Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Dawn of War II is one part Diablo, one part Starcraft it is best described as a real-time strategy-action-RPG. Available for Windows and running on the same Essence Engine developed by the Canadian Relic Entertainment used in Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2 is primarily a top-down squad-based action RPG where you command 4 unique squads through multiple environments and engage in a myriad of intense tactical conflicts.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Review from a famousblueraincoat
Played 20+ hours on PC
"Real-time Strategy for Man-Babies"

Taking place in the well-known table-top universe you play as a silent protagonist Commanding a troop of Space Marines battling groups of Orks for control of a planet. As the story progresses you encounter other races as the conflict spreads to other planetary systems. This section can be played cooperatively with a friend and has an obscene amount of loot collection and a demand for constant maintenance of multiple character's inventory and attributes. The narrative, although largely dismissible, is the base of its most enjoyable mode, Campaign.

Each campaign map has a specific mode of capture, kill or defend a target. The choice of mission and the capture of secondary-objectives add to an overall bonus to deployment time or additions to special abilities which add another layer of complexity when making one's way through the campaign. These secondary objective structures are really the only interaction with buildings that you have in the game. There is very little management of structures or resources, if any at all. This on the one hand makes it entirely simple to focus on the characters at play, but on the other, gameplay seems to focus too much on the handful of troops you control.

Perhaps the intent was to keep the player focused and attached to these specific squads. It must be admitted that the overall universe and overarching history of the Warhammer 40k is somewhat interesting and dynamic, but is entirely overshadowed by the dialogue between one religious machismo meathead to another is hardly enthralling. I can't imagine there being a great deal of attachment to such shallow and underdeveloped people. I mean, come on, their names are "Thule" and "Avitus" which are one homoerotic step away from names of characters that are in your mother's romance novels. That being said, their individual gameplay characteristics did end up setting them apart from one another, and I ended up growing quite attached to their individual uses.

Again, this is Dawn of War II's strength. The advancement of your individual characters, developing and unlocking their skills and attributes and the appropriation of your collected loot. This is where the online Skirmish mode falls short. Although it offers some interesting and intense moments of tactical engagement, it is built entirely around the somewhat boring gameplay mechanics you've been putting up with throughout the Campaign. Except for your choice of specific type of hero character, Skirmish lacks unit customization that keeps you interested throughout the story. A week ago, before I was at all exposed to the multiplayer aspects of Dawn of War II, I would have told you this is a 'must buy game', but now I'm not all together sure it is as the the Multiplayer takes none of the interesting features of the Singleplayer, infact it only passes over the mediocre ones.

Even though the tabletop game Warhammer 40k was created in the late 80s, and well before Blizzard's Warcraft or Starcraft, how can you not feel a certain kind of nostalgic threat of plagiarism as you play through this game? The options of battle are to play as space marines killing small lizard-infesty-like aliens or teleporting electric-mystical aliens against brute green ogres. If that doesn't remind you of a Blizzard game, then perhaps you should just keep to table-top war instead of the virtual kind. It's much easier to keep this obsession a secret, and you don't need a closet to store all of your miniatures and intricate painting utensils.

The absence of story-based cutscenes gives the story a certain charm, and I appreciate the plot being delivered through small face boxes in dialogue, but I just cannot shake the absolute parody this seems to be of Starcraft. Again, I understand that the lore of Warhammer 30k was developed much before, but it's a blatant throw-back that just can't be ignored. This leads to my shear confusion as to why THQ and Relic would feel the need to acquire a Warhammer license in the first place. The Warhammer license certainly doesn't take anything away from the game overall, but neither does it add anything.

It may seem as though I'm down on this game, and although I indeed am, there are so many things about it I've adored. After playing with our very own [SCUM]-Smokie over the weekend and discussing it at length, our experiences of the campaign were extremely different from one another. Personally, I played on the second-hardest difficulty and was much more focused on ranged combat. I would primarily set up Avitus's heavy weapon near the front of an engagement and have Tarkus flank to support. I would then use my Scouts as either backup to ward of melee attackers that strayed through the front line, or make use of their Snipe or Anti-vehicle abilities. My Hero would typically support Melee defense, or go on offensive Melee runs.

Smokie, on the other hand, made much more use of his Assault Marines as Melee offense and, once available, used as much Terminator Armour in his group as he could (whereas I didn't use any at all). Our loot options, skill tree development and play style ended up sounding entirely different from one another. This, I think, says an awful lot about the design of a game to give this kinds of variety in gameplay experiences. However, even with this understanding of variety, I can assure you I`ll not be playing it over with an emphasis on melee.

For as much as I've been discussing Blizzard games, one shining comparison to DOW2 is to the first Battle for Middle Earth PC game in which all of the individual factions has their own specific heroes in multiplayer to fight along side your regular troops, level up and gain specific skills. I'd just like everyone to recall how good a game this was, and we should all be writing letters to our heads of state to bring that game back in a form similar to (but obviously better than) this one.

Is this worth buying? Yes and No. Although I enjoyed the immensely the two weeks I played of the Campaign, I actually resent my purchase of it as the Multiplayer was just so disappointing. It made me want to go back and play a different game I haven't touched in years. This is not to say everyone will feel the same way, just that one mode of play lacks the strengths of the other to its detriment.