Part of what makes Dawn Of War more appealing than other RTS games (and particularly its sequel) is its scale, putting you in charge of entire squadrons and eventually building up to fleets of tanks that rumble across the terrain. Ultimate Apocalypse comes closer than anything else to bringing that imaginary game Warhammer 40,00 players dream of to life. Even when I tried to stack the deck in my favor by choosing the wimpy space-elf Eldar as my opponents (sorry, Eldar fans) they eventually swamped my position with spindly-limbed walkers and laser-spitting Brightlance platforms, breaking my Marines’ morale over and over till they had nowhere left to fall back to. Its maps throw hordes of enemies at you in growing numbers until by the end of it they’re swamping you with vehicles as your last turret’s about to fall.
While one of Dawn Of War’s design aims was to push players into early conflict by forcing them to squabble over strategic points and relics, the Warhammer 40,000 fiction is full of doomed last stands in which small numbers of Space Marines or Imperial Guard hunker down while endless waves of enemies fall on them, and those are the scenarios Survival recreates. If you’ve ever set up a skirmish battle in Age Of Empires or the like just to turtle in your base and fight off any attackers who dare approach, you’ll understand the appeal of Survival: The Art Of Defence.
