There are a number of multiplayer options. You can play the game on LAN or online. You can play against your friends together on LAN. Online play requires an internet connection, and has a few different features. There are ranked games, which auto-match you against an opponent of a similar rank as you. There are also unranked games, which allow you to play without worry of ruining your score, and also let you play games with your friends over the internet. Unranked games allow you to choose the map and game settings (such as game speed, resource rates, and victory conditions).

The single player campaign in Dark Crusade is very similar to risk, where you have to seize territories on a planet, and conquer everything. When two territories come into conflict, the game switches to RTS mode, and you must battle against the CPU over the territory.

There is also a skirmish mode, which allows you to square off against a CPU opponent. This is great practice for online competition.

The game ran very smoothly on my machine with all the options turned up (AMD Athlon 64 3800+, nVidia Geforce 6800XT 256mb, 1GB RAM). The game can also be scaled down so that most computers can run it. I was even able to play the game on a really weak computer in my college computer lab during class. The engine is very flexible, and is optimized for any computer configuration. (screenshot: Assaulting the Enemy Base)

All in all, I simply love this game. The different races are each very unique, which allows most any player to find their niche in the game. If you like RTS games, I highly recommend picking this game up.

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War Gold (includes the Winter Assault expansion) retails for $29.99 at most game stores. Dark Crusade also retails for $29.99 at most game stores. Both games are rated M for Mature.

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