POTW: Dawn of War or Dawn of War II?

PALGN Feature | Just how do you prefer your Space Marines?

The recently released Dawn of War 2 is a title that has been highly-anticipated by a core group of gamers for a very long time, and with this anticipation comes the dreaded weight of expectation. As with heavyweight titles such as Half-Life, Deus Ex, Warcraft and Command & Conquer, their inevitable sequels were met with the scrutinising gaze of a rabid fanbase. In some of these cases, the sequel went on to be bigger and better than the original - with the most notable case being the jaw-dropping excellence that was Half-Life 2 - while other sequels have faltered under the sheer weight that expectation brings.

With a maniacal fanbase to please, Relic Entertainment found themselves at a crossroads: Do they simply put together a bigger, better Dawn of War clothed in the Company of Heroes engine? Do they clone theCompany of Heroes experience and dress it up in blood soaked Space Marine battle armour? Or do they take the best bits of the RTS genre and mash it up to create a different Dawn of War experience? For those who haven't played the game to find out which path Relic went down, why not check out our recent review of Dawn of War II.

Dawn of War II has now spent a fortnight on the sales charts - and proudly perched in the homes of many rabid RTS gamers - so we thought we'd ask the PALGN community which flavour do you prefer: Dawn of War or Dawn of War II?

Vote | View Results

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18 Comments

mattstep

3 years ago

Where's the "I've never played a Dawn of War game" option?

Mr Waffle

3 years ago

Absolutely loved the tactical nature of DoW2, it brings back memories of the great Jagged Alliance.

donovan515

3 years ago

mattstep wrote

Where's the "I've never played a Dawn of War game" option?

This poll is to find out which style is more popular not to see whether you've played it or not. In which case don't vote.

Personally I prefer DoW II makes it more exciting for the ingame universe, and fits in better. Plus it allows me to play this and SCII when it comes ouwt without having any reservations for either

. The only thing I prefer in DoW was the large scale but I understand the size had to be cut down somewhat.

LazyAza

3 years ago

Dawn of War 2 hands down, everything about it is better than the original. I haven't had this much fun with an rts since Starcraft.

rufati

3 years ago

Dawn of War II for me, even though I own the original and all its expansions. It's very different to the original, in fact it reminds me a lot of DOTA and Diablo2. I like it.

Maybe part 3 will take it a step further and be a third/first person shooter, or maybe a MMO.

grim-one

3 years ago

@rufati you should check out the previews for Demigod - even more DOTA and D2 like =)

Voted for DoWII because there was no option for barely having played either yet.

Nietzsche

3 years ago

Dow 2. Dow was a traditional rts, a good one, but still didn't wow me, but dow 2 is great and really addictive.

Jellyfish

3 years ago

Liking DoW2 more at the moment but it needs more races as I'm missing the variety.

donovan515

3 years ago

nikack wrote

Liking DoW2 more at the moment but it needs more races as I'm missing the variety.

Don't worry about that, Relic Entertainment are known for their expansions. DoW got four expansions and CoH has two.

ObsoletE

3 years ago

where's the "yes" response?

i love both styles, though they're almost incomparable.
i mean on the one hand, you've got an RTS with tactical elements (i'm reluctant to call it a full on RTT game) with the original DOW.
and on the other, what really is an RPG.
i mean really, if the squads were all reduced to 1 character instead of the 3-4 we get, then it's pure RPG.

and tbh, i love them both, and really, it comes down to my mood at the time i go to play them. right now, DOW2 is still fresh and exciting in single player, but i'm finding the multiplayer (skirmishes) quite tedious and dry.
lacking the scale of the first game. not just the reduced number of races, i just miss the base building aspect.

the other part of this might be the absense of Chaos.
Chaos for Life.

it's funny, despite almost everyone crying for the Tyranids for the first game, i never really cared for them. bring back Chaos please Relic.

Sinthesys

3 years ago

Quote

the other part of this might be the absense of Chaos.
Chaos for Life.

hah, They were the race I always picked. I love creating a varied army of raptors, beserkers and chaos marines, forcing people into close combat with the former and using heavy bolter with the latter.

I'm yet to play DOW2, but I'm not sure I'll like it. I mean, I enjoyed the tactical squad side of DOW1, but I really like building bases, so I'm not sure what I'll think of a game without a base building focus...

emech

3 years ago

I think its a naming problem - because DOW does have a dedicated fanbase changing the game dynamics as much as they have means its far from more of the same but better, which is what would be expected. I know that the portable tactics game didn't sell too well, but calling DOW2 something like squad command 2 instead might have eased some of the disappointment caused by fan expectation. As for a vote - my DOW2 is on its way to my letterbox, I'll vote later in the week........

Skiller

3 years ago

emech wrote

Exactly my problem with it, if it's a sequal it should be the same but with more, DoW2 should have been a spin-off game not a sequal.

I played the beta of DoW2 and in the first 3 games I was slaughtered while I was still looking for the builder unit (spent more time waiting for the game to start than actually playing). Then I figured out how much they'd screwed me over but making a game that wasn't dawn of war so I learned to play a bit and I found the game crap anyway since it was never matching me with players of the same skill level, I always ended up playing against people who'd been in the beta for months before I joined. It also HEAVILY favors the winning player making it very difficult for me to ever get better since my average match time was less than 3 min.

Hmm, I'm starting to rant, so I'll cut it short by saying it was one of the worst named games I've ever played and because of that I won't be buying it till it's under AU$10.

Fly

3 years ago

Original, while granted I've only seen DoW2 and not played it personally (woo unsupported chipset, still so need an upgrade =/) by all means it should force balance tweaks with the various races as you could no longer have Fire Warriors out ranging Dark Reapers or Heavy Bolters on a defense orientated map, especially when you do away with the base building and void entire strategies of bypassing entrenched positions.

I know I harp on about the Eldar a fair bit but I just can't see how expecting them to act as hardy stock units and renegging their chief way to travel and bypass enemy lines can be a good thing for any additional race to be added since it then forces you to take x unit into combat with y unit, win, move on to unit z instead of promoting other methods of combat. Sure it might work with the Imperium since they're hardy but Ijust can't see it working right with specialist races.

Jellyfish

3 years ago

The Eldar in DoW2 are really soft and squishy. You need to pay a lot of attention and keep your units out of combat (except the Howling Banshees and Avatar of Khaine of course). The Eldar in the end game are devastating D-Cannons and Falcons/Prism Grav Tanks make a joke of anyone even slightly off their game. Kind of sucky that there is only one sniper in a squad of Rangers/Pathfinders though.

Noticing that 2 is far closer to the table top than the first one is. Which will make the introduction of the Tau very interesting with Broadsides and Hammerheads with Railguns

Fly

3 years ago

nikack wrote

I figured as much, probably going to be frustrating until you have the tech available to you simply because they were never meant to be hardly and in a game which rewards bloodshed more than anything, that generally translates to fire a bit, retreat, fire again.

I actually think it'll be interesting to see what they do with the Tau since they could really break the game by having both Kauyon and Mont'ka available from the get go.

Jellyfish

3 years ago

Fly wrote

I actually think it'll be interesting to see what they do with the Tau since they could really break the game by having both Kauyon and Mont'ka available from the get go.

Mont'ka and Kauyon are tactics, you'll probably find their they no longer exist or are tied in with commanders.

Fly

3 years ago

nikack wrote

Mont'ka and Kauyon are tactics, you'll probably find their they no longer exist or are tied in with commanders.

Pretty sure they still provided bonuses to either or and not both (barring minimal exceptions) which would of course make any limited squad command quite useless to have a bunch of Kroots when you're using / initiated the Mont'ka approach, and I would only assume that once implemented there will be maps where either or are initiated as opposed to the strongholds of the now defunct RTS' in which both were active.

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