Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II

Conclusions

So, Dawn of War II looks good and it plays good. The only thing that’s really drawn our ire so far has been the surprisingly shallow boss fights and the unexpected development that this RTS is actually more RPG than anything else, for the first half of the game anyway.

As you might be expecting though, Dawn of War II isn’t perfect and it does have a handful of issues that can really start to grate after a while.

For a start, the singleplayer levels can be a tad samey after a while. Nearly all the levels on any given planets have an identical colour planet and set of level features, so that the dusty canyons and crumbling jungle ruins quickly start to run together. It’s not a big problem, but when you quit the game it does strike you how indistinct some of the missions can be.

Controlling your squad's ever-expanding arsenal of unique abilities and learning to distinguish between different units can be tricky in the middle of a fire-fight too. It’s here that the keyboard shortcuts and UI come to the rescue for players who just want to focus on the action.


Those of us who like the different unit personalities would love to see alternate uniforms though. It’d just make it easier to tell the Avitus’ Devastators from Cyrus’ Scouts at a glance, though again that’s more of a niggle than a legitimate problem.

One thing that’s definitely a more pressing problem as far as we’re concerned though is how fiddly the cover system can be. Units can be moved to cover behind objects to gain tactical advantages over enemies and you can easily gauge where cover can be found by rolling your mouse over items on the battlefield. Yellow dots will crop up around barricades that you can hide behind.

The issue is though that mouse position can make a huge difference. If you quickly click on a barricade at one point then you’ll have all three Jetpack Troopers safely behind a wall, ready to skyrocket into the hordes of Eldar.

If you move that mouse a little to the right though then you’ll only have one unit in cover and the other two waiting in the open, meaning you have to move the mouse around to check possible formations. It’s just not an ideal way to control even small squads when there are Orks crushing you like clowns stomping on a sandcastle. I hate clowns.


That last point is something that sounds like a small irritation, but in reality it can hugely affect how you play the game. Certain units, like Devastators, are slow-moving but powerful, so they work best Focus-Firing from behind cover. Actually getting them into cover wasn’t usually worth the effort though so, as time went on, I found myself favouring units that don’t need such fiddly mechanics. Jetpack Troopers to the rescue!

It has to be said though that, no matter how annoying some of the game's quirks can be, Dawn of War II still rises above these issues as a whole. The game is wonderful fun and the way that Relic has sought to do something new with the arguably stagnant RTS genre is commendable. It’s something that can’t be dragged down by the few flaws that the game does have, especially when it’s pleasantly rounded out by co-op and online modes.

Dawn of War II isn’t revolutionary and anyone who’s expecting as much will likely be a little disappointed. What it is is the logical next step of Relic’s continuing experiments in the strategy genre and it’s damned good. If the end result could be smoothed out and spiced up in the future (and if GFWL could be improved or done away with) then this could be the start of something truly excellent.