Words: Mav

Pix: Courtesy THQ

A hundred brave Space Marines stand fast at the settlement, a horde of the foul aliens threatening to engulf them at any moment. The leader, brave commander Insert Name Hereius, raises his chainsword in solemn, holy defiance. You can tell he’s the leader, ‘cos he isn’t wearing a helmet.

It’s that time again- Dawn of War has returned to the PC. Warhammer games have a troubled past and have alternately managed to succeed and fail on two points- delivering a solid game and getting Warhammer right. There seems to be a bit of a sliding scale between making a game really true to the feel of Warhammer, and making a game that plays well. This admittedly is easier for WH40K than for standard Warhammer as regiments and suchlike are hard to transmit to a game due to feeling too much like a game. If you get me. However 40K is a bit different; battles are on a slightly different scale and the amount of ballistics going on means all you really need to do is make an army command game and stick power armour on it. DOW2 has succeeded in my eyes in doing this without losing much of the atmosphere of the 40K setting. It doesn’t have a subtitle, but if it was me, it would be Dawn of War 2: The Morning After.

It does feel like a trudge through strange trenches, bizarre foes trying to break your faith in a god emperor millions of miles away. The marines are slighty scary in their blind faith while rewardingly interesting, the Orks are truly monstrous things with a playful edge. This was not a flawless procedure however as some of the voice acting is a little iffy; in places they seem to have erred too much on the teenager’s hobby side of the setting. Orks sound like dodgy cockney geezers. I know they are meant to, but it’s a bit too comedic. Space Marines sometimes say dumb things and they all have that haughty officer’s voice like there’s a holy stick in their asses. They also refer to Ork regiments by their proper names, which sounds really odd to me. Orks might call jet troops Stormboyz, but would a human soldier? One race which they do get right is 40K’s arguably most scary race- the Tyranids. They make a big deal about them which is fair really- ‘perfect’ organic machines, a hive mind of superevolved creatures that consume all in their path. Their guns and bullets are individual symbiotic creatures, for cryin’ out loud. Your scout master Billy Ray Cyrus has encountered them before and wastes no time moaning about it.

Anyway niggles aside the gameplay is a breakthrough. It really flows and there is a squad interplay that makes your choices important without requiring too much micro-management. Whip out your scouts and blow stuff up. Get your heavy bolters mounted in a building and create a hellish killzone. Nice. On the down side, sometimes whatever you do just ends in Select All, Click Wildly On Foes. You can assign numbers to different squad combinations to help smooth over the individual control, which is handy for bringing your leader man back to the Marine camp after he charges into melee with the oncoming horde.

In any case a good blend of overview and direct control for special attacks, along with a simple but malleable squad experience and loadout gives this game a real Good Sequel feel. That’s the feeling you get when the developers bother to take into account the strengths and flaws of previous titles. DOW2 is a blend of things before it, from Chaos Gate to DOW1 and it’s expansion mates. Tactics play a big part in battles as you fight to gain structures and vantage points in the series of cover structures that litter the ground. Get hold of temples and factories to boost your troops and replace lost men. Grab gear and supplies from the battlefield when you defeat enemy characters or blow up generic supply boxes. Standard but effective tools for making a thousand combinations of a simple combat template.

It’s a shame that said companies don’t seem to test games any more. I’d just gotten over the disappointment of having to beat GTA4’s settings into submission (still doesn’t work quite right) and suddenly here is DOW2 with a host of crashes on a host of systems. Some 32 bit machines may have problems? That’s like saying some PCs with white cases might not run it. On the flip side, the sexy Steam delivery system, while a little awkward and autocratic, does provide a neat vehicle for fixing that kind of thing.

So, graphics. Gorgeously pretty, to be fair. The game looks just like your tabletop 40K and it brings to life the scale very well. You get used to Space Marines and Orks as being normal, then come across Eldar and they look tiny. That’s because Marines and Orks are damn hulks, and you get to see that. Their technology is also chunky and you can get a sense of the strange future where technology is god but a lot of it is simply lost to war and things are made to order, not design. The colours are bold and the model details very good, a nice compromise between complexity and processor punch, which is always a factor with big battlefields with wibbly lasers and explosions going off. DOW2 is graphical enough.

The single player campaign is as you would expect; a series of battles sometimes with a choice of order, with a reward of battle gear and experience. It’s all it needs to be really, though some more rpg elements would be nice. The game works well and feels like a war campaign, so all good. You rub shoulders with some charmers of the Ork and Eldar world, too, and let’s face it Eldar are a pleasure to shoot. That’s right- Space Marines fighting Space Orcs and Space Elves, while a Space Tolkien turns in his fucking futuristic coffin.

As you do missions, the calendar progresses (things like ‘day 8 of the infestation’ really lend a narrative to the campaign) and you gain levels which give you points in combat, health, shootyness and so on. This combined with the wargear and selection of squads means that the army you end up with can be quite well customised; they are your troops at the end of the day. Multiplayer consists instead of choosing pre-styled characters that suit your desires, eg, a gungho commando for those all-out assaults or a doctor to support your troops. You tangle over territory and the flow of building bases and the tight skirmishes fits this perfectly. It’s a good RTS for a first time strategy player, though there are things for the hardcore rules masters in the form of detailed weapon and character stats.

DOW2 is a good game marred by a terrible release, but it remains a good game anyway. If you liked the first game, the sequal is same-but-different enough to please you. If you know nothing about Warhammer and the grim darkness of the far future, then it will ease you in. I fear it may be a one-trip pony which won’t provide a lot of long term gaming, but no doubt there will be a flurry of expansions (more single player races plz) not far down the line. This feels like a new vehicle or platform for a game that we already had, but, it also feels like an old friend with a refreshing, streamlined edge.

Dawn of War 2 (pc)

- Orks!

- Easy to learn, tricky to master

- Loads of atmosphere for an RTS

- Tyranids!

4 Z's out of 5