Dawn of War II: Retribution is a standalone expansion to the real time strategy (RTS) game Dawn of War II. It is on open Beta for anyone who owns a Dawn of War game on Steam or visits http://www.thq.com/us.
Retribution is scheduled to feature the addition of the Imperial Guard race, new units for all existing races, a new hero and map for the alternate game mode Last Stand and a campaign for all six races. However, the beta only allows access to multiplayer matches.
Signals are mixed from what I’ve tested so far. On the one hand Imperial Guard is a great addition to the game. On the other hand, the new units added, including some of the Imperial Guard, are causing balance issues for more intense play. Those that play the multiplayer less competitively may not run into the same issues.
The Imperial Guard has always been the race in the 40k universe which appeals to fans without using larger than life super men, aliens, daemons and the like. Just as in the original Dawn of War, they add their own flavor to the mix with stellar voice acting all designed to make the Imperial Guard feel like more of a realistic army than the other more fantastic alternatives.
The elements of the Imperial Guard voice acting from the first game that bordered on crazy (like the Commissar and Psyker) are toned down or removed. At the same time such illustrious Relic voice actors as “that guy who did the British Tommy squad in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts” make the guardsmen sound more like real soldiers. Of course, the Catachan jungle fighters that make constant Schwarzenegger references can get annoying, and for some reason the tradition continues where all the vehicle drivers, from the titanic Baneblade to the modest Chimera, are voiced by the same person.
As for balance, those taking a more casual approach to the multiplayer will find little problem with the new units. For those players the main issue will be that since the majority of the new units Relic added are “ultimates” (the most expensive and powerful unit available to that race), and many of these are vehicles, Relic’s notorious vehicle pathing comes to the fore.
But the more intense players are crying foul. They claim that the new super units change the game from one based on squad tactics to one based on a few very powerful units duking it out. Since the game has a relatively low pop cap, of which a super unit can take up to 1/4, this is a fair concern.
Indeed, my favorite new unit is the Eldar Autarch. Instead of being built at the base like most, she can be called in anywhere on the visible map. Before flying in she drops a deadly barrage of grenades onto the target area. From this point on she functions as a versatile unit that can move around very quickly and engage opponents in melee, support her fellow Eldar with healing, or destroy enemy armor with a combination of her speed and fusion gun upgrade.
Unlike the other new additions, like the Ork Battlewagon and Space Marine Land Raider Redeemer, she doesn’t trundle onto the battlefield in a wholly predictable fashion, and unlike them she isn’t so costly that everything else in the plan has to depend on her. But when used well, she adds more options to an already mobile army that can create intensely tactical battles. One quibble: Relic needs to get rid of their notion that Eldar heroes are nearly all female, a trend that runs back to Farseer Macha in the original Dawn of War. Autarchs symbolize some of the most masculine and warlike aspects of the Eldar and are supremely badass. The decision to make the Autarch female grates upon my Warhammer sensibilities.
Now, while all of this is interesting, I personally found the multiplayer battles to be the least entertaining facet of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion Chaos Rising. One can only hope that the promised changes to the campaign and Last Stand live up to their previous iterations. I’ll be sure to let you know in my full review after the game is released March 1st and I have tested both features extensively.
Retribution is scheduled to feature the addition of the Imperial Guard race, new units for all existing races, a new hero and map for the alternate game mode Last Stand and a campaign for all six races. However, the beta only allows access to multiplayer matches.
Signals are mixed from what I’ve tested so far. On the one hand Imperial Guard is a great addition to the game. On the other hand, the new units added, including some of the Imperial Guard, are causing balance issues for more intense play. Those that play the multiplayer less competitively may not run into the same issues.
The Imperial Guard has always been the race in the 40k universe which appeals to fans without using larger than life super men, aliens, daemons and the like. Just as in the original Dawn of War, they add their own flavor to the mix with stellar voice acting all designed to make the Imperial Guard feel like more of a realistic army than the other more fantastic alternatives.
The elements of the Imperial Guard voice acting from the first game that bordered on crazy (like the Commissar and Psyker) are toned down or removed. At the same time such illustrious Relic voice actors as “that guy who did the British Tommy squad in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts” make the guardsmen sound more like real soldiers. Of course, the Catachan jungle fighters that make constant Schwarzenegger references can get annoying, and for some reason the tradition continues where all the vehicle drivers, from the titanic Baneblade to the modest Chimera, are voiced by the same person.
As for balance, those taking a more casual approach to the multiplayer will find little problem with the new units. For those players the main issue will be that since the majority of the new units Relic added are “ultimates” (the most expensive and powerful unit available to that race), and many of these are vehicles, Relic’s notorious vehicle pathing comes to the fore.
But the more intense players are crying foul. They claim that the new super units change the game from one based on squad tactics to one based on a few very powerful units duking it out. Since the game has a relatively low pop cap, of which a super unit can take up to 1/4, this is a fair concern.
Indeed, my favorite new unit is the Eldar Autarch. Instead of being built at the base like most, she can be called in anywhere on the visible map. Before flying in she drops a deadly barrage of grenades onto the target area. From this point on she functions as a versatile unit that can move around very quickly and engage opponents in melee, support her fellow Eldar with healing, or destroy enemy armor with a combination of her speed and fusion gun upgrade.
Unlike the other new additions, like the Ork Battlewagon and Space Marine Land Raider Redeemer, she doesn’t trundle onto the battlefield in a wholly predictable fashion, and unlike them she isn’t so costly that everything else in the plan has to depend on her. But when used well, she adds more options to an already mobile army that can create intensely tactical battles. One quibble: Relic needs to get rid of their notion that Eldar heroes are nearly all female, a trend that runs back to Farseer Macha in the original Dawn of War. Autarchs symbolize some of the most masculine and warlike aspects of the Eldar and are supremely badass. The decision to make the Autarch female grates upon my Warhammer sensibilities.
Now, while all of this is interesting, I personally found the multiplayer battles to be the least entertaining facet of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion Chaos Rising. One can only hope that the promised changes to the campaign and Last Stand live up to their previous iterations. I’ll be sure to let you know in my full review after the game is released March 1st and I have tested both features extensively.
Dow2 maps + super units= facepalm.
ReplyDeleteSo you have super units (as mentioned above) that have model sizes approximately 3-5x the size of normal vehicles, and yet Relic still thinks that EVERY SINGLE MAP needs to have stairs. If they want that kind of terrain then name every map "Ruins of Mall of America". I honestly feel sorry for every paraplegic in the Dow2 universe with this many stairs. Land Raiders are NOT meant to go over such ridiculous terrain, because it reduces the fighting to "whose pathing will fail more". Now that we actually have Rear Armor, etc from CoH, it matters which way your units are facing. But with this abominable pathing, everything is taken out of your control.
TL;DR Fix unit pathing or make better maps!
*Jazzhead*
It seems likely that they used the same or a very similar kind of technology used in Company of Heroes, a move that makes sense in terms of workload. The problem is they neglected to update the pathing as they updated the complexity of the maps (methinks updating pathing is much harder).
ReplyDeleteAmusingly enough Land Raider Redeemers (the kind featured) are designed with the EXACT PURPOSE of working in that kind of dense terrain. It's just also assumed that they're being driven by an expert Space Marine driver that doesn't have an anxiety attack and completely shut down any time other units are near.