Chaos Rising – Pure

A friend and I finally got together to complete the last mission of our co-op campaign on Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising, having gotten most of the way through it back in January.

This last mission, Foul Play in the Chapter Keep, started with Predator tanks, which we were meant to use to clear the path for our later fights.. it was good to feel powerful and I would have liked to have mine for longer!  I was a bit disappointed when I lost control of the tank after being given my regular units back.

The Undoer thought we’d missed something, and ended up going down the path where Eliphas was hiding all by himself.. this meant Jonah got a little time laying on his back while the rest of the troops came to find him.  Eliphas put up a bit of a struggle, but not too much.. a warm-up for our future confrontation with Ulkair, the Great Unclean One and final boss.

Ulkair had his own arena..

Compared to other fights, this one was fairly tough and Force Commander Bob and Jonah had to take it in turns to tank him.  I was glad of Jonah’s healing skills as well as the invulnerability buff.. not the mention the nearby beacon where I had to keep reinforcing troops.

We took him down in the end, and were rewarded with a rather cool cutscene and a bit more story.

And there it is.. another game completed!  Next up: Dawn of War II – Retribution.. although I do want to play this again on the corrupt side! 🙂

Battle Brothers

Add another game to the ‘Completed’ pile, as Tim and I have now finished our co-op campaign on Dawn of War II! 🙂

The last few missions were a lot tougher, and running on towards the objective sometimes led to being swamped so we had to change tactic and be a bit more cautious.  Fighting off waves of Tyranids was fun, as it constantly felt as if we were going to be overrun, but just managed to scrape through.  I’ve no idea what this would be like on a harder difficulty.. 😀

I’ve still got Chaos Rising to complete before Retribution comes out, though I think this is one that needs to be completed in single-player first because of the corruption mechanic and wanting to play it my own way!

i40, a little bit late

This post was supposed to make an appearance one week ago, after returning from i40.
However, we still have no internet at home (it’s coming up on four weeks now), and some personal stuff too which meant I wanted to spend the week curled in a small ball, not interacting with anything.

Enough of that, though – i40!

We arrived just before the rain.. a fantastic start to a weekend where the sleeping is mostly done outside 😉

That wasn’t the end of the ‘fantastic start’, however, as we were then excluded from taking our machines in till way after 6pm because the temporary structure wasn’t ready.. and then when we were finally able to get in, there was no internet.  With no internet, there was also no Steam..

The first game played, then, was Warcraft III, as it was one of the few games available which didn’t need an internet connection or updates.

In amongst those games was a go at the “Run, Kitty, Run” map: you have to run along a spiral path to the centre, avoiding the ‘dogs’ which kill you on touch.  It gets harder as you progress, as the paths are narrower, until there’s barely room to get past.. for the first time in many, many attempts, we actually managed to get to the end, where it seems the reward for success is.. to start again with even more dogs on the paths!

I was also introduced to Beat Hazard, thanks to another friend.  This takes any music track you own and turns it into a simple space shooter, very like Geometry Wars.. and it makes very bright, pretty colours.. *gazes*

You start off with space-trash to shoot, but as the track progresses you face stronger enemies which shoot back.  Fortunately, you collect power-ups as you go, which makes your weapons a little more useful.. as well as more colourful.. and there are also power-ups which increase the volume of the track too.

It’s another ‘unblinking’ game which probably shouldn’t be played in a dark room at LAN 😉

After playing this, Audiosurf made another appearance, and with it, a little competition going on in terms of the scoreboard.

Minecraft became a slight obsession for one friend..  this is a 3D sandbox crafting game, with a variety of types of block: wood, coal, etc, and strange blocky life-forms, the most interesting being zombies!  I had a brief go at the game a while back, but after spending two day cycles building, and two night cycles hiding in my buildings from the zombies, I then found my trial of the game didn’t have zombies.. durrrp!
It was admittedly quite fun watching huge piles of TNT go up, though, especially when it resulted in framerates of 1 or 2, or crashed the PC :3

In the run-up to i40, we picked up Borderlands, thanks to another Steam offer.  Oh, Steam.. what would I do with all my money if not for you?

Borderlands has 4 player co-op, which is great as I do like playing with friends.. but I have to say that I found myself confused by the weapons, as per usual in this type of game.   Having to pick up ammo for the weapon I was using, while leaving other ammo for my team just added another layer of trouble.. if I don’t know the guns, I’m really not going to know what ammo they use.

Despite this, I love the game, though I want to complete the game in single-player so I know what I’m doing, and don’t feel like I’m holding my friends back next time.

We also got a couple of games of Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising in.. trying out the Free-For-All mode which I really enjoyed, especially with high resources allowing me to just pump out units.  I think I’m improving on my tactics now, using the Techmarine to fit with my defensive playstyle.  FFA made a nice change, but I think co-op is still going to remain my favourite.

The last night of i40 turned into an all-nighter, with a foxy puppet, fits of giggles, a brief foray onto the rather disappointing Omegle, and later fits of shivers.. the temporary structure really wasn’t draught-proof and by 4am I was glad of fleecy blankets and two friends to hide between for warmth.  Next time I think I’ll be voting for a warmer and quieter hall, maybe in with the WoW players.. lalala 😉

LAN wouldn’t be LAN without a massive TF2 battle between CantFitMyN and Crazy/Inv, and so on the last morning we duly had our game, though there was no victory for CFMN this time.  Next time, maybe! 🙂

Chaos Rising

5.30am.  Dark and cold.  This is a time of day best slept through, but at the end of February, I found myself getting out of my warm bed and getting ready for a day in London with THQ and Chaos Rising, the first expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II.  After baking in the train – the heating was broken in my carriage and thus on full blast – I was glad of the cold outside 🙂

The event was held in HMV’s Gamerbase in the Trocadero Centre, easy enough to find.  However, the toilets were not so easy to find (none in the Gamerbase or even on the same floor) and then when I did find them.. well.
I figured a £1 charge to be a bit excessive, and ended up sneaking into the McDonalds a few streets down instead!

So, the game..
Chaos Rising adds a new campaign to run through, this time facing the Chaos Space Marines.  These are a corrupted form of the Space Marines you control, with a new set of skills and abilities.  Only the first three missions were available to play at the event, following which the guests tried out the multiplayer side of the game.  Of the new units, the Great Unclean One stood out as a rather interesting, if hideous specimen 🙂

A new corruption mechanic has been added to the expansion, with your squads gaining corruption for questionable actions, such as taking items from Shrines, or ignoring optional side missions to help out civilians.  Gaining corruption leads to different abilities and access to higher level wargear, but will lead to you being unable to use other wargear for which you need to be Pure.

Along with the campaign, there are new units for each of the races, new maps, and extra modes for multiplayer including free-for-all, which probably means I should brace for a beating 😉

My favourite mode, Last Stand, gains two new heroes, the Tyranid Hive Tyrant and the Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer.  Both of these can summon minions too, which makes for an interesting group of allies!