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We seem to be forgetting, but Tales of Valor is due out shortly!

Gamespy hasn’t forgotten and they’ve got a hands on preview of one of the 82nd Airborne Centric stories from the game.

The missions I played detailed the assault on the French town of Cauquigny and the seizure of the La Fiere causeway by paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne. The road was a key artery for moving men and materiel up through the countryside on the way to Berlin in the waning days of World War II. The Germans, of course, were aware of this and had the town heavily fortified. Over the course of three missions, the player will follow the initial assault, the horrifying charge over the causeway, and the eventual battle for the “Grey Castle” that put the town in Allied hands. It will also let the player fight in a battle in which every man save one that crossed that causeway never made it back.

They also have several videos.

Thanks for the heads up Will!

I’m on day 5 of the single player mission, and I’m really enjoying it!

Can’t wait to play more tomorrow night!

Someguy: Co-op is great! I also named my Force Commander, Batman!

Zero Day Patch Discussion happening on the forums. The official list is in the third post. There’s also some undocumented fixes posted later in the thread. Some great info from Relic/THQ (thanks Tranj!) in there as well.

Nuff said,

Rhino vs Car

Realliferhino.com

Relic’s posted some Beta Stats.

A fascinating read! Thanks Relic, love info like that!

Spotted on Evilavatar.com

Straight up… 90% and an IGN Editor’s Choice award. Full Review Here.

Relic has made a lot of bold decisions with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, some of which are sure to turn off parts of the RTS hardcore base, the most obvious being the elimination of base building. Yet as players we can’t continue to accept the same kinds of games, complain about stagnation, and then turn our backs when somebody does something different. In the campaign portion of the game Relic blended elements of action-RPGs and real-time strategy games and succeeded in producing a new and entertaining kind of experience. The missions could be more interesting and quality of narrative delivery stronger, but what’s here is a terrific alternative to the standard base-bashing real-time strategy campaigns, hopefully something Relic is able to expand and further improve with expansions. A full multiplayer suite and four playable races are there waiting for you when you’re through with the campaign, and should provide lots of fast-paced bouts of brutal conflict online and in skirmishes against the AI. While the overall formula could still use some fine-tuning, the current product is one part hypercharged tactical combat, one part streamlined competitive RTS, and entirely worth playing.

I’ve got my pre-order in at EB games, going to have to get an online order as well though.

DoW2 is scheduled for release in a little over two days, and Direct2Drive still has the game up for preorder, which means that if you order it now you’ll get a bonus wargear set in addition to the game. D2D offers the Destroyer Wargear Set consisting of a custom power armore, a custom heavy bolter, a custom missile launcher and access to the Novamarines custom chapter.

They also have a bundled set for both DoW1 and DoW2 available, so if you still haven’t played the original here’s your chance to get it with all the expansions for just 20 bucks.

In case you’re not familiar with Direct2Drive, having used D2D before myself I can recommend their service. When you buy the game you can download it from their servers anytime, meaning that unlike EA’s download service you won’t have to spend money on a “download guarantee” or anything like that. It also doesn’t require its own client running in the background like steam does.

Download Dawn of War 2

Thunder sent me a heads up on a poll they’re running for two users-created maps to go into a future Company of Heroes patch. If you want to give these maps a try, you need to download the Balance Playtest.

The two maps are,
Industrial Riverbed, by Deionarra
Ruins of Rouen, by sizzlorr

The poll will be open for a week, so go out and vote!

Mapping Contest Poll: Company of Heroes

Check out the Dawn of War II Facebook Group.

For members in the UK, you can enter a contest to win a life sized statue of a Blood Raven Space Marine.

They’ve also got info on the Rhino they created.

Looks like the listing for Dawn of War 2 is back up on Gamestop. No idea why it was taken down in the first place.

Dawn of War 2