It’s been a little while since any of us posted a “What am I Playing?”, so here’s one to catch up on what’s entertained me for the last few weeks.

Dawn of War

An epic battle unfolds on a frozen wasteland

For anybody who is not familiar with the ‘Dawn of War‘ series, it is a real time strategy game on the PC, based on Games Workshop’s ‘Warhammer 40,000‘ universe. With it’s 2 expansions, Winter Assault and Dark Crusade, it has most of the races from the tabletop game covered, the only notable exception being the Tyranids. The game plays like most RTS games, you gather resources, build up your base, build an army, go destroy! The difference to most being that the resources you are gathering come from capturing and holding strategic points around the battlefield, not sending a pleb to gather them from some field. You can also zoom all the way down and watch the carnage unfold from the view of your Space Marines, which can be fun when the Bloodthirster runs in! Also worth noting on the gameplay is the inclusion of squad caps, meaning your army has a finite maximum size, and some units cost more cap count than others, i.e a squad of standard Space Marines costs 2 squad cap, but a squad of Terminators cost 3.

I have to say, I think this is possibly the best RTS game that I’ve ever played! Maybe it’s because of my roots in all those fantasy tabletop games, maybe it’s because you have a choice of 7 races (9 when the new expansion comes out next month!), or maybe it’s because of Relic’s previous game – the truly awesome ‘Impossible Creatures‘… Whatever the reason, if you enjoy RTS games I’d highly recommend this game! It’s also nice to see a game that is 3 and a half years old still getting new expansions, that’s some dedication from Relic!

Fatal Inertia

The Unreal III engine in action again!

This is one of the many games I won in ‘Aceybongos Gamerscore Challenge‘ last year, and I’m finally getting around to playing it. Made by Keoi, this is the fist game they have made for the 360 that is not part of their Dynasty/Samurai Warrior series. The game is a physics heavy racing game in hovering ships, with your weapon pick-ups really playing on the physics part… There’s magnets that weigh your opponents down, there’s the rocket that attaches to your opponent wing and start forcing him into barrel rolls or the cable that can be used to tie two opponents together or tie one opponent to the ground. The game is split up into 4 race championships, split over 3 difficulty levels. The better you do in each championship, the more upgrades you unlock for your cars, but there is no way to restart a single race in a championship, so you have to do all 4 back to back regardless of how badly you do! No cheeky restart here! The game isn’t too bad, but does get a bit repetitive towards the end and it contains more than a few parts that will make you want to throw your controller at the wall!

N+

My brain hurts!

‘N+’ is the XBLA version of the free PC game ‘N’. Basically, you are a stick figure ninja who has to jump around a room to avoid the traps and hit the switch to open the door and escape. Sounds pointless, crap and stupid? Well it pretty much is, except it’s more addictive than ‘Heroin Hero’! Plus you can create awesome levels on the level editor, like my room of death, of Mr. Geekboys, err, cock and balls! Really, if you have never heard of or played ‘N’, then download the free PC version, get hooked and then go download ‘N+’ for some good achievement loving!

Other TTB Posts Like This One

• Betawatch: Dawn of War 2
• Review: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (PC)
• N+ Level Pack Free On XBLA Tomorrow
• N+ DLC Coming Wednesday, 200 Points = 200 Levels
• Review: This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing… N+