Warhammer 40,000: Rites Of War - PC Games

Fans of the source material will no doubt appreciate the opportunity posed by Rites of War to take on the Imperium with the Eldar's alien weapons and will be further pleased to learn that they'll face the Tyranid as well, who haven't shown their ugly faces on the computer screen since Space Hulk. Together, these three races are a fascinating bunch, so much so that they clearly influenced their counterparts in Blizzard's wildly popular real-time strategy game Starcraft.

Rites of War plays more like a war game and not so much like its source material. Most missions have you moving around 15 units one by one over a hex-based map in an effort to defeat your enemies or claim their territory. The majority of these units can only attack adjacent hexes, at which point the game compares unit stats for initiative, strength, toughness and so forth to resolve the combat.

Rites of War includes a linear campaign of two dozen missions, each of whose scenarios are introduced through a rather strikingly well-acted speech from your commanding officer, the Farseer.

Unfortunately, aside from the Farseer's impassioned diatribes against the Eldar's enemies, the campaign is otherwise fairly straightforward, with few twists within the missions themselves and little cohesion between missions. The real incentive to keep playing is that your units gain experience as they fight, becoming noticeably more powerful as they do so. Most Eldar units are promoted to Exarch status once they become sufficiently experienced, turning the once-vulnerable warriors into seemingly invincible warlords. Rites of War proves to be fairly enjoyable if you can get past all its many rough edges, the game finally comes across as a missed opportunity to show off Warhammer 40,000 in all its glory. --Greg Kasavin