L.G.C. |Reviews| — Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Your intrepid heroes issue suggestions, swing chainsaw swords, and listen to Steve Blum. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War® II
Webzone: www.feralinteractive.com/en/games/dawnofwar2/
Devel: Relic Entertainment (Brought to you by Feral)
Engine: Essence Engine 2.0 (The same nightmare fuel that brought you CoH)
Price: 20.00 (60 For some DLC, 80 for all)

Wazzat: With a focus on fast-action RTS gameplay, Dawn of War II brings to life the science fiction universe of Warhammer 40,000 like never before. Experience the intimate brutality of battle as you play through your chosen race’s epic campaign.

Mandatory Disclosure: Feral sent us keys

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

Venn-

There’s something about sitting through 30sec of unskippable bullsh*t only to be met by a loading screen.
However, the load times are definitely from 2009 #authentic
It started dropping trading cards @ launch but that’s not a bug.
Averaging 45@1080 according to the benchmark on High.
According to Thomas P it transferred his progress over from the operating system that shall not be named.
Multiplayer is the busted.

Jordan-

Oh Hai 5 minute unskippable cutscene on first launch
Pulling 60@UHD According to the benchmark. Not bad for a 7 year old game
Don’t see a Dip below 55 on UHD during gameplay.

Pedro-

Everything on Turbo with AA on and the frames will occasionally dip to the 20’s
If I cut AA off, the lowest it’ll dip is 42.
That said, I did try it on the cheapo laptop with everything down to low and and it averages out 41 FerPS on the benchmark.
Feral sure does love their Intel CPUs.

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

Venn-

It looks and sounds like a game from 2009.
It’s not ugly but don’t expect anything you haven’t seen before.
That said, for a strategy game it still looks a bit of alright.
It has sounds but it took Oz from Shat to realize they were not playing.
Not bad, but forgettable.

Jordan-

Oh Hai Steve Blum
It looks like a AAA game from 7 years ago. It’s aged pretty gracefully otherwise
The warhammer aesthetic is there in full force
One problem I do have is that All your units tend to look the same, so figuring out which hotkey to press to

Pedro-

You look at this game and you immediately go: “Hey, that’s a 40k game!”
The space marines have their chainswords, the Eldar have their Magic and porcelain masks, the Orks are pretty thick in the head and, as long as you’ve seen Alien, you can probably design a Tyranid that is immediately recognizable.
The aesthetics are unmistakable.
And since this is an RTS, you’re not going to be paying too much attention to how each individual unit looks.
As long as, when the camera is zoomed all the way out and you can tell from the silhouettes which squad is each and what to expect from the enemy squad, you did a good job.
But since you’re playing the space marines, every squad that isn’t the scouts looks pretty freakin’ much the same.
But that is more a problem with the faction choice than the game’s aesthetics.
There are only so many ways in which you can make a monster of a man in power armor look different to the other monster of a man in power armor standing right next to him.

Total-

Control

Venn-

Please tell me this thing has rebindable controls?
*throws chair*

Jordan-

Some of my squad directives seem more like suggestions at times
Especially when I’m taking heavy fire
Dear god, someone please tell Sega to start using WASD for camera movement in RTSes
It also has the starbound problem of making the UI itty bitty at UHD

Pedro-

It’s hard to cock up the controls in an RTS on PC when you have a mouse.
Somehow Relic managed to do just that.
Like Jordan mentioned, you’re not giving orders you’re giving suggestions.
When you click to move a squad into cover you expect them to land where the little green/yellow dots are, like a sane person would.
Yet, for some reason, sometimes that squad will outright ignore cover, walk around it and stand there out in the open gormlessly shooting at the enemy.
You’d think, if you were putting out an RTS you’d want your controls to be at least reliable.
I’m okay with the keyboard bindings. If nothing else than just to hear both Venn and Jordan complain they can’t use WASD to move the camera, when I’m usually the one complaining I can’t use the directional arrows to move in a game.

Total-

FUN?

Venn-

For an RTS it’s a bit on the slow side.
Then again for a RTS it plays a lot like a tactical squad based game.
I enjoyed my first three hours but it’s already becoming a bit repetitive.
Granted the prospect of new and upgraded units/weapons will probably keep me coming back.
If you know what the hell a Warhammer is give it a go.
If not, proceed with caution.

Jordan-

I usually hate RTSes. I don’t hate this one
Possibly because there’s less resource management and unit micromanaging
Or maybe it’s because I love warhammer 40K
Actually, it’s mostly that
Also WHAR TAU? WHAR NECRONS?
Still, it does away with a lot of the RTS elements I don’t like, which gets it some points in its favour

Pedro-

Whenever we throw chairs at an RTS game, I always say it’s not my cup of tea but I usually mention 2 exceptions: Warcraft 3 and Dungeons & Dragons Dragonshard.
I may be using Dawn of War 2 alongside those, in future reviews.
What I liked about Warcraft 3 and TripleD, were the “RPG” elements and Hero Units.
I probably wasn’t the only one since nowadays we have MOBAs popping up left and right which are literally just the Hero Units and the RPG elements.
I hate MOBAs because in attempting to become something they’re not, they lost all charm.
Dawn of War 2 certainly doesn’t have a lot of charm, either.
For the main campaign you’re playing as the goddamn space marines!
The single most unimaginative faction in this setting.
Still, faction choice aside (and you can actually play the other 5 factions in Retribution), this is definitely an RTS I genuinely enjoyed.
Doesn’t get the perfect score here simply because you’re not in control, you’re giving suggestions.

Total-

Final –