Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Relic Entertainment decided to not make just improvements to the original game but instead they took the Dawn of War series into a new direction. I liked the first game (and all its expansions); it's the only real-time strategy game I'm any good at. The grim and dark setting helps a quite bit as well.

I think one of the main reasons I like it is how the units, being squads, don't die (completely) all the time; at least not the space marines. Dawn of War II has it so as well. In fact, your units, or rather, characters and their meat shields, will only get incapacitated and can be revived as long as you have someone left to do so.

The multiplayer skirmish is more like an RTS but the game's campaign is missing base building elements and the game focuses completely on controlling your four squads and using their abilities. Wikipedia calls this type of game "real-time tactics" and I like it; action is constant without distractions. Also, for a while I wondered why the interface feels so slick but then I realized it's because this is no console-port. That's the good thing with RTS games; there's no fear design would be hampered by a need to get the game work without a mouse.

The characters will gain levels throughout the campaign in RPG style and you have some choice how to advance them to suit your playstyle. There's also wargear, randomly rewarded after each mission as well as sometimes dropping from killed enemies. I like how they used the same rarity coloring as in World of Warcraft. I didn't get any purples, though.

Maybe they are in the harder difficulties -- I played in the default Sergeant, which might have been a bit too easy for me. Although, I'm happy I didn't have to spend more time playing the campaign.

The campaign, as happens, is very repetitive. You fight on the same maps over and over again. You're there either to kill a tougher boss unit on the other side of the map or to defend a building you previously captured. It gets old really fast. All the loot and experience won't help. There's only few missions with little variation.

It's a shame really; DoW2 oozes high production value. It has a nice orchestral soundtrack and couple tracks are quite catchy. I noticed myself humming them after I had stopped playing.

The story is strong in fluff and the Blood Ravens chapter became more familiar to me. The characters are positively lively and distinct for superhumans designed only for waging war. I named my force commander Tanthius after the terminator sergeant in the first game. When I found Valorous, the bolter of Sgt. Tanthius, at the beginning of the game, I was afraid Tanthius himself might join my squads. Luckily, he didn't and stuff didn't go weird.

Captain Thule's encasement into a dreadnought didn't surprise me one bit. I saw it coming from the moment I found the first piece of dreadnought gear after Thule had fallen. I didn't find the walker effective enough to permanently replace someone in my setup, and so he got dropped into the last mission as an extra after Armageddon had been destroyed. Unfortunately, Thule the Dreadnought got stuck behind his drop pod and couldn't join the fight. I didn't need him anyway.

The scouts were the other squad I decided to ignore, even though the loading screen tip tried to convince me otherwise. Cyrus just didn't do enough damage or wasn't able to take it to justify his presence. The rest of the units; the force commander, the tactical squad, the assault squad, and the devastator squad felt much like their tabletop counterparts in their relative strengths.

However, after one mission rewarded Neverending Hail of Devastation, the devastators started doing ridiculous damage. The heavy bolter's DPS was about eight times higher than the one Avitus previously had.

In addition to Space Marines, Orks and Eldar are found in the second Dawn of War. The main enemy, however, are the Tyranids, who were not in the original game nor its expansions. I guess the devs felt the Essence Engine 2.0 was enough to get the bugs into the game unlike the one the first DoW run on. Noticeable difference between the two games is how terrain can be destroyed on the later one. Also, marines in terminator simply choose to ignore any walls or fences that are in their path and just walk straight through. Pretty hilarious.

I wish they had managed to write a better single player campaign for Dawn of War II. It could have been so good game. I'd take a simple linear story any day over the thing DoW2 has.