Product Details
 | Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| Price: | $12.00 |
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Product Description
Your Blood Ravens have saved the sector, but can they save themselves? In THQ Inc. and Relic Entertainment’s sequel to the acclaimed Dawn of War II real time strategy franchise, you return to sub sector Aurelia where a long lost frozen ice planet has reappeared from the Warp, bringing with it new secrets to uncover and foes to face.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2135 in Video Games
- Brand: THQ
- Model: 49413
- Published on: 2010-03-04
- Released on: 2010-03-11
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .40 pounds
Features
- Put new units for the Space Marines, Ork, Eldar, and Tyranid armies and two new last stand heroes to work for you on the battlefield.
- This expansion allows you to continue your fight against the enemies of the Emperor and use your squads? wargear, abilities, and experience to battle Chaos in 15 new missions.
- New ice planet graphics set increases visual diversity and adds 7 new multiplayer maps while six-player online multiplayer and a raised level cap of 30 allows for even more glory and devastating abilities.
- New single player mechanic allows you to equip incredibly powerful equipment that corrupts your squad and will guide the story towards or away from the corrupting influence of Chaos.
- Swear loyalty to the Chaos Gods and play as the bloodthirsty Chaos Space Marines in multiplayer battles against both Chaos Rising and Dawn of War II owners.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Customer Reviews
Much Like Its Predecessor
One caveat first. This is a
Windows Live/Steam game, so if you have objections to either of those
things then stear clear. That said, I'm going to provide a brief review
of the game with scoring not weighted by those factors.
I have a
fairly uncommon perspective on this game, I imagine, which is that I
played it before I played the original (which I just completed last
night), so I can rate it both as a stand alone experience untainted by
preconceptions, and as a continuation of the original.
As a stand
alone experience I found the game to be quite addictive and fun. The
first level is designed as something of a tutorial to the game's basic
mechanics. You're introduced to various ideas like explosives, the cover
system, bunkers, the strengths and weaknesses of the different squad
types, etc. Not having read the manual I found myself scratching my head
at a few things but if you click the little quick tip icons on the left
side of the screen and pay attention you can figure out most of the
game's major mechanics fairly quickly. I was able to beat the first
level of the game at the medium difficulty setting on my first try.
Don't forget to use the "x" button frequently to retreat your squads
that have lost members. This way you can replenish them to full strength
and bring them back into the fray without any of your squad leaders
requiring revival. This works especially well during boss battles. Since
the bosses don't heal you can chip away at them and win by sheer
persistence. Once you learn the mechanics you are fairly quickly thrust
into the thick of things and the game ceases to coddle you.
Your
squads carry through from one mission to the next, gaining levels and
experience much like an RPG. You can and will upgrade their equipment
multiple times. Though individual members of each squad can die (and
easily be replaced at any control point), the squad leaders persist and
stay with you for the whole game. You'll have to play through a few
missions before you find Captain Thule, or unlock your Terminator armor,
though.
You lose stars on your mission rating for each squad
leader that becomes incapacitated during the mission (whether you revive
them during that mission or not). I find this mechanic works well. You
can plow through most missions by attrition, even if you have to revive
your squad leaders multiple times, but to earn the highest rating (and
the most experience), you'll need to be smarter and more methodical. It
can be quite a challenge to get a 5 star rating in all three categories
(number of enemies killed, squads that didn't become incapacitated, and
speed with which you complete the mission).
There are a few
changes to the game as compared to its predecessor, but nothing major
(with the exception of the corruption system). Mostly, you just don't
have to worry about defending your foundries and such any more. You'll
probably also appreciate the new abilities you can unlock. Some of them
are truly amazing such as converting signum use to energy. Talk about
blasting the enemy to smithereens! Good stuff. I particularly enjoyed
the section of the game where you get to explore an ancient space hulk. I
had flashbacks to the board game. Also, at a certain point you unlock a
new unit type, the Terminator Librarian. This guy is extremely
versatile and effective if specced out right. Controllable mini "black
holes"? Yes, please. The game includes an additional enemy type, chaos
marines, which are pretty evil and fun to blow up. I'm sure there's some
change to the tactics required to defeat them, but I found that they
died pretty "hand"ily to Davian Thule's massive Dreadnought claws. Long
live Captain Thule! Additionally, there's a corruption system whereby
you can let your team become more and more evil, thus unlocking the
ability to use special "corrupted" weapons and armor, which are fairly
univerally better than the uncorrupted stuff. I didn't try it this way
yet, so I don't know exactly how it would change the story, but intend
to do this on my 2nd play through.
In summary, if you liked
the original, you'll like this. I can't imagine why you wouldn't. If you
haven't played any DoW II but you like tactical style RTS games with no
base building (much like World in Conflict) then you should definitely
give this one a try.
Fun but the time
Flys
I couldn't help myself. Dawn
of war 2 was such a fun mix of RPG and RTS, that i had to pick up and
try the expansion. While overall just as fun as the base game, the
expansion had a few bits in it that kinda drug it down for me, if only a
bit.
First off, when transfering characters from your old game,
they will come across with the gear they had on, and a few random pieces
from your arsenal. this was okay. somewhat anoying was that the
Terminator armor i had was "broken" until i could find a tech-priest to
fix them. an issue of balance i supose. and sense the story picks up
rather quickly after the first games big epic conclusion, i can
understand it.
I enjoyed myself on the side missions that were
available, and found the missions on the space hulk to be very fun, in
that they changed the feel of the game, if only slightly. overall there
was a lack of side missions to choose from, and i think i fought the
orcs and eldar twice each. mabye twice.
The Runtime of the game
was rather short. even doing all the side quests, i blew through this
game very fast, playing on the normal difficulty setting. it just seemed
to rush through the plotline, and then leave a huge dangling plot for
the next game. it felt less like an expansion as a half hour episode
compared to the two hour opening movie of the core game.
the
corruption aspect of the game is interesting, but at best seems to be a
reason to go through the game twice, once pure and once corrupt, and
besides the ending cinematic, i doubt there is much of a difference,
besides the new powers, weapons, and armor you will be weilding.
This
game feels like it should have been more of a Downloadable content
upgrade for the first, restructure the plot a bit, and make episodes out
of it. but thats just my opinion. it was fun, and if you liked the core
Dawn of War 2 game, i recomend it, if only to continue the plot, and
try out the new squad member (your librarian, or to non 40k people, a
magic user).
The use of BOTH windows live AND Steam is somewhat
anoying. if not for the Dawn of war games, i wouldn't have steam on my
computer. i had some trouble with windows live not connecting at times,
which means YOU CANNOT PLAY THE GAME. you NEED to have an ACTIVE
internet connection to play these games, so watch yourself if you don't
(a small number of people in this day and age, but still present at the
corners of the world). The DRM of these two programs / "services" is
anoying, but not so much to make the game un-playable. you would think
that one or the other would have been enough, but both?
Gameplay
****
Plot ***
acting ****
DRM BS ***
Gameplay time **
Overall
***
More of the same goodness
Basically just a bunch of new
levels, to allow additional playing. The gameplay is essentially the
same, and there aren't any real changes to the game mechanics or units.
One issue is that it seems to crash more than the original game, but
this may be addressed in future patches. I didn't have any problems with
the DRM, so I can't speak to those issues. If you enjoyed DoWII then
you will enjoy this expansion.
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