Dawn of War 2

[NBKFuzzy]

I was wondering if anybody here played DoW2, and if so if they would like to play a few games.

I got DoW2 expecting all my buds who were raving about it in beta where we played together since closed beta, would be BUYING IT. Unfortunately, its just me. And I am not very good at playing RTS online and would like a partner or two.

[IBBoard]

Nope, sorry, I've not bothered buying it. Everything I've seen looks worse than DoW1 (smaller games, less modding, and the ugliest skins I've ever seen including shiny Ork skin) so I didn't bother. That plus I don't have much time to play games these days with a combination of looking after my son and other projects.

I think Relic could have made a much better job of Dawn of War 2 than they did. Gaming in general is just going down-hill. When I buy a game I want to a) buy and own it, not have some half-arsed pseudo-rental system (although that's more other games than DoW2) and b) be playing a game, not watching the artwork.

I use Linux rather than Windows, and one comment in a Linux mag that I read recently really struck a cord over gaming. Basically, because Linux gaming isn't as flashy and up to date, they said you consider your game playing more and realise that the best games you played were actually ten years old with low res graphics and fewer colours. They might not have looked great, but the game play was far better and so you got engrossed, were challenged, and enjoyed it and so the lack of "uber-graphics" didn't make a difference.

[stfas]

yeah i do, not all that great myself.

[NBKFuzzy]

I think Dawn of War II is great, and I like the Orks much better. They look meaner an greener oppose to cartoony. The whole game looks more dark and gritty, which I think is fitting for 40k. As far as gameplay, it really grows on you the more you play. Not to mention the Single Player is incrediably well done.

I have to agree with you on older games being the best though. I think the best thing they could do atm is just remake old games. Update graphics and you have a selling point. EA Games ALMOST did that with Battlefield 1943, but of course ruined Battlefield.

[IBBoard]

Every screenshot I'd seen had horrible Orks. They're supposed to be leathery skinned and tough, but Relic (as many companies seem to have done) had added a gloss/shine to them and just about everything else. Graphics power means more realistic things can be done, but half of the time it seems like the developers put the power in to making everything shiny instead. While "dark and gritty" does sound good, I'm not sure how that works next to all of the shiny that I've seen.

You said the DoW1 Orks were cartoony, but they were just like the 40K 3rd Edition orks (they almost looked like scans of specific models). 40K 2nd edition were the cartoony Orks!

To be fair, I've not actually even bothered with the game play. I don't think my machine could handle DoW2 without an upgrade. I plan to do one at some point, but given the amount I've played DoW1* and other games, it wouldn't be a gamer-centric update. Everything else about the game (especially the lack of mod-ability) just generally put me off bothering.

I'm not entirely convinced on the remake idea. In a way it would be good to see some older games with better graphics, at the same time it seems like it could be a bit of a cheap cop-out/money maker. There are already a lot of clone games out there that don't really add much and seem to mainly be pushed out by the games publishers to make a bit more money (EA and all their sports titles are one example). If they could manage to get the spirit of the old game but with better graphics then it may work.



* see elsewhere in the forums for my "I've finally finished the DoW campaign" thread that came years after the game was released - and it wasn't because I was playing online, because I've never bothered with that!

[NBKFuzzy]

The shiny did show in a lot of the early screenshots, they look really slick and smooth, but in-game I have found it different. They seem to have changed the graphics a bit to make them more dark than the original pictures.

I know that's what Orks SHOULD look like in the 3rd edition, I just don't think it fits with the big brute mentality of Orks. In 2 they are all scarred, ears have chunks taken out of them, ect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFu87KUI ... annel_page

I made that video recently, with gameplay of Orks. My clan mates wanted to see some gameplay of DoW2, and I put together four videos (you can find on my youtube page) one of each race. The Ork one seems to be most popular. I use the Kommando hero whose my favorite Ork of them all. Big, green, and nasty with his speshul shoota, or his asashuns nife.

[IBBoard]

You can add scars and things in DoW1 (although IIRC Orks may heal quite quickly because of their spore-like physiology) but it was designed for much older machines and built on an older game engine, so the random parts could be a bit too much for some machines and weren't used too much. That would have just left you with big mobs of similarly wounded Orks, which would look odd.

If they have changed the graphics then it is a good thing, but I think any level of shine on the Ork's skin is just wrong. You can't have tough, hardened and leathery skin that shines and glows. The Space Marines that I've seen looked like they've taken the "Ugly and Horrible Haloween Skull of Doom" from DoW1 (from the Bionics, IIRC) and applied a similar effect to the whole Marine. When was the last time you saw a Space Marine with a portable halo generator?!


Also, I just realised that this is in the wrong place, so I'll move it to Sideline Games

[NBKFuzzy]

Idk what you mean about the space marines, but I don't see the Orks being shiny anymore.

Also the Warboss. He looks so awesome without the big mechanical suit.

[IBBoard]

There was at least one screenshot I saw of a squad of Space Marines where they all had a light glow around them as well as the reflective effect. It may just have been something about that one screenshot, but it looked almost as bad as the shoulder pad icon that someone decided (for unknown reasons) would look good in DoW1.

That Warboss doesn't look as bad as the other screenshots I've seen (although he does look more like a Nob than a Warboss), and I do prefer them without mega armour rather than with it, but they're still playing with effects for the sake of it. What's with the shine on the armour for a start? If I'd bothered with the game it'd probably be one of the things I'd remove. Orks don't go for polished and shiny metal.

[stfas]

its that some colors shine, most don't. (theres a lot in the pre-order version which is in the full game just locked....)

[NBKFuzzy]

Yeah, the armor color is Iron, which is a metallic color. It makes it very shiny with the light.

And a Warboss is just the biggest an' greenest nob right?

[IBBoard]

He at least looks a bit different in TT. Maybe in battle it would be a bit more obvious, but there he could easily be confused for a normal Nob.

As for the colour being iron, when was the last time that iron shone that much? That should be called "Stainless Steel with a month's worth of elbow grease"!

[NBKFuzzy]

An iron bar is shiny. And you can make it non shiny if you want. And nobs look a bit different, and dont have teef growin' out of there shoulders.

[DanTay25]

Yeah, the shine (almost a glow) looks rather un-Orky. But shiny skin? Well, I guess he could be sweaty .

Two reasons why I haven't got DoW2:
- I seriously doubt my current computer can run it
- I don't fancy burning 1GB of memory on Steam.

[IBBoard]

1GB of memory on Steam? Huh? System specs will be a big problem for quite a few old DoW1ers, though.

As for the iron bar, a quick look on Google shows a lot more dull grey iron than it does bright and shiny steel-like iron. Even ignoring the fact that it's an ork, that metal just looks too shiny in a "polished to a mirror finish" way to seem right in a war game. I'm obviously just not the target audience for this new "oooo, look how flashy we can make it" wave of graphics.