For The Imperium

A few days ago I purchased Dawn of War2 through Steam. Although it is a computer game and not for xbox, it is run using Games for windows, which means that you log in to your gamer tag and thus it has achievements, gamerscore and all that fun stuff! For those of you who dont know what Dawn of War it, its an RTS game, based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe. (Warhammer 40k is a game played with miniatures) The first dawn of war was a simple RTS with a very refined resource system that wasn't too complicated and let you amass a huge force in very little time. The game was very successful and ended up having 3 expansions.

Well the developer [Relic] is finished with Dawn of War 1 and has created the sequel. The games campaign has you playing as a Space Marine Force Commander. Newly promoted you need to prove yourself by saving your Chapter, and defeating the Tyranid swarm in the sector. On top of the force commander you have access to 4 other squads. Although you can only bring three to a mission one must stay behind to protect the ship.

The game works very different compared to most RTS games. There is no base building. No resource gathering. You start a mission being drop podded in with your 4 squads. You can capture relays, chapels and armory's to reinforce your squads when you lose members. The game plays a lot more like an Action RPG then an RTS. As your squads kill things in battle, they gain experience and level up. A majority of missions also end with a boss fight in which you have to kill one super strong unit. These end up being very entertaining but can also kill you easily in which you will have to go through the whole mission again to get to the end. You also gain wargear at the end of missions as well as random drops from certain units. In between missions, you spend your time leveling up your squads, giving them skill points in Health, Shooting, Combat and Energy, as well as outfitting them with gear you have collected.

Overall though not traditional I found it to be very entertaining. But where the real fun comes in is in Co-op. When you go to start a campaign you invite a friend to your game and you can start fresh or continue another campaign you have going with your friend. You both choose two units you want to take and you get control of those two. The other players units with appear a black colour as opposed to the stranded red so you can tell them apart. The game instantly becomes more enjoyable, coming up with better tactics to crush your opponents. It is also easier to micro manage the abilities of two squads as opposed to four. The only downside is that the host keeps all of the progress and wargear for his campaign. As well there is no campaign matchmaking, its invite only.

The online (and single player) skirmishes work very differently. You start out with a building, a commander and a squad of basic infantry. You need to capture requisition nodes for money, and power generators for power. At your base you can spawn units, as well as upgrade your base to get access to more units. Your goal of the game is to capture control points. There are three on a map and the more you have the more your opponents score widdles away. If someones score hits zero the other team wins. You get access to three more races in skirmish, the stupid Orks, the intelligent, advanced Eldar. As well as the Xeno-alien race Tyranids. Skirmishes are much different from the campaign and more inline with Standard RTS's.

The last game mode is called Last Stand. It works like Gears of Wars Horde mode, or Halo ODST's Firefight. You start as either Eldar, Ork or Spacemarine. You are in an enclosed area in which waves of enemies come to bring you down. As you level up (you only get awarded the experience at the end of the game) You will get a new piece of wargear to equip that will make you more powerful. Your heroes will always stay leveled, although a level 11 Ork Mekboy can play with a level 1 space marine Commander. The ork will just have more abilities, the opponents will still be the same o kill. Its a fun game type but is only really fun the first couple of times you play it, as in most games you make it to wave at then die.

All in all Dawn of War two is an ambitious game that gets a lot of things right. It turns the RTS genre on its head, and it makes for a much more action oriented game in which you dont spend hours building up defenses to your base. Although hardcore RTS fans might not like the simplicity of the campaign, the online skirmishes will be sure to please. This game will not only please RTS fans, but also fans of games like Diablo and Torchlight will enjoy the action RPG element of the campaign.