Solid Strategy With An RPG Twist

By Thomas Machuca

Stubborn real-time strategy fans take the blue pill, those with an open mind take the red pill. Better yet, take the red Blood Ravens. 

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (DAW2) is the latest title in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe and Relic, the team that brought you the award-winning Company of Heroes, has created what I feel to be an unorthodox yet welcome addition to the RTS genre.

It looks great, it's fairly easy to play - select your units and click on the thing you want them to shoot at - and includes an addictive co-op campaign.

But let's begin with installing the game, seeing as this is the first thing any of you will have to do. 

When installing DAW2 you have to install Steam and Games for Windows LIVE before installing the actual game. This almost made me throw the game out the window but as a world class professional journalist it just wouldn’t be kosher.

At first I wasn't keen on having to install another program just to launch DAW2 but after creating an account for Steam and familiarising myself with the program I began to warm up to it – I even made a Steam friend!

Games for Windows LIVE was, funnily enough, supposed to be a direct competitor to Steam however it seems they have changed their approach and for DAW2 are working in tandem with Steam taking the reigns over for all the matchmaking and chat. 

I actually liked the inclusion as I was able to use my Xbox LIVE account to sign in and keep in touch with friends and also gain achievements. But don't worry, if you don't have a LIVE account you can easily make one for free.

By default, Steam will automatically download all the updates for DAW2, but as such I was unable to play until after I had downloaded and patched my copy. 

This was somewhat annoying as I had already waited for eons after installing all the other aspects, but it did serve to make this review less critical as the updates did fix plenty of previously discovered problems. 

It's always good to see that developers like Relic are still maintaining and supporting their shipped products.

Okay, after finally getting through all rigmarole of installation, navigating your way through the game menu systems is refreshingly simple. 

When beginning the campaign you start by naming your commander. You are then thrown straight into battle after watching some artistic cutscenes; more of these neat cutscenes are viewed before certain missions throughout the entire campaign, helping to flesh out the story in impressive style.

Just to touch on the story, DAW2's got one, and it's elaborate. Weaved into this story are the savage and bloodthirsty Orks, the mysterious and powerful Eldar, the ravaging Tyranids, and the genetically perfected Blood Ravens Chapter of the Space Marines, but unfortunately the story just didn't seem to pull me in. 

For me the characters didn't leave any lasting impressions; my squads weren't commanded by Avitus and Cyrus, they were commanded by the heavy-bolter and the sniper. Still, if I was an avid fan of Warhammer 40k I could easily imagine myself starting a fan club.

The first level teaches you the basics of how gameplay works and this brings us back to why DAW2 isn't your usual, run-of-the-mill RTS. 

Firstly, you control squads and never usually more than four in any level. Secondly, there is no base building, just points on the map that you can capture that will reinforce your squad's fallen comrades. 

This brings about a unique type of gameplay that still requires the use of elaborate tactics to overcome your enemy and achieve victory, but rids you of messy micromanagement.

Help topics about everything encountered through the first few levels appear as icons to the left of the screen, whereby clicking will bring up a small box with text and illustrations that are read out to you. 

This makes it easy to get into the guts of the game and allows you to learn the intricacies at your own pace and isn't very intrusive to gameplay.

After the first mission you are sent to the starship Armageddon in orbit around a planet. This is your staging area before you deploy on a mission. The main tabs you will use are the starmap, the squad deployment screen, and squad loadout screen.

The starmap is your quick view of all of the planets in the sector and the missions on each, as well as a means of travel to all these places. 

On the squad deployment screen you choose which four of your six squads you send on your next mission and this is where you will spend most of your time whilst not on a mission.

And it's here where the RPG elements of the game come into effect. 

Gaining enough experience on a mission will level up your character and with every level comes two attribute points which you are able to spread across four different disciplines. 

In each discipline there are special traits that can be unlocked, making for some cool character progression.

The six squads in the campaign mode are capable of reaching up to level 20 but this is not enough to max out every discipline and gain every trait. Therefore, much deliberation is needed to shape each squad if you wish to turn the tide of battle.

Furthermore, wargear such as weapons, armour, and accessories are gathered from decimated enemies and slaughtered bosses on a mission. 

These pieces of wargear make your squads more powerful but each warrior can only hold so much and only use pieces of equipment they are skilled enough to use. Once more, consideration is needed when equipping your squads and finding the right mix of equipment and troops for the right mission is important but satisfying when you nail it.

While orbiting a planet you are sometimes presented with multiple missions where you are given the option to choose which one to complete first. 

There are missions that have critical narrative impact but there are also optional missions, some of which expire, like defend missions where you must defend a foundry, shrine or communication array that you have previously captured.

This non-linear gameplay makes you feel more in control of the outcome of the campaign and helps to better immerse you within the apocalyptic nature of the game. Especially because DAW2 allows for wins and losses without ending your campaign – losing will send you back to the Armageddon, maybe making the boss stronger or appear later on another mission. 

And days continue to pass so some missions could be closed off to you for good if you don't get to them quick enough, and this semi free-form campaign structure makes the game very enjoyable.

After completing each level you are ranked in three criteria:

 Resilience - how many squads remained conscious.
 Fury - percentage of overall enemies killed.
 Speed - time taken to complete the mission.

These are used to figure out your overall campaign score, how much experience you collect, and if you are granted additional deployments for that day. Also, for most levels you will receive a piece of wargear for completion of the mission.

If it didn't click to you by looking at the title or the screenshots, the game takes place in the 41st millennium. 

It's a grim, dark, futuristic, war-ravaged universe and it looks fantastic! Everything is richly detailed, creature, character, and weapon animations are a visual treat and the effects and audio are of a top quality.

Levels are designed well with fully destructible battlegrounds. They get a bit weary after a while though, especially near the end of the campaign where you have visited most places more than twice and then they decide to lump you with defend mission after defend mission which ensures that the maps lose their spark.

I can expect by now that all you 'true' gamers are getting impatient... 

Yes, there is multiplayer and, yes, it is good. Very good. 

You can play against others online or against the CPU in either a 1v1 or 3v3 match. Disappointingly, there are only seven maps to play on but I wouldn't be surprised if Relic decided to release more in the future.

You can choose between all four races:

• Orks

• Eldar

• Tyranids

• Space Marines

Each race has three different commanders which are also selectable. Each race plays differently, for example, you can swarm your enemies with the Tyranid's melee units or you could suppress your enemies with the Eldar's anti-vehicle and anti-infantry mobile weapons platforms. Fans of the table-top games will absolutely love this game for the tactics.

There are two win conditions which you can choose for each map – annihilate your enemy or hold capture points for a given amount of time. 

In both instances, you will still begin with a home structure where you deploy squads and the rest of the map is filled with resource points which you must capture and hold so as to accumulate resources to deploy more squads.

Games for Windows LIVE matched me accordingly to a player of my skill level and I found no network issues to speak of.

A couple of final points – there is an army painter function where you can get creative and colour scheme you own team for conquest on the interweb. 

And finally – and this is something that I think is a beauty - the whole single-player campaign is playable in full co-op, easily one of the coolest ways to play this real-time strategy game.

Before DAW2, I hadn't reviewed a PC game in a while, in fact, I hadn't played a RTS on the PC for even longer. Additionally, I am not a Warhammer acolyte.

Yet even though this was the case I thoroughly enjoyed the game. 

It reminded me of the old times when I used to play ‘3 Corridors’ and later on ‘DOTA’ of Warcraft 3 fame which I remember so fondly.

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II delivers fast-paced RTS action powered by the re-vamped Essence Engine 2.0, the next evolution of Relic's proprietary game engine, combined with some well implemented role-playing game elements such as power/skill accumulation.

If you loved CoH or the previous Warhammer games do yourself a favour and give this game a burl. It does have a few flaws, but these are outweighed by the way the gameplay, the tactics, the graphics and the regiment planning come together.

Even if you have a passing interest in real-time strategies this is worth the long-winded installation process. If you want to try something fresh and new in the RTS genre, get yourself a copy. 

If... no more "ifs". Give it a try - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Game: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
System: PC
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Relic
Distributor: THQ Games

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)