First of all, I want to make sure everyone knows that I have always been a mortal enemy of the Chaos traitors. Now that that’s out of the way, I pulled out Chaos Gate this evening, box and all, and installed it. I remember liking the Dawn of War games a lot (the first series more than the second), but for some reason I thought that it felt just a little bit better as a turn-based game. Probably because I first learned about WH40K as a miniatures game (though I never played, or at least never collected/painted the figures). There is something about Warhammer than compels you to linger over the pieces, like in a diorama. I think you lose a lot of that in the real-time games. I never felt that the way Dawn of War II developed the setting made me feel very much like I was in the world of Warhammer.
Chaos Gate really lets you fuss over the units, with lots of statistics and melta-guns and whatnot. The first scenario was pretty trivial, but I loved watching the old animations and explosions. Using action points to crouch is going to be an archaic concept soon.
While I was looking for the 1.1 and 1.2 patches, I came across a collection of youtube videos that someone posted of what looks like the whole campaign. I don’t really remember any of the missions so I’m not going to spoil them for myself by watching them all, but here is a link to the first mission playthrough, complete with awesome music.
I really think that this is why Charles Babbage invented computers.
You’ve made the classic blunder of confusing The Emperor of Man with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. They’re quite similar, really. Both rose to power in a time of great turmoil. Both tried to forge a fiercely secular state amidst growing religious fervor. Heck, they were both Turks, technically speaking.* I guess what I’m saying is that Warhammer 40k is historically accurate.
Oh, and so I can have something useful to say, I liked Chaos Gate well enough, but I actually preferred the Eldar based Panzer General clone. It was sort of like Fantasy General crossed with hover tanks. I didn’t get too far into Chaos Gate- did it really have anything to recommend it over, say, x-com? I mean, you use marines, right? So there’s no crazy powers being thrown around or anything.
Awesome, I am a recent convert to the WH40K universe but I really like what I have seen in stuff like Dawn of War and Space Marine. Brooski, I have enjoyed your detailed game diaries from other war games on the front page - any chance this can get similar treatment?
I recently went and installed a bunch of old tactical games - JA2, Silent Storm, Starfleet Command, Myth II, Combat mission, Fallout Tactics, etc…
For some reason I didn’t grab Chaos Gate. I’ll have to rectify that. I want to finish my silent storm playthrough first though - never did finish that game.
I think most of the missions in Chaos Gate were pre-built, with some randomized optional side missions? The overall shape of the campaign is pretty linear, in any case.
Bruce, if you’ve booted up Chaos Gate, you owe it to yourself to revisit Shadow Watch. You can still be redeemed for thinking Odium was the better game back in the day.
Yeah, I had heard that this was a tough one to get to run on a modern operating system, but I just installed it on my Windows 7 desktop (Intel Core i7) and under Properties for the executable clicked on “Run in Compatibility Mode” and then checked “Windows 95” and it seemed to run ok. The game I can’t get to run for love or money is Emperor of the Fading Suns.
I actually thought of doing a game diary, but I don’t know much about the WH40k universe, other than what I’ve learned from games. The only source I have is this Warhammer 40k rule book I bought a long time ago. I feel like I’d need to do a bunch of research.
The first scenario was indeed very easy. I didn’t really have to do any crouching or tactical trickery. If that’s how the whole thing is, I’ll be a little disappointed.
Does Shadow Watch have Space Marines? I had forgotten that part. Does mentioning Shadow Watch still make Kevin Perry appear?
