Relic has done it again. They already made a great game out of the box in Dawn of War 2, but now they’ve added a free new mode that really plays to the game’s strengths. The Last Stand is essentially a 3 player survival mode with character progression, which lends itself to quick games that allow for a bit more of a casual or simplified experience. I’ve been having a ton of fun with it so far.
Wave after wave of enemies keep coming at you with a very small gap between them. Each wave gets more and more difficult, with the true litmus test coming at around wave 8. From that point on you really have to have your team working together or else you’re all going to die very quickly. It doesn’t let up either, I’ve only seen wave 11 of 20 thus far (a team finally beat the 20th wave, and it looks like it’s the first glimpse at the Chaos Marines!). So there’s plenty of room here for players looking for a challenge, this is no walk in the park.
Character progression works in that every game you earn experience for how well you do and how far you get, for the first several levels you’ll be gaining one per match, and eventually you’ll need to do 2-3 per level. Each level your character does not get stronger, you simply unlock a new piece of equipment each level, giving you more configuration options. A newer item isn’t always strictly better than the last one, they just have different attributes and grant different abilities. This system prevents players who grind experience from having some large advantage over other players, it simply lets them customize their character in more ways. I’ve played with several configurations and had to work out which methods I prefer over others, and some are a toss up. For example I unlocked a two handed melee weapon which reduced my damage slightly and completely removed my ranged capabilities, but it also granted me an ability that completely prevents all immobilizing effects and knockdowns, which is extremely powerful.
All in all it seems like there has been a lot of care taken by Relic in making sure this mode was simple, lean, and tons of fun. Hopefully they will expand the mode in the future and inspire other developers to include similar modes, because it’s a lot of fun.
Here is a video of it in action:
For the first time in awhile i disagree with almost everything you said. How often does that happen?
DoWII has had balance issues since it went gold, so I have mixed feelings about a content update when the core multiplayer is still broken for anyone beyond novice skill. They did bundle in a balance update to address some of those issues, so we’ll see how that works but this was not a great experience ‘out of the box’.
Regarding the actual content in the update, I found it was geared too heavily toward new players with no real room to grow. I got to wave 19 on my second or third try. I can solo most waves up to 18 except the mirror match with a level 1 ork. The only actual challenge is finding two other people to play with who aren’t mentally challenged and/or just trying to grind levels.
With decent partners, trying for a high score might actually be a lot of fun. For me though, it feels like Relic has forgotten that many of their customers have actually played a video game before.
Wow yeah that sounds like a totally difference experience than I had and it probably has to do with that I haven’t played a ton of the game so I fall neatly into the “newer player” category. Sucks to hear that they still have balancing issues at the high/middle end of things, I would have hoped that it would have achieved some relative stability well before they announce and expansion.
They are getting closer. I will give them credit for doing tons of hard work and accomplishing more than some other big titles. I will also blame THQ in part for their satanic pact with MS, forcing relic to use GFWL. The game has changed quit a bit since beta, and they have reworked so much that it has already alienated a segment of their player base. It feels like they just made spaghetti out of the game mechanics.
If you remember DoW with Dark Crusade, the Necron had a bug where they would fire at 100% accuracy on the move, making it impossible to survive a retreat. This bug was present for six months or something ridiculous like that. If you didn’t win vs Necron in one push, it was GG. DoW2 is considerably more balanced than that.