Is it a tactical game? Is it an RTS? Well, it is fun!
The game plays like a DoW2 Multiplayer/Campaign hybrid. It has a few bugs but is still a fun, solid game. I like it and recommend it.
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Having played the daylights out of Dawn of War (up until the tragic Soulstorm shovelware incident) and Dawn of War 2, I was more than ready to pick up a copy of Retribution.
As of today, launch day, I think the game is going to need a few patches because I have a couple issues.
But lets start with the good points!
The graphics are as nice as the other games in the DOW2 series. My Radeon HD4000 doesn't really like the antialiasing- the entire screen goes blurry, even the menus. I also had some issues when I first ran the game too. All the unit textures looked as though they were in vintage 256 colors. 'That cant be right,' I though. I updated my drivers/directx and messed with my graphs settings and that seemed to fix it.. The units all look terrific- I think relic has definitely done the tabletop models justice.
Sound is fairly consistent- beams zap, mecha stomps, trucks rumble and troops yell. The music is suitably ready for battle too. I'm pleased that the voicework still delivers. The dialogue isn't THAT campy in the few hours that I've played- I've yet to find any metal boxes.
The story is interesting. I've only played about 2 hours of the Ork campaign and I think I already see where Relic is going with this... And I'm not sure if I like it. Then again, I'm only 2 hours into one campaign. It's hard to say.
Graphics and sound are consistent with the previous DoW2 titles but now gameplay is where the game gets kind of weird.
Retribution isn't sure if it wants to be a tactical focused game like DoW2 or an RTS type game like DoW1. Is this bad? Not necessarily.
By killing enemies and capturing points you gain fixed amounts of requisition you can spend in HQ buildings and special capture-points. At these points you can teleport troop squads in and reinforce your men ala multiplayer style. There are still heroes present but they can be switched out before the mission begins for an honor unit. Its like a cross between campaign and multiplayer style gameplay.
This formula works more or less. Ive played the first 5 missions in the Ork campaign and I find progress to be fairly slow. I'm sure I'm not playing the game properly but my Ork heroes do most of the work while my troops do most of the dying. Playing as Orks, the boyz serve as a reasonable meatshield but the troops are WAY too expensive given how long they last in the field. Again, I could just be playing wrong or it could just be too early in the game and I don't have enough upgrades. Having fixed resource gains makes things very difficult in terms of reinforcing troops but at the same time, it sort of prevents the game from turning into must massing blobs and rushing. It feels like the game wants you to take your heroes and maybe some elite infantry because the grunts are gonna probably get taken out. Maybe I don't have any skills playing this weird hybrid game just yet. Also, the missions are as relentless as DoW2:Chaos in that if you don't bring the right equipment for the right situation, you're going to be in trouble and it's going to take you an hour to complete whatever mission you didn't prep for. Regardless, the hero/troop style gameplay is something to get used to.
I found the AI is real trouble. Apparently I need to micro the life out of my guys, otherwise they just kind of mill about or wander off into some weird direction and fall into an ambush. For instance: I wanted all of my heroes to attack a base. Two of my heroes just stood on a land-bridge as my other two ran ahead but were quickly overwhelmed even though I sent them all in. Pathfinding is rough. In DoW2 I could more or less depend on my men to take care of themselves but the AI in this game has a mind of its own..
Also, whatever bug that plagued Dow2: Chaos Rising that caused it to crash after missions is back in full force. Will that ever get fixed, relic? Please?
Ultimately, I find the game to be a solid purchase of 30$ on launch day. I'm sure they're going to release several patches over the course of this game's life and things can only get better.