Joystiq hands-on: Dawn of War 2
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Jan 12th 2009 at 4:29PM } 
Relic: "So, you'll quickly want to set a rally point here." *taps screen*
Joystiq: *clicks on random units* [units march off-screen]
Relic: "Okay, so if you look at this icon, you'll see that your character is earning zeal. You might want to build some heavy firepower units for support."
Joystiq: *attacks enemy power generator* [cue: bad move!]
It was just too darn loud at CES to get good instructions, and Relic only had one demo station on hand, which obviously did not feature any PVP gameplay. Naturally, we had StarCraft 2 in mind as we fooled around with Dawn of War 2, measuring Relic's RTS against what we've played of Blizzard's next blockbuster. We can say that Dawn of War 2 is currently winning in the looks department. As we watched an Imperial Tank literally roll through walls and crush them into powder while Space Marines jumped over the action with jetpacks, we were remiss to have left our drool bib back home in the hamper.
We've embedded a pair of videos from our session after the break, including producer Mark Noseworthy blowing stuff up!
McElroy, drunk with power, attempts to "beat" this game on his first try.
Here are the key details we cobbled together over the din of the show:- You can set a rally point on your character for tracking purposes: set it; forget it; and watch all the backup units come to you.
- Just like in the original Dawn of War, there are no servitor units that mine your resources. Still loving that. "Warhammer is not about chopping down trees," Noseworthy notes.
- Relic has brought in a lot of features from Company of Heroes, Relic's WWII RTS game, like suppressing fire. It'll be important for your character to take cover in buildings and behind objects.
- You can play as a Space Marine, Ork, Eldar, or Tyranid, and select a Hero Commander type: Offense, Healer, or Defense. For the Space Marine race, that translates into Force Commander, Apothecary, or Techmarine. It's similar to the doctrines in Company of Heroes, but you can make your choices before heading into battle.
- Also similar to Company of Heroes is the ability to split up your squads: send one guy out to a power point, and another to a requisition point.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Strategy_Panda (The Sandwich Poisoning Crew) @ Jan 12th 2009 4:33PM
I want it all... and I want it now..
ba da dum ba dum baaaa, ba da dum ba dum baaaa
wiggy wiggy waaaaaaaahhhhhh
5th hot meal @ Jan 12th 2009 5:15PM
my 4870x2 will love this, dual quad core 3gb xeons, 10gb of ram and a 30'' dell monitor, oh and a home theatre system via optical/toslink.
I am already jizzing and my ass won't stop leaking, i'm coming over all ghey for this game...
Strategy_Panda (The Sandwich Poisoning Crew) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:19PM
wow
Foetoid @ Jan 12th 2009 7:09PM
And guess what. A regular HD4870, 4gb of ram and a single quad processor will run the game just as well as yours does, for 1/4 of the price!
el serpiente @ Jan 12th 2009 4:40PM
You, sir, are a model of class, virtue and charm for all the readers of joystiq. I salute you!
IanWookie @ Jan 12th 2009 4:44PM
It wouldn't be even half as good on the 360!
The graphics would have to come down a notch
the controls would be naff.
But it's looking really good so far :D
Can't wait!
Robobagins @ Jan 12th 2009 4:49PM
Waaagh! ORKZ ORKZ ORKZ!
I cannot wait for this game.
KingTorres @ Jan 12th 2009 4:52PM
@ El Serpiente
pot,meet kettle ;)
(i think i preferred you when you were a blind fanboy, now you just bore me with your pretentious comments.meh)
el serpiente @ Jan 12th 2009 4:56PM
Oh yeah? I think I preferred you when...wait...who are you?
Alien Lord @ Jan 12th 2009 4:58PM
Call me a troll all you like but if there are any gods of gaming they fucking love me cause when it comes to gaming I get nothing but good luck.
Moptimus Slime (Leader of the Ryan Scott Defense Force, Fatass come back.You can blaim it all on me. Awurr? Maburr) @ Jan 12th 2009 4:59PM
el serpiente, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
as for alien lord, You sir are a moron. Saying you aren't interested in game just because it isnt going to your console is stupid. You are the definition of a fanboy. And to top it off you say you're going to pirate it just because of that? Fuck you. THQ isn't exactly flowing with money, they could've wanted to make it multiplatform but not had the budget. Besides, name a RTS that has transferred well from PC to console
el serpiente @ Jan 12th 2009 5:00PM
What? Did you just smoke a lot of weed Alien Lord?
AwesomeTown @ Jan 12th 2009 5:04PM
Damn. I haven't been this excited for a RTS game in while.
KingTorres @ Jan 12th 2009 5:05PM
El serpiente you might realise soon that you haven't denied being a blind fanboy, and all you have achieved is making yourself look stupid. Maybe it's time to press restart?
Gun Barrier @ Jan 12th 2009 5:06PM
Dawn of War
Gears of War
God of War
All of these similar game titles are confusing me...
343 Guilty Fart @ Jan 12th 2009 5:19PM
Don't forget the upcoming shooter War at War.
Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Jan 12th 2009 6:11PM
Well...all you need to know is that each title gives a boner to a different demographic.
Gun Barrier @ Jan 12th 2009 5:10PM
i dont care for pc gaming either, therefore i don't care for this game. Nothing Famboyish about that...
I just cant play videogames without a gamepad or a bigger tv screen.
Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:16PM
el serpiente, shut up.
Alien Lord, me and other people who can call themselves 'RTS-fans' with a straight face will buy DoW2 and force Relic to release it on 360 the moment the latter gets some fucking M/K support.
It's not the 5th of February yet, and RTS's on consoles still suck ass as of now.If Halo Wars changes that, I'll give you a point, but right now console RTS's are miles behind PC RTS's.
el serpiente @ Jan 12th 2009 5:17PM
I'm gonna be like Jakka in a LBP thread, I'm NEVER gonna shutup!
Sir Buzz Killington( The Artist formerly known as Jakka) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:18PM
...and no, the amount of work required to convert DoW2 to the point where it's playable on 360 would be enough to make DoW3 from scratch.
Moptimus Slime (Leader of the Ryan Scott Defense Force, Fatass come back.You can blaim it all on me. Awurr? Maburr) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:18PM
It would be one thing if he said "I don't want to upgrade my computer just to run this" or "Im not really into PC gaming", but to admit that he is intrigued in the game enough to threaten piracy yet say he won't buy it because its "NOT FOR MAH XBAWKZ" is stupid. Maybe they're waiting for PC sales to role in before dedicating time towards different versions. Denying them money is just hurting them and benefits nobody.
Strategy_Panda (The Sandwich Poisoning Crew) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:22PM
this game isn't coming out for consoles. the end
jackal @ Jan 12th 2009 5:30PM
Alien Lord,
Assholes like you are the reason why we PC gamers have to put up with draconian DRM schemes. For that just that reason alone, you and your lowly ilk deserve to be publicly whipped with reeds.
No PC-centric RTS has ever done well on consoles; the hardware isn't powerful enough to handle thousands of NPCs as well as their interactions independently with even low image quality (see: Supreme Commander) and the controls render such ports nigh unplayable 9 times out of 10. If you had more than ten synapses firing in that thick skull of yours, you'd understand this at some level. But...you're too busy being an ignorant, pirating console fanboy bitch to warrant reasonable cognitive abilities.
Jake B @ Jan 12th 2009 5:46PM
They already announced the sequel War at War: At War
Kevin Kelly @ Jan 12th 2009 5:52PM
No, that's just the expansion. The sequel is War at War: War of the Wars
Strategy_Panda (The Sandwich Poisoning Crew) @ Jan 12th 2009 5:54PM
sounds like one helluva war
Einhanderkiller @ Jan 12th 2009 7:48PM
Psst, Gun Barrier! You can hook up PCs to TVs and gamepads to PCs now! I know, amazing, right?
Strategy_Panda (The Sandwich Poisoning Crew) @ Jan 12th 2009 8:16PM
English mother trucker!!
Do you speak it?!?
el serpiente @ Jan 12th 2009 9:20PM
"I pirate games as a protest they pirate games because they are cheap."
There's no difference, you idiot.
jackal @ Jan 12th 2009 9:53PM
Alien Lord,
Good for you and your coworkers; you're all diarrhea guzzling cock knockers as far as I'm concerned. "I only pirate to protest". What are you protesting, exactly? Not every game can be ported (easily or at all) to a console, dumbass. The hardware you're fawning over is a technological snapshot of something that wasn't even all that special 3 (going on 4) years ago; with the exception of Xenos's unified shader architecture, the Xbox 360 was dated before the first unit even rolled off of the first assembly line.
It wasn't great technology then, and it's been showing its age for some time now. While you're gushing over just how awesome your console is, you probably didn't even realize that most Xbox 360 games (exclusive or multiplatform) can't run at a native 1280x720 even with severely reduced image quality settings (let alone the "Full HD" of 1920x1080 it claims to run at).
Wanna know what happens when you try porting software to hardware that really isn't powerful enough to handle it? You get the Xbox 360 port of Supreme Commander. While Aspyr tried valiantly to deliver a positive gaming experience, they couldn't. No matter how low they set the image quality settings, the game became a slideshow the moment there were more than a few hundred units on screen; Xenon simply couldn't cope with the demands of managing that many units on screen and all of their interactions (environmental or individual).
Why should any developer have to make sacrifices in order to work within the confines of castrated hardware when they can deliver their definitive vision, the best experience they can without having to worry about those handicaps? Here's an analogy you might actually be smart enough to get: what you're asking for is akin to demanding an Xbox 360 game like Gears of War being dumbed down to run stably on the Wii. It only won't happen, it's not something that should be considered in the first place. I shouldn't have my gaming experience compromised because you have the maturity and sensibilities of a spoiled twat.
Oh, and Alien Lord...without PC gamers like me, who buy their games and the hardware needed to run it, you wouldn't get our sloppy seconds with each console release. Neither Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo develop their own CPUs and GPUs in house. Keep that in mind while you're trying to kill the golden goose. We're not elitists...we just won't tolerate useless assholes like you desperately trying to ruin our industry or platform of choice.
R @ Jan 12th 2009 10:50PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_of_War_2#Development
Thats the system requirements. Pretty low. Im running a budget system of a Athlon 6000+, 3 gigs of RAM, and a Geforce 8800GT, and it looks like ill be able to run it just fine.
@5th hot meal
You do realize you accomplished nothing in your post but make yourself look like a prick, and a gay one at that.
R @ Jan 12th 2009 10:52PM
Can it be? After months of trying, did my picture actually change!?
Hedgeson @ Jan 13th 2009 12:36AM
No. You still are mario.
It's-a me! Mario!
ugg.tryptophan @ Jan 13th 2009 12:33AM
TYRANIDS!!! F***ING TYRANIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ryushin @ Jan 13th 2009 5:49AM
Jackal, i salute you!
Alien Lord, i truely hate you and your kind and hope your X-Box 360 will get the ring of death.
As long as there people with your way of thinking, the gaming industry will always be threatend by bankruptcy, and i pitty you for your lack of IQ (Intelligence Quotient {as you probably wont even understand what i meant})to understand this simple equation. go run into a knife!
As for DoWII, i pray for more from where this comes from.