EndWeekGame: April 16

Andrei Dumitrescu: I've never played Warhammer 40,000 with the painted figurines and the landscapes, mostly because I only discovered their existence a few years ago, and the costs for a country which is just emerging from Communism are rather prohibitive. But I loved playing around with the first Warhammer 40,00o: Dawn of War videogame from Relic and THQ. I loved the developer because of their earlier work on Homworld and their current work on Company of Heroes and Dawn of War only increased the respect I have for them.

But after beating the campaign of Dawn of War II, which was launched in February last year, I got something akin to universe fatigue. I couldn't touch the multiplayer for more than a few matches, and by the time I tried to get back in, other players were unbearably better than I was. Since then, I thought about Dawn of War II and about how it changed the real time strategy and tactics landscape and followed new information linked with the Chaos Rising expansion, but I was strangely uninterested in actually playing it, mainly because I kept no saves handy and I needed to also play through the original campaign again, something which seemed like a bit of a chore, especially considering some of the long and touch boss fights towards the end.

I am beginning to rectify the mistake of ignoring Chaos Rising this weekend. I have completed the original again on the Captain difficulty level and plan to import my fearless squad and go kicking about some Chaos influenced butt. What I cannot yet decide on is whether my Space Marines will aim to remain pure while they cleanse their home sector or whether they will embrace the Chaos taint in destroying their enemies. I guess I'll do two play throughs, focusing on love for the Emperor in one and on embracing darkness in another.