Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Hands On

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Much like kicking around the bisected corpse of a Space Ork who looked at you funny, it's a game of two halves. The single-player is about a continuing campaign, managing a small team who gather snazzy War Gear and whatnot. Apparently, anyway. I haven't played it, because this is the multiplayer beta, and as the name may suggest, it contains multiplayer-specific content. And the actual multiplayer is much more a traditional RTS experience than the single-player.

Relic seemed to get a little annoyed at people assuming the multiplayer would be based on the radically different approaches adopted by the single-player game when they'd never actually said any such thing, which was a problem of their own making. When you only reveal a game that's not much like the original and refuse to elaborate on multiplayer - for the self-serving reason of trying to have a slow-release of new features in the hype - you can expect people to reasonably assume the game they've been shown is what the game's going to be like. A simple "The multiplayer will be a much more traditional experience" would have sidestepped it, for the record.

This is a Tyranid. He's after your heart, but only literally.

As such, Dawn of War II multiplayer initially feels a lot like you would have expected Dawn of War II to feel before we knew better. That is, the best bits of the original, plus extra gubbins from the definitive RTS of the last five years, Company of Heroes. Plus new stuff. And Tyranids, which will make your average Dawn of War fanatic about as happy as adding Skaven as a playable race would do to your average Warhammer Online fanatic.

The beta includes all four races in the whole game, with each of their three hero types. There are both head-to-head and three-versus-three conflicts available - two of the former, three of the latter - which utilise an expand-to-gain resource format similar to the first game's. In other words, there are only certain points on the map that can be used to generate resources. Control of them will help you win indirectly. There are also the victory control points, command of which will lead to a victory. However, rather than being based on a timer - as in, owning most of the points for a period leading to your triumph - it's based on points. If you hold more of the victory areas than the opposition, their points start to drain away. Whoever gets to zero first, loses.

And if that sounds too complicated, you can always stomp on their heads with your big mechanical feet.

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