Dawn of War - Dark Crusade Expansion (PC)

*The first paragraph of my previous reviews were missing, don't know how, hope the same doesn't happen to all my reviews.

Dark Crusade is the second expansion to Warhammer 4000: Dawn of War and undoubtedly one of the best expansions ever. The best thing about this one is that it is a standalone expansion and does not require the original game to play. As most of the expansions these days require the original game, it is great to have an expansion like this one, especially for the people who are new to the game as they won't have to go searching for the original game after they get the Dark Crusade. The game includes all the races from the original, with two new ones added - the Necrons and the Tau Empire. The player will need to have the original for playing multiplayer with the other races though.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP
DirectX 9.0c (included on disc)
2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD Athlon XP processor
512 MB RAM required for 8-player multiplayer games)
4.0 GB free hard drive space for installation
4x CD-ROM / DVD-ROM drive
64 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible AGP video card with Hardware Transform and Lighting
DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
Keyboard and Mouse

WELCOME TO THE DARK CRUSADE
Dark Crusade introduces a new campaign with all the races trying to conquer the planet Kronos. Everything just seems to look better, with the variety of maps and new units as well as the buildings of those new races. Each race will have their own leader who will have lots of abilities and will also be able to gain some wargears as you achieve some objectives. The strength and the other powers of these leaders or heroes will vary and they will only get better as they recieve the proper wargear. The planet of Kronos will be divided into different territories and one of them will be your race's stronghold from where you begin the game. Rach race will have their own strongholds and territories. The player will start with just one stronghold and he can attack the near by provinces and go on capturing them, but won't be able to attack more than one territory per turn.

The player will also have to defend those territories if an opponent chooses to attack on of them, and it will be upto the player to reinforce the territories by recruiting some troops there. The player will be awarded with various things as each territory is conquered. Most of them will give honor guards who are powerful fighters who are just like an upgrade to the original units. Some of them will give special bonuses, like the space port which allows the player to attack any territory in the map, or the Industrial production which increases the initial resources. There also bonuses which allow the player two attack two territories per turn as well as orbital deployment of structures.

The two new races increases the maximum number of playable races in the game to seven and there are also some new units added to the already existing races, like the Grey Knights for Space Marines, Daemon Prince for Chaos Marines and also a few more. There are also some new characters for each race and the game seems as good as a sequel of the original. The whole planet of Kronos is a new experience for all the gamers, and this game may require some different tactics to win the whole thing. As each race is different from the others, there may be need to play as each of them to know the strength and weaknesses of those large number of units out there in the battlefield. There may be situations in the campaign where you may have to face more than just one race. The player needs to gather enough resources, in the form of both requisition and power. The victory condition may also be the same most of the time - to destroy all enemy Head Quarters, but will vary in strongholds and a few territories.

THE NEW RACES
NECRONS:-
The new race necrons may also be the toughest of them all, and looks like metal skeletons and robotic demons. They may not be to strong at the ranged attacks, but they got some great melee units and they are really hard to kill. The infantry may be too slow to move, but they are almost unbeatable with the support of vehicle units as well as the units called Flayed ones which summons directly from under the ground. The Necron Lord may be the most powerful hero unit in the whole galaxy, as he is not only hard to kill with all his wargear on, but he also got abilities like transforming into Nightbringer, an invincible creature which is immune to all weapons and this power lasts for sixty seconds and each attack on this creature will only increase the Necron Lord's health when he transforms back to his original form. He also got the abilities like Telepot, bring the dead corpses to life, slow down the enemies and more. Necrons are also diffferent in the resource gathering as they does not require requisition resources to do anything. They can be powerful just by building some generators around. But they will have to capture strategic points and build obelisks on them to increase the squad and vehicle cap. But Necrons doesn't have any artillery or the other units which can destroy a whole area. Only the headquarters of Necrons called the monolith can do this job with the biggest upgrade applied.

TAU EMPIRE:-
Tau is the other new race to be added to the game and they seems to concentrate more on long range combat and may not stand the melee attacks most of the time. Tau may look like a technically superior race as they got units like XV 15 Stealth suits which can infiltrate the enemy camps and they cannot be attacked until they are detected by some unit which has that ability. The Tau race may seem to be more about choices as we may have to go through one side of the technology by building one of the two structures. The hero unit of Tau may not be the best, but they can capture the relics to create Greater Knarloc, a powerful creature.

THE OLDER RACES
IMPERIAL GUARDS:-
This is the race from the recent expansion, the Winter Assault. Imperial Guards may be the weakest melee race in the game, but they got the gunpower which is unmatched. The have very powerful tanks which can destroy a base in seconds, but none of them will stand against the melee attack of opponents as they can only fire from a distance. The commander is also not too powerful, and with some feeble units, Imperial Guards may sometimes taste defeat fast, but once there are enough forces in the army, they can destroy the opponents even before they come two feet near.

SPACE MARINES:-
The only playable race in the original is back, and they may be the favourite race for most of the people. They are genetically modified human soldiers and they are a great force in combat and does well in all forms. They seems to have more of a balance between toughness, speed and all the features. They may be hard to beat if you are pushed back.

CHAOS MARINES:-
They are almost the same as the space marines, and they are supposed to be the space marines itself who choose to worship the Chaos God and betray and abandon their own planet and the people. They will have demons and powerful creatures in their squad and they are fast as well as powerful. They have most of the ranged attack of the Space Marines and also units with great melee power. They also have some good vehicle units and also the huge Bloodthirster, one of the most powerful units which can destroy anything when summoned, and loses health when its not fighting.

ELDARS:-
The Eldars are supposed to be the technologically advanced race, but having a long history. They are fast and rely on stealth as they are fragile and their units are not at all good for the beginners. They may want to stay undetected and uses various tricks to keep the enemies guessing. It may be difficult to win the game with this race, and it may take lots of time to get familiar with them. The use special structures called webway gates to travel quickly through the world and they seems to have maximum hatred against the Necrons. They may seem to look like the Elves at times.

ORKS:-
Some of the most popular races of the usual strategy games are also in this one, as the Orks look more powerful than ever. They got some of the most powerful units, and they look more modern and advanced than their race in any other game. They may be a little less tougher than the Necrons, but these guys are fast and can be more dangerous than anything else in the game, and may be just too difficult to beat while attacking them especially when they have more than one base.

Dark Crusade is the best expansion which has ever been made for a strategy game, and the quality and quantity of the content of this expansion has been amazing. The game's campaign as well as multiplayer mode are all praise-worthy. Relic has really done a fantastic job with this stand-alone expansion. As we already know that the next expansion is on its way, called Soulstorm and lets see what it has got to offer except for the two new races. Everyone who wants to get the maximum out of Dawn of War should get this expansion too, as these two races and the new units are too good, and it just looks like Dawn of War has just got a sequel :-)

THANKS FOR READING THE REVIEW :-) PLEASE DO CHECK THE UPLOADED DARK CRUSADE PICS TOO :-)