]

well as it seems im the only one who don't care for how the game looks or how it plays, im not going to download the demo, though ill buy it

[IBBoard]

I don't care too much either, and I'll buy it anyway, but I like to get hold of DoW stuff and know what's going on. It doesn't help to be the owner of a community site for game skins and then not be up to date with the games

[stfas]

hehe maybe. well im playing purely out of fun (meh i must play skirmish and talk to myself in the battles either way lol (i can't play on internet) (meh i'd like if i can get original of soulstorm)

[IBBoard]

I could play online if I wanted to (although too much online play and I might need to increase my broadband package as I might run out of transfer allowance) but I don't bother because I don't have time and I'd just get slaughtered. As it is I struggle with campaign missions on Normal level!

Just had a quick look at battle 1 during my lunch break. The machine is possibly a bit slow to handle the game well, but it started and ran. Battle 1 seems to be Dark Eldar Vs Blood Angels, although it could be a random opponent (the tutorial was against BA as well, though). Hopefully battle two (whenever I get a chance to try it) will be fighting as Sisters of Battle

[caelien]

Well I couldn't download the demo, as my internet access isn't that quick, so i had to wait until i got a copy of PC Gamer which I knew would have the demo on it's disc. And all I can say is...

Dark Eldar are pants!!!

And yes, that is my own personal opinion.

[IBBoard]

Why don't you like Dark Eldar? They might not be everyone's playing style but they are different and they do add some interesting new abilities in there (builders not needing to stay there and all of the Archon's 'spells', plus power from corpses)

Also, I forgot to say that battle two is also DE and not Sisters There is a lot of Sisters of Battle data in the demo, but not any models beyond the front-end model.

[caelien]

They just seemed to die very quickly. I was playing mission 1, and as soon as a couple of Space Marine squads turned up the few (and it was a few thanks to the extremely slow requisition rate) Dark Eldar were wiped out, even the Archon.

I did persevere though, and have to admit I do like the Soul abilities especially the Soulstorm.

Mission 2 looked interesting, and I look forward to unleashing the Cadres on them (yes, the Tau, as well as the Space Marines, are my army of choice in DOW)

[IBBoard]

But that's half of the point of the Dark Eldar. Even in 40K they die quickly because they're hit and run pirates, not durable fights. I would have expected an Archon (with a retinue) to last a bit longer, though.

I think that if you can get the strategy right with hit and run tactics and a combination of abilities then the DE could definitely be very powerful.