14 DAY TRIAL // As I mentioned seven days ago, I am playing Chaos Rising, the expansion to Dawn of War II, and, after one week and about six missions, I have to say this is one of the toughest challenges I have encountered in gaming this year. During the campaign of the original title, I only wiped out my entire party, forcing me to restart, once or twice. The same happened to be four times during the Eldar-oriented missions taking place on Aurelia in Chaos Rising.
I can accept that my tactics are not the best and that I am handicapped by the fact that I never bothered to learn the hotkeys for the abilities and thereby limiting the speed of my in-game reactions to enemy moves.
The Eldar, with their speed and mix of close quarters and long range squads, are also very well suited to take on the Space Marines, with their somewhat slower movement. The opposition also benefited a lot from the maze-like environment and from some pretty important beneficial structures.
If it sounds like I am making excuses for myself, it's because I am trying to explain to myself how I could fail that much and also trying to come up with a strong and clear strategy, which will allow more success in the coming weekend, when I actually intend to wrap up Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising.
And if I get bored with slaughtering xenos with the Space Marines, then I plan to play a bit of the excellent Age of Discovery mode for Civilization IV Colonization, the Sid Meier-powered remake, which arrived in 2008 and didn't get as much play time from me as it should have, especially given how much I loved the original that came out in the '90's.