DoW II: Retribution - a quick rundown

I felt I should throw in my thoughts on the new Dawn of War game. I wont spoil any of it for those who are thinking of buying it, but at the same time I feel obliged to tell you all that this game is a big change from the others.



The first change is the most obvious and well known inclusion of Imperial Guard and being able to have a campaign with each race. This is quite good and sounds very appealing, after having a quick try on the campaigns they even managed to give the Hive Mind a character which tells you what to do and about threats relevent to the mission and story (like other races commanders really).



Now onto the radical changes, the biggest change I noticed first is that they no longer have 4-6 characters with a squad for some to lead as Sargeants. Now you have 4 heroes and in the desroyable boxes is power and requisition and thats because now you capture HQ buildings and can build armies!!! Yes, they have combined the campaign with parts of multi-player. This seems alright but I was a bit disapointed as I felt they had the campaign perfect in the other games.



Next up when you level up you still upgrade your character, but no longer do you have to spend point upon point to get an upgrade, you now get 3 Stats (Health, Damage, Stamina) and each point gives you an upgrade. These upgrades can change what weapons the charater can have, or which units he can summon (nids). At the end of the first mission (and the rest I assume) you get to pick one of three options, usually, a piece of wargear for a Hero, an upgrade for a purchasable unit, or a new unit to buy from HQ's, I'm not sure if this means you will have to lose out on wargear, units or, unit upgrades throughout the campaign.



Lastly, the biggest disapointment is that the first mission for every race is identical, I'm not sure how this works out later on as I have only playing the first mission of each race. I am hoping the races get a very different campaign as it goes along otherwise I think that they may have rushed this game and focussed too much on the multi-player as games tend to do lately.



All in all I think it is average, and nowhere near as the first DoW II game. So I hope this gives you a bigger picture when you think about buying Retribution, have fun and enjoy this game if you buy it.