To buy or not to buy, that is the question at hand. This weekend, Relic and Steam gave players a free pass to play the pc game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Should you buy it or not? This review should help you decide if you're on the fence.
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II is a hybrid rpg-strategy and real-time strategy pc game where you control a small squad of units as they wage war. It was originally produced by THQ, which filed Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) back in 2012-2013. The game's been out for about six years, and while this isn't the first time it's been featured on the Free Steam Weekend, it is the first time in recent memory. Additionally, most of the other 40k games were on sale for 75% off. However, even heavily discounted, I didn't buy the game. Here's why.
First off, the game-play mechanics are tricky to use. Both your and your enemy's squads can take cover in various terrains and buildings, giving those units a significant bonus to evasion. If you can't be hit, you can't die. That's great! But actually utilizing cover isn't as easy as it seems. Convincing your squad to move into the position you want can be fairly difficult, assuming the cover can even hold the squad. Sometimes larger cover units (like a fallen tree log or a wall) can only hold 2-3 units, so your larger squads are often out of luck. In the campaign, you get a bonus for completing a mission based on what percentage of the enemy is dead, how many of your squads are alive, and how quickly you finish the mission. It's extremely difficult even on easy difficulties to get high marks in all three as to get speed, your squads will constantly be pushing from out of cover to flank the enemies, otherwise those troops will sit back under cover. I like a challenge, but I prefer one I can actually succeed at. Not only that, mission reward equipment is rather lackluster. If you go around killing everything on the map, you might find one or two items that are better than what you have equipped for your squad.
I will say that the RPG aspect of the game is the one I enjoyed the most. Equipping your squad leaders with different weapons ranging from pistols and chain-swords to flamethrowers and rocket launchers is a lot of fun and gives you a diversity needed to overcome the various types of enemies you'll encounter.
Regarding graphics, the game balances itself out with pro's and con's. The graphics are a bit outdated, and not even that great for a 2009 game. The visuals on weapon fire are pretty cool, and I love nothing more than watching my heavy bolters (machine guns) ripping up enemy troops. Little puffs of dirt spit up on missed shots or splinter off rock outcroppings. Other than that, there isn't really anything outstanding or noteworthy regarding graphics.
I didn't notice the soundtrack. At least it didn't annoy me, but again, it wasn't great. I usually pay attention to the music in the background because usually it either greatly enhances or devolves my experience, but this was just "meh."
I didn't find a lot of replay value in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Even just playing through the campaign and encountering multiple races with different unit types and abilities, nothing really stood out about any of them. They look significantly different as does their weaponry, but tactics were exactly the same against all of them. It got repetitive rather quickly.
The worst thing was the game breaking glitches I kept running into while playing on my pc. Perhaps the game is just a bit old for a Windows 8 OS. The game continually froze up and forced me to ctrl-alt-delete to the task bar to get it running again (if I was lucky) or it just crashed, costing me valuable time and forcing me to redo the same mission. My squad leaders often ignored orders to stay in cover, getting them and their squads killed by chasing a single runaway into a nest of Tyranids. That, and my commander decided he didn't like his flamethrower and would rather just go punch the tank with a fist. Just one fist. He didn't even use both according to the animation. Glitches like these made me glad I just played the game over the free weekend instead of buying it on Steam myself.
If you want to pop a quick $20 down on a sci-fi tactics game, wait for X-COM to go on sale. I didn't find Warhammer 40,000 to even be worth the 75% price, and I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Heck, I even have the manual for the original game just to read for the back-story. Also, Relic really didn't do a great job removing bugs nor making each faction fun to play against. I do not recommend buying Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II unless you are a hardcore fan of the 40k universe.
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