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Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2
Relic, THQ
Game details:
Release Date: Feb 18, 2009
Genre: RTS
ESRB: Mature
Platforms: PC
It's always a good day to die in the Warhammer universe, and this is so much more so, as with improved graphics and game mechanics come better animated gore and more satisfying bangs. Dawn of War 2 is the sequel to the other RTS with many expansion packs, featuring as many races as the aforementioned Dawn of War with a more "Company of Heroes"-esque tactical feel to it.
About the game
The game is an RTS, a real-time strategy game, set in the world of Warhammer 40k, meaning that you control squads of futuristic gothic space marines or orks or whatever alien race to prevail over enemy squads of space marines or orks or whatever other alien race. It's also the true sequel to Dawn of War, the first RTS set in the world released a few years ago, which has been treated with quite a few expansions over time adding on new races and gameplay mechanics. In the case of this game however, the difference in gameplay is massive. More like colossal even actually. There is no base building to speak of anymore, no base at all when playing the single player campaign actually, the emphasis being placed on the units. Which in my opinion is great really, because it attracts more people to the game for one and shifts the point of view to the battle, allowing for more exciting action. The point control resource mechanic is still here, so the game encourages sending units forth to control the map - hence also encouraging small skirmishes all over the place.
Starting out
The single-player campaigning is jam-packed with content, although most of it is repetitive after you've done the same objective once or twice. The basic premise is that you, a Space Marine Force Commander, are sent to a planet to fend off orkish attackers. Once you get there, you meet up with diverse squads of other armorclad dudes to add to your loadout screen. Each squad gains levels with kills and successful missions, making them stronger and gain traits. You won't be able to max all characters' traits out, so you will have to specialize them, hence perhaps adding replayability. You can make your Force Commander use primarily melee weapons, a melee weapon and a ranged weapon, terminator suits, normal suits, big gunz, small guns, banners along with all other kinds of jump packs and whatever. That goes for your other squads too. You'll set out with a select four of your units and get a mission to do, involving killing varied xenomorphs along the ranks of Orks, Eldar and, yeah, finally, Tyranids. After years of fans scratching at the door of Relic and THQ, they finally gave us Tyranids to play with - and they're as visceral as you expect them to be.
Dakka Dakka all the way
As you get more and more involved in what seemed to be a routine anti-ork operation, a fully blown war starts raging across 3 planets, or more likely, a fight to see who would survive the incoming Tyranid swarm. Despite the other races fighting a losing battle, they will keep throwing units at you, despite your 15 or so armored dudes killing hundreds in the well known Spartan fashion. The missions start getting under more and more mysteries, since the Blood Ravens chapters apparently has a lot of skeletons in their closets, and while you don't actually get to uncover them per se, you get to prevent xeno races from finding out these secrets themselves. Fun! It's not all cynical and ironic though. The game truly is epic most of the time, revealing the true power of the space marines as they are portrayed in the "fluff", the literature of the table-top game. You get to defend key points, liberate regions from alien reign, and basically just kill aliens all the time. And at every end of a level you get to kill a boss - just like in a glorified action game. You can't really call the single player campaign of Dawn of War 2 a strategy game. The perspective is that of most RTS-es and you control some units, but it works more like a fighting game or an RPG rather than an RTS. You just move around the map, beating up aliens to a pulp throwing them all over the place using grenades and whatever, then you get to the boss which is a bit harder to kill, and you get back in the campaign map to repeat the cycle.
Online is much fun
It's to be expected from an RTS, but the real longevity of Dawn of War 2 lies in the multiplayer. It's powered by Games for Windows, and from what I have tested, the matchmaking was a little bit slow, but after you get into the game, provided the opponent doesn't just drop like in every other RTS game, you may be in for an intense match. Each race have three distinct heroes, with different capabilities and special, as well as buyable wargear - items that give you special capabilities like teleportation or just bonuses to damage, life and whatnot. Multiplayer games share the lack of base building with the single player game, although it does feature an upgradable base building from which you can train units. While calling units from the base uses up resources you get in a continuous manner from the points on the map, calling the special units which depend on the hero you choose takes a resource specific to the race you play as, such as Waagh in the case of Orks, come in the manner of Assault Terminators among other things, from the sky. Most units in multiplayer matches are by no means expendable, as keeping them alive grants them experience, making them stronger in the long run, as well as not needing to waste more resources. There are many ways to play the game, most interesting being the normal battle mode, in which you capture certain points on the map in order to drain the enemies' tickets. It keeps the battle going all the time, sometimes leading to spectacular comebacks.
Sounds epic
It does indeed. Each and every acknowledgement, each and every bolter fire, each and every hiss and blast sounds just as it should combined with a bit of epicness. Firefights sound great, and zooming in on the action gives you a surround sense of people trying to survive on the other side of your dude's bolter fire. They gurgle blood when chainsworded, hiss when impaling, cry in the name of the imperium, all immersing you in a bloodbath of epic proportions. This, combined with the graphics in the next section, give us the best idea of the Warhammer 40k universe to date. (We shall see about that in the upcoming W40k: Space Marine action game, which is NOT for the PC)
Graphics - Looks gritty, and gory too!
Finally the Dawn of War has come in current gen graphics. Seeing as the last game kept on to the old graphics with it's polygonal teeth, this one takes the engine used by World War 2 RTS Company of Heroes used and took it to another level. While there aren't many maps to speak of - an obvious flaw of the game - what is there looks interesting and appropriate to the game world, making us see venues like massive gothic cities, desert planets and jungle levels. You will see maps over and over again, but the fact that you can scar them with explosions and blood makes it strangely satisfying. Everything looks colorful and beautiful, making it strangely inviting despite the carnage and gore. Yeah, the gore. Seeing as it's Warhammer 40k, you should expect enemies to be chainsworded in half and the game won't dissapoint. You units feel powerful, shaking the screen when unleashing hell, and it sure looks like it, everything glowing like death should - in the 41st millenium.
Chainswording Conclusions
This game is tons of fun. If you are a fan of the first game you may or may not like how this one plays out. If however you are a fan of the tabletop game, you will like this. I know I do. Multiplayer is loads of fun for 2 or 6 and anything in-between, if you can get the people to stay in the game. It looks and sounds great, and if computers could entertain the sense of smell, it would smell like epic. Four races, endless war. You choose.