Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 is the highly anticipated second installment in the Warhammer series. The game is developed by award winning Relic Entertainment. This new chapter will take players straight to the frontlines of this epic battle.

The story is this: In the 41st millenium in the Sub-Sector Aurelia – a cluster of worlds on the edge of the galaxy – a battle of epic proportions is about to begin. Ancient races will clash across the planets that dot this section of space, battleing for the greatest of stakes – not only the claim to the land and its bounty – but the fate of each race.

You will get four different playable armies at the beginning of the game: Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Tyranids. The gameplay from the first Dawn of War game was great but the second installment has some differences. The game’s lead designer, Jonny Ebbert, stated that this game “tkes everything that was great about the first game and combines it with the best Company of Heroes(another Relic game) has to offer.” One of the main improvements in the game was put into the cover system. There is a heavier focus on cover in this game than in the first which provides substantial defensive bonuses. There is also a new emphasis on ow to del with cover. For example, some weapons, like grenades, blow up cover while other weapons, like a flamer, bypass cover all together making strategy key.

If there is one thing people hate about a game it would have to be horrible AI. Luckily for all of us, Dawn of War 2 has really good AI. In some games, when your units you are not controlling are under attack, they simply stand there and do nothing which gets them killed and you a loss. However, in Dawn of War 2, the AI has received a boost to its thinking. Units under fire in this game will automatically take strategic cover and fight back to the best of their ability. There are also more realistically sized vehicles and an improved physics engine. This game is also a Games for Windows – Live game. What this means is that the game uses the Achievements system from the X-box LIVE and is the first widely released PC-exclusive game to do so.

The campaign of Dawn of War 2 is an interplanetary campaign where you play as the Space Marines. This campaign can be played solo or with a friend online. However, if you think it will be like any other RTS campaign then you’re wrong. This campaign has absolutely no base building in it at all. Instead you choose which units you want before you start and you play. You can not build more troops or different ones and you are limited on your reinforcement abilities. The campaign functions similar to the X-box 360 game Mass Effect in which you choose which battles to fight and which planets to fight on. And even when you do that you still have to decide between different mission objectives like saving civilians or obtaining a powerful piece of weaponry.

Once you select a mission and a planet, you have to choose from four different squads to use in battle. Each squad, however, is different and unique in lots of ways like how they fight, their bonuses and even the voice acting of their sergeant. These sergeants play a big role in the gameplay of the campaign. They increase in experience and skill and cannot die, thy are only knocked out. When a sergeant is knocked out, a close squad member can revive him, otherwise he is revived when the battle is over. The sergeants and commanders can also be outfitted with special war gear you collect from the battlefield by taking it from dead enemies or by completing objectives and each space marine can gain experience level up, learn new abilities and gain special bonuses while defeating enemies.

Overall this game looks to be a great improvement over the first game which was still very good and very popular. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 has made many positive improvements and looks to have good gameplay. You can pick this game up now in stores.

written by: Zack Duncan