VLTTP Final Liberation

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Darmort

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Mar 16, 2009
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So, after almost 13 years after it's release, Final Liberation is a game that I'm yet again returning to. With over 500 hours playing time on it, easy, the best way to describe Final Liberation is addictive. It requires some patience to get over the difficult learning curve, but once you're past it then Final Liberation will give even the Epic 40K gamers a chance to enjoy a Warhammer game that is very true to the rules.

So, the system itself. Well, it's easy to get to grips with, but it's hard to understand how it works and can be rather unforgiving to the unsuspecting. A unit has a set amount of movement, for most infantry it's 8 squares, and for tanks it can be anywhere between 12 and 24 squares. A rough terrain square will account for 2 units of movement, and since most of the battlefields are on the outset of a town or city, get used to the idea that you'll only be moving around 4 squares a turn. If you don't want to shoot. Firing a shot will cost half your movement on all but the biggest guns, such as an Ork Gargent's belly cannon or an Imperial Guard's Bombard cannon. This allows most units to fire 2 shots by sacrificing all their movement, more if they have more than one weapon, such as a Leman Russ which has a battle cannon, lascannons and bolters, each weapon getting 2 shots if it doesn't move.

That said, I can't remember whether it's a glitch in the game coding or part of the original 40K Epic rules, but you can move 1 square, regardless of how much movement it actually takes up, and still fire all your weapons. It's useful as it allows you to move a unit quickly to the side to see an enemy unit, or to move it out of the sight of a majority of enemy units while still getting maximum shots, however this movement must be before you've finished firing any weapon.


On the campaign you play Lord Commander, a faceless and otherwise nameless protagonist who controls the Imperial Forces on Volistad, a planet of the Imperium besieged by Orks that you're going to liberate. During the cutscenes that pop up once every so often after various missions, you see the characters. The most memorable of these characters is Commissar Holt. The cutscenes are a crap, but at the same time I can't but wish that other games companies made the live action cutscenes that Final Liberation had. I suppose the greenscreening would cost too much, but ah well.

Now, usually something I wouldn't mention in a computer game is the soundtrack, but on Final Liberation the soundtrack is simply mindblowing. I don't know how to describe it. A really industrial technological beat with heavy bass is about as close as I can describe. Other games have good soundtracks, but I've never found a game that has a soundtrack that is as good as Final Liberation's.

Finally, in the encyclopedia that details all the stats for every single unit, there were two options for Tyranids and Eldar, indicating that SSI had intended an expansion. Mod tools were developed and released, and there was a Chaos faction made by the modders, but it didn't get past the alpha stage. It's unfortunately, but there you have it.

So, Final Liberation is a good thorough experience for any tabletop gamer. Unlike games such as Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen, Final Liberation is heavily based upon the tabletop game, not just using the general ruleset for stats. The large amount of units, amazing soundtrack and the live action cutscenes are all, in my opinion, large plus sides, the worst thing about the game is that there are only two sides, Orks and Imperials (Imperial Guard and Space Marines), and Orks are only available in a skirmish game. Some units also seem slightly overpowered or underpowered, but generally these have a major downside or upside, such as blowing themselves up or being lightly armoured (for Orks), or being able to give out as much punch as they recieve (Space Marines).

That's it from me, later.
 

TimeLord

For the Emperor!
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Aug 15, 2008
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Final Liberation was an excellent game, however unlike Dawn of War it was turn based and thus looses 6,000,000 points
 

Garaw

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Sep 22, 2009
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I've been trying to reinstall this under XP without any luck. Any advice?
 

Katherine Kerensky

Why, or Why Not?
Mar 27, 2009
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Thanks for the review of a game I am still looking for.
Reminded me that I still have to keep searching...
Perhaps you could have put links up to youtube vids to show some of the soundtrack?
 

Jark212

Certified Deviant
Jul 17, 2008
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TimeLord said:
Final Liberation was an excellent game, however unlike Dawn of War it was turn basic and thus looses 6,000,000 points
For the time it think it was quite decent...


Windows 95, I feel old...
 

Darmort

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Mar 16, 2009
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Greyfox105 said:
Perhaps you could have put links up to youtube vids to show some of the soundtrack?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joWDZfBYOos - Part one of two.

TimeLord said:
Final Liberation was an excellent game, however unlike Dawn of War it was turn basic and thus looses 6,000,000 points
And unlike Dawn of War, Final Liberation has kept my attention for nearly 13 long years. Dawn of War I've kind of lost interest in.

Garaw said:
I've been trying to reinstall this under XP without any luck. Any advice?
Try looking on the internet? I did a fresh install on Vista and I've found that Vista's usually more fussy about such things than XP is.

Jark212 said:
Windows 95, I feel old...
I feel old too now...
 

TimeLord

For the Emperor!
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Aug 15, 2008
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Garaw said:
I've been trying to reinstall this under XP without any luck. Any advice?
XP and Vista require an extra piece of code to allow it to run, I got mine from a mate but it's probably available on the internet
 

Triangulon

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Nov 20, 2009
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Awesome game. Pulsa rockets! Great campaign and loads of replayability. I always felt that this was the sister game to Chaos Gate. Never been able to get them to work on XP though.