Trigger Finger

Sometimes you still get pleasant surprises when fishing around for a game to play like I did this week. I was firing up Steam to play Arma2 (heavily flawed genius just like Operation Flashpoint was I am sad to say) when a Steam promotion popped up offering Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 2 for half-price. I ummmed and arrrred and then clicked buy.

Now I realise this mini review is a bit late as it was released some months ago, but what a great little game (especially for around 20 euros). I am probably at an advantage in having zero expectations and also have almost zero knowledge of that whacky figure-painting, board-gaming world, but I think if anyone with a very large and healthy sceptism-gland like me can enjoy this then you can too. Apparently fans of the original are split between the love and hate of this game, but I never played the original. I do however understand that something must have been half-decent if people are still harping on about it years later.

To summarise, this is a genre-bending squad-based RTS, with a crazy twist of RPG. There is an almost total lack of base building and you only ever control at most 20-30 units (in squads). Yeah if I had read that description before hand I wouldn’t have played it even if you had payed me 20 euros, but by god it works!

Why does it work? For once I can’t really put my finger on it, by rights this is the exact sort of game I would normally hate. But the whole thing is executed so well! The presentation is great, not just the graphics which are detailed and fluid, but the menu systems, the mission select screen where you are hovering above a planet, and the sound are all pitched just right so the interface is an extension of the in-game world and vice versa.

The reason I don’t normally like squad based RTS’s is that they are usually too fast paced which turns them into a mouse-button-mashing-fest and they don’t usually offer me the strategic depth of something like the Total War series or Total Annihilation. But in the single player campaign I have found the pacing to be just right. The combat is fast enough to keep you on your toes, but there is also scope to sit back, recover and plan your next moves. The units/squads are different enough to all have their own strengths and weaknesses being genuinely useful in the right context and totally inept in the wrong situation.

Your squads are upgradable through missions rewards and random loot drops on the battlefield. The loot system is very like WOW, even down to the colour coding that indicates the rareness of the item. The loot opens up a myriad of customisation and tactical choices along with the leveling system for the squads which allows you to assign points to the usual range of abilities such as melee strength, ranged weapons, etc. On top of all that, if you assign enough points to abilities you open up traits which can be special moves and the like to further arm your grizzly men with.

You can only play as the Space Marines in the singleplayer, but all the races are open in the multiplayer. I haven’t felt I have the competence to take on too much multiplayer yet, especially when my opponents likely have months of practice behind them. The few games I have played have been a lot of fun even in defeat and there don’t seem to be any glaring balance issues as you might expect now the game has had a few patches.

Finally though, to return to the single player campaign, the icing on the cake is probably the storyline. I imagine a few people are laughing at me right now as it is kind of your stereotypical save the universe story with enough cheese to make even a frenchman flinch. But it’s nowhere near as corny as Gears of War for example and gives a great epic background to your actions. Not quite a Peter F Hamilton space opera, but entertaining and fitting never the less.

Great game, with plenty of hours in the campaign especially as I can see replay value in loot and customisation options. If anything I would like to see the other races unlockable to play in the single player to really round the game off, but overall great fun and recommended especially as you can probably find it in a sale at lots of places now.

8.5/10

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