Relics latest incarnation of the wildly popular 40K universe is something you have never seen before. Full Review.
This review was played on a cutting edge Gaming PC with super fast broadband. Graphical and connection issues may vary.
Relic, famed for their fantastic RTS games first made a name for themselves with the iconic Company of Heroes. However that gem of a game was based heavily off a previous game: Dawn of War. Dawn of War was an innovation in the RTS genre that no other company has managed to recreate to the same standard. Now with the release of Dawn of War 2, Relic have once again tried to reinvent the wheel and turn RTS on its head a second time.
When you first start up the game you get to name your character and select your difficulty. Difficulty is a BIG thing in this game, on the easiest enemies are slow moving and your guys fire slower and the game as a whole is just easier to manage, on hardest everything is fast and furious with your men moving and firing rapidly and enemies literally sprinting to tear you apart. Regardless of what you pick. your thrown into the thick of it and take immediate control of a Force Commander (YOU) and Sergeant Tarkus who leads of squad of Tactical Marines. Here you are introduced to the controls and basics of the game. This is simple stuff that any Company of Heroes fan will pick up straight away. You move your units from cover to cover and engage the Ork horde that is threatening the planet. When your short tutorial is complete you are sent aboard the Strike Cruiser Retribution that orbits the planet. From here you accept new missions, check up on intel and most importantly swap our equipment and level up. Equipment is a very important factor in dawn of war 2, with each item displaying its damage, speed, special abilities, type, who can use it and percentages to see how much damage it does to certain units (vehciles, infantry etc.) This is important since you will regularily be swapping out weapons and armour depending on the mission to give you every advantage (especially on the hard difficulties). When a character in DoW2 levels up you get 2 points to spend in 4 trees. These trees are all unique and depending on how you upgrade your squads determines what each squad can do in a battle. For example, Tarkus you tactical marine sergeant can quite easily bolster his ranged potential and turn his squad of marines into veterans over the course of the campaign OR you could quite easily slap on a chain sword and pistol and make his unit a close combat unit. These choices add a lot of the game since every level alters how you can tackle each situation the game throws at you.
As you start accepting missions you will begin to realize that:
1) You are always outnumbered 10-1 at the very least
2) There is no base construction
3) This game is all about moment to moment tactics, not overall strategy
What does this mean? This means your 'army' of 11 marines (or less) has to make use of all their skills, abilities and available cover to overcome their enemies. A unit in strong cover is hard to defeat, however so are you. Using Tarkus to hold a units attention whilst Thadeus (the Assault Marine sergeant) sky rockets his squad on top of them and kills them with sword over bullet. You could also throw a grenade to wipe out the cover, you could flank them with a faster unit (like scouts) or you could just call in an Artillery barrage and move on. Every choice has a repercussion, so sending your scouts to flank may leave them exposed to an ambush, launching an artillery strike may leave you needing it later on, throwing a grenade similarly might leave you wishing you had it back and leaping in with Thadeus may cause him to get hit by units you cant see yet. This sort of second to second tactical gameplay is exhilarating and rewarding (not to mention punishing in some instances) and keeps you coming back for more and more. The biggest disappointment to this formula is the constant Boss Fights. Boss Fights are normally at the end of a mission where you and your unit take on a single, very tough enemy. These guys require very little in the way of tactics to defeat and tend to just be distract with your commander, blast with your guns until they die...not very interesting i assure you. This is further exaggerated by the repetitive levels and missions. You are either going through a level to kill a boss, defending a key point or doing a story mission (which are few and far between). Levels are repeated endlessly and the only redeeming feature of this repetition is the Shrines, Foundries and Communication Arrays that scatter the map (of which only 1 can be activated per mission) which give your planet wide bonuses such as more artillery strikes, temporary invulnerability etc.
To the games credit, despite the repeated levels they do make sense as to WHY you are going back and considering the threats that you face are different every time you return (whether it be new enemies or a whole new race) it does help ease the sense of "I have been here before". Add to this the level design is REALLY good, with multiple ways of tackling the level every time you deploy and you soon forget about the repetition that is involved.
Dawn of War 2 is quite a stunner in the looks department. Easily the best looking RTS on the market with destructible environments, realistic explosions and physics, individual death animations, blood gore and fantastically executed special kill animations to name a few. Everything just looks top notch and adds to the immersion.
The sound design is very fitting, with music being your standard epic orchestral backing and sound effects being top notch. Voice acting is a bit hit and miss, with the marines themselves sometimes sounding a bit off, however as a whole the actors do a fine job of portraying their characters and even the sound of individual enemies being done well with Eldar sounding mystical and orks sounding typically funny.
Finally the plot. The plot itself is your generic affair being told through the eyes of generic characters. In short you are space marines, genetically modifed super soldiers with each marine being the equivilent of 50 or more lesser men. Your recruiting worlds are under attack by orks who are being manipulated by the eldar who are trying to stop the coming of an unfathomable evil known as the Tyranids. Your goal is to kill everything and save the sector. Simple stuff. The characters are equally as generic however they are amazingly memorable and you really do make a connection with them in a way you would not expect. You have the silent leader (YOU), the by the book second in command (Tarkus), the loud violent and brash Avitus, the young quick to anger Thadeus and the mysterious Cyrus. Like i said, they are generic bunch of guys but they stick with you long after the game ends.
No relic game would be complete without multi player, and Dawn of War 2 has 2 unique modes. Last Stand and standard multi player. In last stand you take control of 1 of 3 (5 with the expansion) characters. The Force Commander, The Farseer and The Mek. You team up with 2 other players or friends and go against 20 waves of progressively harder AI opponents in an arena like map. The longer you last (determined by Waves) the more exp you get, the more exp you get the more you level and when you level you DO NOT get more powerful. Instead you get new war gear which gives you new abilities or bonuses. You cant wear all of it at once so you build you characters over the course of the games and you create builds and whatnot to compliment your team. Contrary to what you might think, low level characters are not less powerful, they just have less options. Your HP and Energy are the same no matter your level, however war gear can boost stats and what not. Its more about skill than level in this game. Since there is only one map, it can get a bit repetitive but it does manage to be fun throughout and has a healthy community playing it, so you can always hop in and out whenever the need arises and is a great way to experience some casual online play in Dawn of War.
Standard Multiplayer is where the meat of the game is to be found however. The game offers a plethora of modes including 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 as well as Free for All and Team Free for All. These are split into 2 game types: Annihilation and Capture and Control. No matter what mode you play, some things are consistent throughout. All your income is in the form of Requisition (req for short). Req is obtained through capturing strategic points on the battlefield, your 2nd income is Power. Power is also obtained through capturing certain points on the map however you can also upgrade power points and build up to 3 generators on each point increasing out put substantially. Finally, your 3rd resource varies between races. This gives you the ability to call in commander aids with each of the commanders 12 commanders having unique abilities. These abilities are fueled by killing enemies. Req and power are used to build your army and not for base building. Like in the single player, no base building (apart from generators on power points). All your resources are fueling your war effort and upgrading your tech tree to grant access to new units. This is the foundation of all games, and it works very well and is easy to pick up.
The game modes have different objectives. In Annihilation your goal is to destroy the HQ of your opponent before they destroy yours. This game mode is the longest of the 2, and this is because your both constantly battling to gain an upper hand and following through, neither team wants to push to early because if they do they risk a powerful counter attack. It takes about 30-60 mins per game. Capture and Control is much faster paced is less about attrition and more about resource management. There are 3 Victory points on the battlefield. You have to capture these to start your opponents points ticking to 0. The first person to run out of points wins the game. Fast paced and more about managing resources and when to buy certain units and to upgrade. Both modes are very fun, and both modes are extremely good, with no other RTS coming close to how this works in terms of formula.
I mentioned army earlier in the review, and this is where multi player takes off from single player. You dont have a few marines as your ARMY, you build infantry, heavy weapons teams or turrets, vehicles mechanized suits and in some cases Monstrous Creatures to destroy your enemy.Furthermore your not restricted to the Space Marines, you may choose between Space Marines, Eldar, Tyranids and Orks each brining a new play style to the field and 3 commanders to lead them each adding something new as well giving you lots of options when entering a game. Despite this, the core game system is the same. You use cover to keep your infantry alive and you try to out wit your opponent. In many cases, a skilled player can do a lot with a few squads of basic infantry than a less skilled player can do with a significantly larger force. As with single player, multiplayer is all about moment to moment tactics. If your opponent creates a tank, your basic infantry cannot even scratch the paint so you react by building a rocket launcher squad to take it down. You cant plan for anything, since everything you do is a gamble, and even if it pays off eventually they will counter it. Its like a very advanced version of Rock Paper Scissors. Finally, at the end of an online match you can save your replay to watch again later however whenever the game updates these replays tend to be erased, which is rather annoying. The biggest downside to multiplayer is the Ranked games. Ranked games lack balance and you will find yourself facing players level 60 when you first begin. This is a terrible idea and just causes frustration. Luckily, a public server select screen is available to practice in friendly games where most new players hang out.
Finally, you have Army Painter. This is where you customise your armies appearance to make it more YOU. For Warhammer 40k fans you have a huge selection of Chapters, Craftworlds, Warbands and hive fleets to pick from and you have access to every colour in the Citadel Paints Range letting you to make your table top army into a nearly exact look alike in Dawn of War 2's multi player.
Overall? Dawn of War 2 is a resounding success. Yes the levels and missions in single player a bit samey, the characters are generic and the story is nothing special but the core gameplay is phenomenal and multiplayer is like nothing you have ever seen before. Add to this a 20 hour+ campaign with some re playability on harder difficulties and you have a fun and fantastically immersion offline and online gaming experience that should not be missed by anyone.
9 out of 10
Side Note: I have played over 160 hours of this game.