Relic has once more created a masterpiece of gaming joy and art while smoothly adding in new elements which drastically change gameplay in very subtle natural ways in complete balance with one another.
The size of this expansion is humongous and your pretty much getting a full game in disguise for the price of a expansion. Relic is one of those few companies that goes all out to give their fans complete satisfaction never skimping on the details.
Graphics are improved and are used to even more atompheric mood enhancing effect then previous chapters. In one scene i just had to stop to take in the breath taking view of the misty landscape with the tops of ruins peeking out from on high while haunting classical music played in the background. A disarming moment in a world of unrelenting war.
Sound effects are highly effective at making weapons feel real and give that adrenaline triggering ambience of a battlefield. Voice acting is excellent capturing the qualities of the individual races and heroes with plenty of story enhancing mood. Hearing traitor Imperial Gaurdsmen expressing their personal frustration and despair of having served the Emperor to their new masters gives them a certain shade of grey instead of making them out as self centered greedy maniacal traitors. They actually sound seduced and tempted to the dark side. The new heroes and villains come alive thanks to the great voice acting and story. I am totally immersed with the feeling of actually being in the ultra violent harsh universe of Warhammer 40k.
Music once more is epic and inspiring fitting in perfectly to the setting like few game soundtracks do.
Gameplay has tons of new elements making an already fantastic sci fi strategy even more fun to play. Now you can build huge armies for each race by collecting battlefield resources and energy stored in containers on the field aswell by unlocking them as rewards after a battle. Now the player has complete control over what units to have in their military force so its quite possible to have three jump jetting Assault Marines on the field alongside three Dreadnoughts each configured with different weapons. During battles you will also be able to increase the size of your army allotment after capturing certain strategic targets.Heroes are also available and will use their unique abilities during tense battles.
A word of warning though after finishing the Space Marine campaign which i suggest be played first to keep things fresh and get the most out of the conclusion of the Blood Raven storyline due to the same maps being used for all the races with similar mission quests i noticed that races really play differently and one has to use their strengths to the fullest. The Space Marine campaign was a cake walk because of being so familar with their abilities but when starting the Imperial Guard campaign i found myself frustrated and thinking the other races were not as balanced and needed major tweaking. This was the wrong mindset and after trying out different tactics especially using the Imperial Guards advantage of huge numbers i finally found myself winning battles which was a relief. So a bit or alot of experimenting with tactics and unit combinations will reward your patience well.
RELIC is in top form when it comes to support already releasing one patch to fix some bugs and add some fan desired enhancements to DAWN OF WAR 2 RETRIBUTION.
If your a fan and satisfied customer of the DAWN OF WAR series you owe it to yourself to buy this full game size expansion which brings back the fun of the first WARHAMMER 40k DAWN OF WAR with grand huge armies while still keeping the great things of DAWN OF WAR 2 in place.
Thanks RELIC for another worthy purchase.