The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Dawn of War II is a real-time strategy (RTS) game for the PC from developer Relic Entertainment, famous for their work on the original Dawn of War and their World War II themed RTS, Company of Heroes. Through these games, Relic has proven themselves more than capable of crafting a great game, and Dawn of War II is no exception.

Before I go any further, let me say this - DOWII does a lot of things differently from many other current RTS games. Things that, in my opinion, make the game more accessible for the casual player while focusing the gameplay on what matters most - combat.

1 - No base building
In most RTS games, the game begins with you controlling a couple of buildings, and having to build more buildings in order to produce soldiers, tanks, and planes - and then having to build better buildings to build better soldiers and tanks and planes and on and on and on and on. As you can tell, this can become pretty daunting, and ups the complexity level to unnecessary highs. After all, I thought I bought this game so I could play as a badass space soldier, not a construction site’s foreman.

2 - No Resource Gathering
In order to build the aforementioned buildings and the aforementioned soldiers, normally you’d have to gather resources - be it oil, electricity, space crystals, whatever. Not here. In the single player campaign you’ve got everything you need to get going, so there’s no bullshit about having to construct additional pylons to get on with the mission.

3 - Small Armies
Most RTS games will have you attempt to gather the most resources to build the most buildings so that you can build more dudes than the other guy and hopefully overwhelm them in sheer numbers. Basically, it turns into a digital pissing contest. DOWII instead has you control a small group of squads and have them strategically complete objectives and take out enemies in the most efficient way possible, without getting overwhelmed by having to handle a ton of units.

The game is set in space during the 41st millennium, full of humans and aliens all fighting for control over certain planets. The single-player campaign puts you in control of the Blood Ravens, a group of human space marines with voices like gravel and faces that look like they‘ve been hit with a hot bag of nickels. Basically, just like every badass in every other videogame you’ve ever played. Interestingly enough, the Dawn of War series actually stems from a tabletop role-playing game (Warhammer 40,000) with a very rich back story, so if you’re the type of person that gets engrossed in stories there’s plenty for you to enjoy. For the rest of us, it’s just a game where a bunch of dudes in space shoot at each other – and that’s enough for me.

As mentioned earlier, you control a small number of squads, and of these squads includes your avatar/hero character – the squad commander. As you take on this role of squad commander, it is your job to tell your squads where to move, what to attack, what to take cover behind, and what abilities to use. Not only do you just command, you also get to kick some serious ass – as your squad commander is able to take on such a large amount of enemies that it’s as if you‘re engaged in an interstellar tickle-fight as opposed to a war for humanity.

As far as your other squads go, you have a healthy assortment of different squads each with their own unique capabilities. You’ve got your heavy weapons guys, who can dish out a lot of firepower but move like turtles, your stealth squad that can turn invisible for brief periods but have armor like tissue paper, and your jump squad - dudes with jetpacks that can jump across the battlefield and slice up your enemies with their chainswords (chainsaw + sword, you get it right?).

Your squads aren’t invincible, however, and will occasionally die. But, since you have no means of creating any other units because of the lack of a base, Relic has come up with a new solution to your problem. During each mission, there are certain relay beacons you can capture. If some of your units die, you just have to capture a beacon to have additional units beamed in from space. And, if some of your more important units fall in combat (such as your squad commander), all you have to do is click on their body and wait for them to come back to life. Think of it as having your cursor give a nice shoulder-rub to your teammates, magically convincing them to continue to fight.

Although you’ve only got a select number of squads to choose from, the game offers its variety in the experience system and the wargear (a.k.a. loot) that you acquire as you play. Through playing missions, your squads earn experience which allows them to level up and get experience points. With these points, you allocate them towards upgrades in the amount of health they have, the damage they do, and also special traits and abilities – pretty standard fare for anyone whose every played a role-playing game. Wargear is usually a reward for completing a mission or is dropped at random by enemies and bosses, and comes in the form of weapons, armor, and special items like grenades or deployable turrets. Collecting wargear is a really enjoyable part of the game, and it’s always exciting to find out what cool stuff you’ve picked up at the end of a mission, then playing dress-up as you outfit your guys in the mission select screen.

Unfortunately, most of the missions you’ll be doing are pretty much the same. Move to a location on the map, murder everything in sight, and kill the boss. That’s right; this is an RTS with boss battles. Like any boss, they’ve got a ton of health that you and your squads have to work together to take down, but it usually proves to be a pretty shallow experience as most of the bosses can be defeated almost the same way (by shooting it a lot). The missions that do change up this formula from time to time are few and far between, so if you’re not too keen on the space-marine story then the campaign mode can get very dull very fast. Also, seeing as there is only one story yet four different races presented in the game, if you’re bored of playing as the Blood Ravens your only other option is multiplayer.

Multiplayer, while still very good in its own right, is a completely different ball game from the single player. In multiplayer you have the option to control the four races presented in the game. You can still kick it with the Humans, or you can try out the Orcs, the Eldar, and the Tyranids - each of which has their own unique and different squads/soldiers, which the game totally neglects to teach you. This can be very frustrating when wanting to play a new race, as you’ll need a lot of practice time playing against the computer before you’ve got the balls to jump online with real people. I’m not saying its impossible, but a tutorial would have been nice. The multiplayer uses a matchmaking system for you to find opponents, similar to the ones seen in Halo or Call of Duty. Most games can be completed in 10-30 minutes - which is perfect for those of us who don’t have 2 hours to sit in front of the computer to play one multiplayer match (like many other RTS games). One nice addition to the multiplayer is that it includes an army painter, which is a tool that allows you to customize the colors of your armor when you go into battle.

Remember when I said that there were no bases or resources in this game? I lied. Only in multiplayer does the dreaded base beast rear its ugly head, but it’s not too big of a deal. You’ve only got one building where everything is created, and you generate resources by capturing points on the map, so you don’t have to order a unit to make trips back and forth between the base and the resources to collect them. It doesn’t feel like a burden, though, as your base is always a click away and unit upgrades are easy to manage once you figure out what’s what.

The game isn’t without its problems however. Sometimes controlling your squads doesn’t feel as accurate as it should (I mean, c’mon, why would I ask you to take cover in FRONT of something?!). Multiplayer can also at times be unforgiving, because if you choose the wrong upgrade for a squad or build the wrong unit, that’s often the difference between winning and losing. Also, the repetitive campaign and voice acting does start to become grating after a while.

Considering everything that’s been said, this all might sound a bit too confusing for someone who isn’t a hardcore real-time strategy player. However, this game comes off as surprisingly easy to handle. The fewer number of squads makes it easier to manage, as you don‘t have hundreds of units to command all in different places across the map. Also, the lack of base building in single player means you can focus more on your squads without having to babysit a base. For the hardcore crowd, you may not get your fill on single player - but you’ll be coming back for the multiplayer. Each race is varied enough that it gives you a different feel for the game, and the maps and game types are fun and work well.

All in all, the game is a blast, and I recommend anyone that enjoyed the original Dawn of War or Company of Heroes to check it out. Also, I’d recommend this game for someone that wants to play an RTS, but doesn’t have years of experience watching videos on the internet of Koreans playing Starcraft. So, if the stale storyline and minor hiccups in gameplay can be overlooked, you’re going to have a great time with Dawn of War II.