Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Cooperative Preview
- February 06, 2009 16:01 PM PST
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GamePro strategizes on how best to cooperatively defeat the hardened bosses in Dawn of War II.
I'll admit that I never played much Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War in the past, so it was an abrupt system shock when I previewed Dawn of War II's multiplayer mode a couple months back. However, earlier this week THQ invited me to play Dawn of War II's cooperative campaign mode and the play style finally clicked in my head. Unlike other real-time strategy games, such as StarCraft or Command & Conquer, Dawn of War II nixes base building and base management to focus entirely on combat units with special abilities and upgradable weapons. Each campaign mission is a constantly moving battle as you parade combat units across the map from one objective to the next.
Maverick and Goose
In the Dawn of War II campaign mode, your army is small at first, consisting of a commander hero unit and one ranged infantry squad with the grenade special ability. This eases you into the play style and limits the number of units with special abilities you have to manage. The second level introduces another squad unit, suppressant-fire infantry for example, and the third level introduces a fourth squad unit. Based on what we played, your team never seems to consist of more than four squads in any given mission, however, you have access to half a dozen squads or so with different abilities that can be swapped and traded before missions.
In cooperative mode, squads are equally divided between the two players. For example, one player will control the commander hero unit and ranged infantry squad while the second player will control the suppressant-fire infantry squad and jetpack squad. Cooperative seems to be the fastest way to plow through the campaign too. I began the campaign playing solo while other journalists in the room played co-op. We started at the same time, but the cooperative players advanced much more quickly through the missions. I was joined later by another player for some drop-in, drop-out cooperative fun.
Big, Bad Boss Man
Playing co-op also makes the boss fights substantially easier. Not only are the bosses at the end of each level extremely tough with their own unique special abilities; it's stressful to micro managing a handful of squads by yourself. By splitting the squad load in half in co-op, your attention need only be on the two squads that are under your direct control, the second player will take care of his units.
The bosses don't mess around either - they have more health, special abilities, and different patterns. One hulking ogre boss, for example, starts the fight by tossing timed-detonation bombs that blow up after five seconds. You have to be light on your feet against this boss. When his health is around half full he switches to a special shockwave-type ability that turns the ground in front of him to fiery brimstone and explodes after a short period of time. Again, be light on your feet and run away to not get damaged. And finally, when he is near death, he launches a barrage of rockets from his backpack in your direction.
After the two-hour play session, I am much more comfortable with how Dawn of War II plays and I can't wait to play more Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II soon when the game comes out on February 19th. I'll see you guys online.
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