Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising

I am willing to bet not many of you are that familiar with the Dawn of War games that started back in 2004 on PC. With that in mind, the original Dawn of War didn't seem to be as popular as I thought it deserved to be, but it didn't cause Relic and friends to stop producing expansions. In 2005, the first expansion was released which helped popularize the game a bit due to the low cost as well as the ability to play alongside all of the other previous owners as only one of 5 available races. A year later in 2006, a second expansion was released that added two more races to the mix. At this point, most RTS fans would be extremely happy with the diversity offered by these games... but the game didn't seem to gain any popularity. In 2008, I was shocked to see yet another expansion released, that added two more races bringing the grand total to 9. Again, RTS fans typically love a large variety of races/factions and units to choose from when playing games, and this seemed to be perfect.



Yet unfortunately, the game really never hit huge heights like any of the Blizzard or Westwood/EA games. Yet this game had pretty much everything you look for in a real time strat: a cool, squad based combat system, variety of gametypes that are entertaining, huge array of races/factions/units, and an above decent online system.

I bring all of this up, because about a week ago Dawn of War 2 released its first expansion, Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising. I haven't been playing tons of RTS games lately, but I downloaded it from steam to occupy some time. Granted, I am a fanboy from the older games and also the sequel Dawn of War 2; but this expansion is pretty great. If you had any chance to play DoW2 and enjoyed it, this game is more of the same with new units and a new faction. Another gametype has been thrown into the mix, that resembles the custom games called "Enfos" from Warcraft 3 TFT. (Also, the online system is vastly improved.)



So I guess this rambling all culminates to: If you like RTS games that revolve around squad based missions and fighting, you will probably enjoy this game. At the minimum, you will laugh at the voice actors when clicking on the different characters and having them all interact. If your computer has a nice graphics card, this game can be pretty stunning as well. You can also buy the original game and the expansion for 40$. Worth it, in my opinion.

SC