Hey.

Sorry in advance, because this is neither about a good old game, nor about a game from GOG's catalog at all. But I trust the opinion of this community the most regarding any video games.

As many of you probably know, Steam is having a Warhammer Weekend. I've played the first dawn of war and now I've got my eyes on the second one, because the price is very tempting.

Have any of you played the second Dawn of War and what's your opinion about it then? Oh, and is the expansion a good thing to get too, the chaos rising? I tend to skip expansions and sometimes end up in a very awkward positions of the game sucking without the expansion.

Without income (which I said a billions times and am sorry for that, I'm still in bloody school) I really don't want to waste money on games that aren't fun.

Thanks.

I liked the DoW, but the sequel was a big disappointment.

The story is kind of ok, not bad but also not really good. Just something to justify jumping between the planets and killing the enemies.

There's about 10 maps in the whole game and you keep playing on them with the only difference being said boss (big orc, tank etc).

Almost all missions are the same (kill some boss on the other side of the map) with (very) occasional variations in defending something.

The scheme for every map is the same: choose your team (which is going to be the same for the whole game anyway while you find the best combination), land on the planet, get to the boss, kill him, next map.

Never finished it, never tried any of the expansions, never going to play it again.

I have Dawn of War 2 + Chaos Rising, and i can say one thing - game was very fun but it's basicaly a hack and slash game, not a RTS like the first one.
I enjoyed it very much, but you could always try the demo that is on Steam, to check it out for yourself.

The best part of Dawn of War 2 is The Last Stand.
This can be purchased on it's alone (Look for "The Last Standalone") or as part of Retribution.
Neither of these options require either Dawn of war 2 or Chaos Rising.

Personally I also enjoyed the single Player campaigns.
Chaos Rising doesn't affect the original campaign at all, but it is a direct sequel, with the option to import your save.

Be aware that both the original game and Chaos Rising require GFWL as well as steam.
Retribution just requires steam.

Basically, if you want it for multiplayer, only get Retribution. If you don't want multiplayer, do NOT get Retribution. Original DoW 2 is a fantastic game, something between realtime tactical game and Diablo. There is no basebuilding, you only get 4 units per battle which you have to use as efficiently as possible, and enemies drop gear and your units get XP. Between missions, you distribute stat points, change wargear, and get to more killing.

Quite simply, the campaign is engaging, fun, and sort of repetitive after some time (even thou I think murdering masses of enemies never gets old.) So yeah, that's the original, very worth the price, it has very high replayability value thanks to different builds and tactics you can try, I have myself finished it like 10 times. However, it uses GFWL for multiplayer, even co-op. (oh yeah, and the co-op is really amazing. Just saying.)

Then there is Chaos Rising. It's far more linear (both maps themselves and you usually can't really choose which mission you want to do next as in original DoW II), however it's also far more focused on story, and you get morality system where based on your choices your forces either become corrupted and join chaos, or pure and stay faithful to the Imperium. Story itself is not that great and I consider it slightly weaker than the original DoW II, it's also far shorter. The campaing is still a lot of fun, however, and well worth the money IMO.

Now, if you want to play Multiplayer (but not co-op, 2 former games have better campaigns so co-op is better in them too), getting Retribution is the way to go. It uses Steamworks so MP is far more stable and reliable, most people moved to it and it's got 1 more playable race. While campaign is pretty weak, you get 2 MP modes: Classic multiplayer, where you fight other players, build units, capture points on map etc., and Last Stand, which is a game mode where 3 players fight waves of enemies, level up their characters and increase stats to more effectively fight waves of enemies. Do note that both modes are also availible in original games, they just don't use Steamworks and there's less people playing them.

I must warn you however that I am sort of biased: I love Warhammer universe :D Well we ARE talking about warhammer here, of course it's about killing something somewhere :-P Still, while the maps don't really vary, they're pretty big and you will always have to use different path to get to your goal. I find the 'same maps' argument very exaggerated to be honest, maps are open enough to let you find your own path and enemy positions vary enough to give you a reason to do so (you usually fight a completely different army on the same map, and different army means different tactics and approach) Hack and slash? Play it on higher difficulties and you'll need to do a lot of decisions about efficient tactics, and you'll have to scout/plan ahead.

What's exactly the difference between Dawn of War II + Chaos Rising and Retribution?

EDIT: Nevermind this, posted and then Fenixp's long message appeared, going to read that now! Darn, both the campaigns of the first two and the multiplayer of Retri sound very attractive.

Hnnng.

Well the price for Retribution is kind of high for Steam standards, you could just get two originals, try out some MP with me, see if you like it and then get Retribution when it's 75% off...

Eh, works for me. Just gotta download the demo to see if it works on my machine, I pass the minimal requirements, but not all of the recommended.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

In my opinion re-using same maps is a sign of laziness or lack of ideas unless there is a good reason for that in the story. I always notice these kind of things and there was just too much of that in DoW2. In every game I basically always clear the whole map if I can so 'using different paths' was not too exciting. And the bigger maps did not help, just kept me longer on the same, boring map I cleared 5 times already.

Don't get me wrong, I could play the whole game on a single map as long as it would be nicely explained in the story and that story would be interesting itself.

I don't think that 'the warhammer universe' i an excuse for all missions to be the same and have exactly the same objective ("we've located <insert_name_here>, he's very dangerous, kill him for the emperor"). I don't remember same crap from DoW1.

To Warhammer

Fenixp summed it up nicely. I'll just add that DoW2's multiplayer/skirmish is more of a tactical game, instead of DoW1's lol1unitspam (for example grenade launcher IG). Also it does not use morale mehanics, but suppression and retreat, like Company of Heroes does.

I like the games but let's clarify one thing. It's not , it's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40000]Warhammer 40000.

Got the demo, it did run and was somewhat playable, but had a very unpleasant fps.

I need a new PC. :<

I would give the demos a try, Profanity. They are very well coded and should give both a good cross-section of what to expect from each game (that has a demo available) single-player, and should run at about what you can expect from the full version. The multi-player is on free weekend with Retribution.

Also, keep in mind that Dawn of War II and Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising both use the Games for Windows LIVE client. Retribution does not.

To Warhammer is my vote. DoW2 is incredible fun - according to Steam I'm well over 100 hours /played combined on all three games. The Last Stand is strangely addictive.