Alt-Tab: Can RPG + RTS = cute baby?

Posted Aug 21st 2008 3:00PM by Kyle Horner
Filed under: Features, RPG, RTS, Opinion, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II

One of the biggest problems for real-time strategy (RTS) games has been the detached and disinterested attitude many players exhibit when faced with playing them. More often than not, a lot of people who consistently play RTS games are doing so out of their love for the strategy element. That's all well and good, but there's a caveat: The problem continues. Why? It does so because the cache of players who're highly dedicated to RTS games don't count for much of the PC gaming contingent.

I've considered Relic Entertainment a top-drawer developer ever since I casually sat down to play Homeworld 2, only to discover a game that would absorb several tens of hours of my life. So when initial previews revealed that Dawn of War 2 (DoW2) wouldn't focus on player-built structures, I was intrigued. I continued to read up on the game and subsequently found even more provocative information. Players will only control five or so squads in any one battle? These squads are to stay with you over the course of the game? This was a glaringly unprecedented change, and I loved it.

Click the image above to continue reading "Alt-Tab: Can RPG + RTS = cute baby?"

Gallery: Alt-Tab: Can RPG + RTS = cute baby?

Tags: company-of-heroes, dawn-of-war, dawn-of-war-ii, dow, eldar, featured, homeworld, homeworld-2, joystiqfeatures, orks, relic, relic-entertainment, rpg, rts, space-marines, tyranids

4 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

That problem though is that strips everything I love about strategy and leaves the part I don't really care for... the strategy. Personally, I enjoy them FOR the base building and resource gathering. I've been a SoaSE addict over the last few weeks and I found that I play it more in a SimCity-esq city building style and just heavily foritfy my exposed points and pump out massive amounts of units to handle the strategy element. As it stands Dawn of War 2 really don't hold any interest to me.

...bysmittyPosted at 3:19PM on Aug 21st 2008 by bysmitty

Well it would be more thought provocative if this wasn't just for the campaign, and a space marine campaign at that.Posted at 4:29PM on Aug 21st 2008 by Imperial Dane

Man, you joined the game late. Homeworld (1) was amazing. I would be very happy if Relic made another Homeworld after Dawn of War II. I think that being away from the franchise for a while and having some very different games under their belt could result in an interesting new angle on the 3D space RTS. That said, I'm also looking forward to this game.Posted at 11:41PM on Aug 24th 2008 by Mike

Homeworld 2 took away a lot of the revolutionary elements of homeworld 1 and made it more standard RTS fare. (though still great - but HW1 is better).

There have been lots of RTS games without base building, with RPG elements and persistent units, etc..

Personally I love that kind of game... i cant force myself to play normal RTS games where i have to rebuild the same base over and over again in every mission.
But games that dump the base building have traditionally done badly in the multiplayer market.

DoW2 sounds perfect to me (Ground Control meets Homeworld meets WH40k) but a lot of people love the repetitive base rebuilding. Posted at 11:30AM on Aug 25th 2008 by t_m