Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II

A while ago I posted a review of Dawn of War: Winter Assault; I still hold to the belief that particular game is packaged ass. I mean, it looks great, but eventually you realize the whole thing just stinks. Wow, I thought I'd make it longer without sinking to "potty humor," but whatever. The point of this whole rant is that I played Dawn of War's sequel series and its expansion and I was impressed.

Picture your garden variety real-time strategy game. Usually your camera hovers somewhere close to several hundred feet off the ground, leaving your units, all of whom are frail enough to detonate on touch. Some games will allow you to zoom in (Dawn of War being one of them), yet you rarely get a good view of your buildings and soldiers, and the battles end up looking miserable and impersonal. Dawn of War was the first big game I can think of with unit specific kill animations (not just death scenes) such as a soldier driving his chainsaw sword through another's chest. It was awesome! Couple that with detailed, animated structures and destructible landscapes, and a pretty epic space opera storyline and Dawn of War was an excellent R.T.S. Now fast-forward a few years and expansions and Relic, the company who made the first game releases a true sequel: Dawn of War II.

To put it bluntly, this is not a true R.T.S. game; certainly the controls are, as well as the general feel of the missions, but this game is more akin to playing Warcraft III with only the hero units. For one, your named characters are the only units (apart from their two-to-three grunt entourage that count as the character's squad) you can control. If they die, you can resuscitate them and they're back in the fray. As for buildings, you have a drop pod where the mission starts, and then there are relay points where you can reinforce the squads (revive those grunts in a character's unit). That's it. Your squads level up and you allocate skill points, and you get wargear that drops from enemies at random, and you have skills you can use on the fly, each of which is character specific. If anything, this game is a strategy-R.P.G.

Returning to the leveling up deal. Each character has three skill lines, and you get a few points with every level up. Each tree deals with a stat or two, such as health and health regeneration, melee damage and melee skill (hit percentage and crits), ranged damage and accuracy, and energy and energy regeneration. Scattered across those skill lines are abilities, both active and passive, that further specialize your squads. For instance, the main character is a blank slate for specialization, and you can play him almost however you want, whereas other characters are really geared for specific jobs. Sounds good, right?
Here's where one of my problems with the game comes in. You see, though they give you free reign with deciding the specs, the main guy really is meant for melee damage with some extra points to throw away wherever you want. This is made pretty plain by the fact that, with the exception of two characters, the rest of your team is ranged, and all but one of those gunners is incredibly frail. Blame gear drops and the main guy's abilities for this.

Gear is plentiful, but the best greens (second tier gear) and onward sort of direct your path through the game. I find it sad that the "most adaptable" character gets the slimmest variety in excellent gear. Look forward to wielding a beast of a two-handed hammer for the last few missions, meanwhile your stealthy character has the option of wicked shotguns and sniper rifles (and by the expansion a grenade launcher)! I'm being hard on the game, really, because the gear itself is excellent, even if your main guy ends up always using the same stuff. There are about 3 different models of gear for each soldier and scout, and then there's the overpowered but slow Terminator armor. And weapons...there are a plethora of choices, though most are taken away once the best stuff appears. Axes, chainswords, two-handed hammers, a shield and one-hander hammer, etc, and that's just the melee arsenal!

The last bit I have to cover -because I refuse to tell the story- is the multiplayer mode. This is where the game returns somewhat to R.T.S. format. In it you build units, even if they population count is small and unit cost high, and you wage larger-scale battles. In the pre-fight you choose which commander (such as the main guy's class from the story) you'll use and the match type. The only complaint I have with multiplayer mode is that there is no teamless mass destruction of your enemies feature; instead, the only free-for-all modes are ones where you capture structures and hold them, gathering points by doing so. Arguably the best part of multiplayer is being the last guys standing and why Relic left this out of the game baffles me. Nevertheless, I've spent hours, now, just on multiplayer, meanwhile my third playthrough in the story gathers dust. When you have three commander types per faction, each with their own customizable features and super moves that cost points gained by butchering enemy forces...well, even a good story doesn't satisfy that kind of itch. In summary, the multiplayer alone is worth the purchase.

I really like this game, and considering you can get it and its expansion for thirty dollars or, if you don't mind a slightly higher price, Steam has the entire Dawn of War-related game library, as well as a ton of others, for ninety-nine dollars. If you liked Warcraft III because of the hero units and don't mind losing the base-building and constant refreshing of unit upgrading per mission, buy this game!