Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II
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ESRB:
Blood and Gore,Violence
Publisher: THQ Genre(s): Strategy Home Page: http://www.dawnofwar2.com/
World of Space MarinesThe single player campaign of Dawn of War II tosses many familiar RTS features overboard and goes for something that resembles more of an RPG. There is no unit building or base building and there are no resources to gather. You control your personal character (the Force Commander) and up to three other units, each including a specific hero sergeant character and a handful of grunts that can be replaced at the reinforcement points. Heroes never actually die, they just get knocked out and can be revived by other heroes, and the only way to actually lose is to end up with every hero down for the count. Each hero gains experience from kills and completed missions and each level unlocks additional points to be assigned to any of the four available skill chains. The overall feeling of a RTS-RPG hybrid is reinforced by the ability to gather up equipment, both from drops in the battlefield and from rewards awarded for completed missions. The "wargear" is used to pimp up your heroes with a wide variety of bonuses - heck, even the item names are color-coded according to rarity.
Each squad has it's own special abilities - heavy weapons squad for covering fire or anti-vehicle mayhem, scout squad for recon and demolitions work, jetpack-equipped assault squad for quick advances and hand-to-hand combat... each squad is best suited for a specific job and the gameplay is all about micromanaging your squads to create favourable match-ups against hostile units. Some missions play to the strengths of certain squads, so squad and equipment selection is also a major aspect of the gameplay. You can further tweak each squad by choosing how to allocate skill points between four different attributes. In a way this very un-RTS gameplay does fit the source material - the Warhammer 40k table-top miniature game - and the concept of dropping into each battlefield with a handful of elite squads that actually gain experience and special abilities as the campaign progresses works very well. War is Ugly Business Counting the experience and the loot at the end of a successful mission. The missions are generally either offensive missions where your job is to kill or destroy a number of objectives or defensive missions where your task is to protect a key asset from a number of enemy waves. Each mission starts with a drop pod landing to the selected battlezone which also acts your first reinforcement point for replacements in case some of your rank and file troops get killed. In addition to your main mission goal, you can also capture a single resource building per mission - captured Shrines supply you charges for an accessory that allows you to trigger a limited invulnerability - one charge per Shrine you hold. Foundries supply you with deployable turrets and also help you with additional daily deployments (more on that in a bit) and the third resource building type, Communications Array, supplies you with the capability to call in airsrikes - more arrays equals more strikes per mission. A single map may have more than one resource building, but you can capture only one per mission but you tend to get re-deployed into the same map again, allowing you to go for the ones you couldn't capture first time around. Offensive maps also contain numerous Beacons that work as reinforcement points. Capturing these points is vital as the closest reinforcement point is where your troops will regroup in case you have to retreat. The closest resource building also doubles as a reinforcement point.
Most missions also have boss fights. Yep, you read right - boss fights in a RTS! Either the final objective of your offensive is to kill a named enemy boss, or the last wave of the attack against your defensive line is a boss of sorts.In both cases you get to slug it out with a super-durable named character, vehicle or monster that requires some careful micromanaging to kill. Plotting the Next Move Picking an optional job for some phat loot. Between missions you visit the map of the planet to plan out your next deployment, with the ability to travel to one of the other planets involved in the campaign. Available missions include both "mandatory" story-related missions and optional side jobs that can be done for the rewards. Story moves ahead in game days and by default you get a single orbital deployment per day, with some optional missions expiring in a given number of game days. Each mission is graded in three categories based on the number of enemies killed, number of friendly heroes knocked out and on the overall time used. While it is almost impossible to actually fail a mission, it takes considerable skill to consistently score well - and better your score, more experience you get. Get enough experience and you are awarded an extra deployment or two, giving you more time to tackle optional missions. Like in Company of Heroes, cover plays a very important part and every spot on the map is either open, partial cover or good cover. Units out in the open can get suppressed and are easily torn to bits, so you'll learn to move your units from cover to cover and supporting the moving unit with other stationary units ready to pounce on any enemies. Cover is also directional so flanking becomes a valid tactic against stationary units, especially in multiplayer. In single player campaign most enemies tend to be fairly aggressive and often run happily to the firing arc of your heavy guns without any regard to their own safety. Buildings can also be manned and used for cover, but as you are usually on the move, it is practical only in missions where you are ordered to defend key assets.
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