Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

My rant:

Before I go into whats good and bad about the game I just want to get this said.

Its really frustrating that the trend seems to be that games are being made unfinished, this game is no exception there is a patch already out. I would prefer to wait and buy a complete game.

Also this game ties in steam and windows live, which for me is annoying as setting the game up takes ages AND ESPECIALLY as you have to register the game before you can even play it.
I have a big problem with this, because if the game sucks then you cannot take it back to the shop, nor sell it on easily (unless you give up you steam account)....... in my opinion if there worried about people selling games on, they should focus more on making the game good rather than thinking of how to introduce more security measures.

The game itself ...

The good points:

Campaign mode = (so far) this has been very good, with the added bonus of going through with a mate online its great fun. I also approve of the extra wargear which can be unlocked with various codes wizzing round the internet.

A possible gripe for some could be that the units you control do not increase when you play it in co-op, instead you divvy up the units that are available. - its also looking like there will just be a space marine single player campaign (although I could be wrong).

The best thing with campaign mode (for me) is the wargear and experience your marines recieve. When they level up you get to choose how they level up, so you can shape them to match you gaming style.

The Bad points:

Multiplayer in general - - - which is kinda annoying because thats why I got the game!!

First and foremost - the LAN is a real mess, I have been doing Lans for ages and this is the first game where my mates and I had to all connect to the internet before the Lan would work. -- - - This completely defies the point of a LAN, instead of 100gbit connection, the three of us had to share a 2.2mb connection just to get going. - - Steam and Windows live also kick up a fuss if you try and play and your not connected to the internet (but it does allow it)

Multiplayer specifics:

Firstly after reading Amazon I was looking forward to "old skool mode", which was said to be more like the original DOW with its base building...... this mode is no where to be seen. All you have is annihilate and victory point control, with the only building being your main base (that upgrades twice).

Maps - - where are they?? I think there are about 7 total !!, thats no where near enough, also there are only 2 and 6 player maps, apparently 4 player maps are too complex to make!

Units - Checking the manual I was pleased with the amount of units listed, however that does not mean you can build them, some e.g. Terminators, have to be dropped in using a global resource based on experience, so you only ever going to get one squad at a time (if your lucky). That said I do like games that have a global experience based resource which allows extra in-game variety, not used like this though.

Modes - There are also a lack of basic options for these e.g. Victory point control, that does not let you specify the amount of victory points, the only option is 500 which means the game is over quickly. The gaming also feels quite slow in places.

Wrap up:

When this game came out I liked the idea of more tactics, seeing as I love company of heroes. I was looking forward to having an elite set of units that I care about, rather than sending wave after wave churned out of my base.

I am sure some of the above points will be addressed with another patch (e.g. more maps), its just that this game felt rather rushed (with its lack of basic menu options) and incomplete, with the patch on day of release.

In many ways I hope another patch does materialise but until then I think I will stick to online co-op mode, which is enjoyable.

What people seem to get wrong is that the use of the Essence Engine in Dawn of War II makes it Company of Heroes set in the Warhammer 40k universe. This is simply not true.

Dawn of War II is really different from Company of Heroes, but so it is from Dawn of War I. And this is what must be perfectly clear to everybody who played Dawn of War I and want to dive into Dawn of War II.

So what's different? First of all, the number of units in the roster and on the field was strongly reduced.
For example, a Tactical Space Marine squad is one of the 8 Space Marine unit types, comes with three members and may be equipped with a Sergeant after reaching Tier 2, which makes a total of 4.
Orks on the other hand have Slugga Boyz squads of five (again plus a Nob after Tier 2) and are much cheaper, which makes it roughly 4 Marines vs. 12 Orcs.

Now, the point is that this is actually a really good gameplay decision: You need to care about your units, because the death of a single Space Marine has a much greater impact than it had in DoW I, since you had 8 Marines and could reinforce in the field instead of having to retreat to your base (another change in DoW II).
Apart from that, Space Marines are finally what they ought to be: super warriors. You buy them for a lot of ressources and they are really tough, but you must take care not to lose them.

The new standard mode is 3vs3 and maps are much smaller. There are Requisition Points, Victory Points and Power Points on the map. Instead of building generators in your base, you capture a Power Point and pay Requisition to upgrade it with power plants.

Before the game, each player must choose one of the three heroes per race. This hero will be available troughout the match and may not really die, but is incapaciated as soon as his health hits 0. Now the player must either pay Requisition to make him respawn at the base (the longer you wait the less Requisition you have to pay) or a teamate's hero comes along to help him up.
The heroes are very stong units and have special abilities that clearly sets them apart from each other: The Force Commander is strong in close combat, can equip a thunderhammer or a power fist, or get terminator armour, while the Apothecary can heal himself and teamates in the field.
All units gather experience and get stats boost as they rank up in levels.

Games are really fast, because you need not build up your base, but dive directly into combat. Requisition rate may be rather slow, but this is what the game is all about: If you keep your units and retreat them in time, you have to pay about half the cost to reinforce them, compared to rebuilding the squad from scratch AND you're going to keep the squad's experience. The other guys reviewing the beta of this game seem not to have realized that after 4-6 hours of playing.
Since you alway have a rather small amount of forces, you must make clever decisions in order to hold most strategic points on the map. If you blob your forces, the opponent may travel around the map and decap your points, if you divide them up, your opponent may hit unsupported forces with a superior army!

There are a lot of other things new to Dawn of War: Suppression fire, reworked unit abilities (like infiltration), knockback, and great implementation of jumping for assault troops. Every unit on the field is easy to kill if the right counter is at hand. So the rule is combination.

If you have any expectations this game to be like DoW I, you will fail. If you want to see CoH in it, you will succeed. This is what drives a lot of people away. Instead, free your mind and enjoy the game as it is: Different!

And last but not least: There are still some issues with gameplay, NAT negotiation (I am not big fan of Games for Windows Live either, but it has some good features, too), game crashes etc. But this is a beta and this is what betas are for. I am pretty sure, Relic will handle all this. The game is great overall, but it does not quite reach it's potential. On the other hand, there are lots of possibilities to improve that.

We will see how that works out. I'm really eager to see customized armies fighting each other in fast, small scale battles in the fields, once the game is out and the army painter is free to use. This is sure going to be fun, and Relic has since I know them done a really good job to do all they can do to improve game experience, and I am quite confident, they will manage Dawn of War II also.

As a big fan of the previous Dawn of war titles i was excited when i heard this was being released, especially as it contains my favorite 40k army - Tyranids.

Good points firstly. The graphics and character animation is brilliant - possibly the best of any rts at the moment. The single player campaign plays like a mix of roleplay and strategy with small scale skirmishes and big boss fights being prevalent throughout. unique special abilities for each squad make it difficult to pick which units you would rather have with you on any mission as they are all useful. Upgrades and unique wargear are given for completing each mission, but you may find additional pieces if you search the maps fully.

Bad points. Long set up time, mainly due to the steam activation process - this wasn't in any of the previous games so why THQ felt it necessary this time is beyond me.
The big problem is the sheer amount of bugs and glitches which really hamper your enjoyment usually by causing the game to crash repeatedly - even after a month and three patches this is still happening.
Only one single player campaign - smacks of laziness really.
Lack of multiplayer maps and victory scenarios reduce replayability.

Overall the developers messed up and they will need to do some major improvements if i'm going to buy any more of this series.