"Warhammer Dawn of War II" (THQ)

Back in the day, I was a big fan of RTS games. I loved Westwood Studio's Command & Conquer. It combined the RTS gameplay with a fun story and high quality cut scenes.

Then a little Mac developer called Bungie blew my mind with their first PC games: Myth and Myth2 - two of my favorites games of all time. Bungie realized that chopping wood and mining tiberium were, well, lame. Instead of base-building, Myth levels started you with a team of soldiers and mission. Any solder that survived the mission moved onto the next one. I loved it. You cared about your guys surviving and the story was great.

Fast forward almost a decade. Westwood Studios is long gone. Bungie has gone to Halo and left the RTS games behind. The RTS standard now is held high by Relic, a Canadian developer.

Relic's first big game was Homeworld (which I have written about). They have done one RTS after another building up to this one: Dawn of War 2.

Yes, I finally got my Xbox Live account stuff squared away and gave this game a try. Im totally hooked.I played 10 missions (about half the game) before starting over with a new character and trying harder to keep my guys alive every mission. I cant seem to put it down.

DAW2 is different and yet it is also clearly a Relic game.

There is no base-building at all. You get a squad of guys. You know their names. You care about them.

Each guy does something different and they added an RPG-like system of earning experience, gaining levels, building skills, and using better weapons. Each mission is graded on performance and you get bonuses for keeping your guys alive, going fast and killing.

The game is story-based but not totally linear. You get choices to make and the story is played out on several worlds with several territories. This borrows from Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. But they have added a time limit. Every mission takes time; die too often and you wont save the universe.

There is a cover system and buildings which help keep your guys alive. Borrowed from Company of Heroes.

The graphics are fantastic, the voice acting top notch. Another high-quality Relic production.

Another twist is that there is no save games. For a save-game-whore like myself, that is a huge change. Mostly I dont mind it. It keeps me honest in a mission but if you start losing, its a bit annoying that you cannot go back without starting over completely.

Another little niggle is that there arent any good wiki's out there with strategy and tips. I really got stuck with the swarms and it got a bit frustrating.

I am playing the game on Windows7... Not a single crash or graphics problem. Finally!

I dont actually like the Dawn of War universe, the Orks are especially retarded, but if you like RTS games this one is not to be missed. Nothing by Relic can be missed it seems.

OK, enough of that. Time to kill the Wraithlord...