Troopers Review: Dawn of War II (PC)

Behold, my first review NOT for the Xbox 360. Let's hope it goes well. I am reviewing Dawn of War II, released back in 2008.

There have been some significant changes made by Relic and THQ since the original Dawn of War. Gone is the standard style of creating buildings and units. Now you control five individual squads, all with their individual traits and abilities. This is where a RPG-like element is introduced where you squads get experience by deploying in missions. In addition to experience, each mission offers wargear as a reward for completing a mission, aswell as enemies can drop random items of wargear, but boss enemies at the end of levels generally drop a piece or two. Also introduced into DoWII is the Tyranids. They were noticeably absent during the original Dawn of War and its expansions, but in Dawn of War II they fit in well.

The Single Player is fun and immersive, and (depending on if you do the optional missions or not) will take 10-20 hours to complete. The plot is fairly simple, you go to a couple of planets pursuing the Orcs and the Eldar, and uncover a secret that may doom the galaxy.

The multiplayer is also fun, with standard game modes where you get to play as the other two races featured in the game. And eventually a new multiplayer mode, The Last Stand, was released via free DLC. In this mode, you and two other players choose a hero to play as (Space Marine, Eldar or Orc), and you work together to survive against waves of enemies, and if you are strong enough (or lucky enough) to reach wave 20, you will be greeted with a surprise. As you complete games you level up your hero, and gain new wargear.

Scores:

Gameplay: 7/10 Standard RTS gameplay, with nice RPG elements added in.

Sound: 8/10 The voice acting is fairly mediocre, but the soundtrack and sound effects are good.

Graphics: 7/10 Based on Relics Company of Heroes Engine, the graphics aren't spectacular, but it also means you don't need very high specs to run it.

Replayability: 9/10 The single player is fun and with the customisation avaliable, you may want to go through it twice. The multiplayer is ok, but The Last Stand mode is a fun new addition.

Overall Score: 8/10