More pictures to be used with Last stand review + reviews last stand review.


LAST STAND
Released on the PC on 20th of February 2009, Dawn of War II is the latest instalment in the Dawn of War franchise. Unlike typical real-time strategy games, such as the previous 4 titles, it does away with the base building element, the player selecting their units before the mission starts. It has been a hit with Warhammer 40k players and the gaming market full stop. It features a new Graphics and Physics engine, resulting in beautiful game play. This does however, come at a price – the game requires at minimum of 3.2GHz processor and a GeForce 6600 to play.

Last Stand is the latest download for this. Created and fully supported by Relic, it is a horde survival game for three players – connected via the internet. By using the windows live feature integrated into the game, players can invite their friends into the game, which greatly increases the experience.
The game is gives you three different classes to play with, The hard as nails Space Marine, the Savage Ork, and the powerful attacks of the weak Eldar Farseer. Each class has various War-gear that can be unlocked, allowing the player to tailor their chosen class to be most effective. Rolls range from shooting to combat to support. War-gear is gained by levelling up, which is gained by gaining XP from surviving and killing waves of enemies. The war-gear doesn't necessarily make you better, it can give bonus to your team, which in turn should help you survive for longer.
The game also allows players of different levels to play together, a beginner and an expert can enjoy a game together, and both benefit from the experience.
Whilst the aim of the game does pretty much come down to 'kill everything', teamwork is vitally important, playing on the strengths of the other players, if you are going to progress further than wave five. Until that point most players can deal with the relatively easy waves of enemies that charge onto the map. That said, glory hunting is only going to get you killed. But that doesn't mean you are down and out. As long as there is another player, they can come and revive you.
The map itself is set up like an arena fitting for the title of last stand. Four gates are positioned at the top, bottom, left and right which open to allow the steadily increasing swarms of enemies to gain access.
The foes that you will face are, Orks, Tyranids, Eldar, Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Chaos, and duplicates of your own characters, and after each four waves a boss is introduced to the madness. This greatly increases the difficulty of the level. Fighting four Wraithlords; is not pleasant.
As the game gets harder, it is nice to play with microphones, so you can better co-ordinate your attacks or beg for assistance. Although I would only recommend doing this when playing with friends, but it certainly adds an extra dimension to the game.
The Game play is nice and simple, point and click. The bottom right shows you health, energy and abilities, while the top right shows the status of your allies. The top left shows the wave number, the progress, and the experience points that have been gained. These controls work well with the game, allowing a wide variety of options in the simplest possible format. It does occasionally lead to extremely infuriating moments when the character does not do what you expected, taking cover behind something rather than running past being an example.
A very nice touch is the kill counter, showing the number of opponents you have ended. The first time you pass 100 kills is certainly a time for celebration. The more you play, the better you become, unlocking new war-gear and increasing in strength up to the level cap of 20, but there is still more war-gear to gain past that point. It is very easy to level up at first, and the game invokes a 'one more try' reaction from the player, and time literally flies by.
Another exciting feature is that all terrain is destructible, which is awesome when attacking, and terrifying when cowering behind it. The games AI is pretty impressive too, seeking out cover and ganging up on the greatest threat, although it isn't too bothered about how many of its own units get in the way, leading to greatly amusing moment when the AI kills its own units.

With the exception to the questionable alliance between the three player characters, Relic have done well to make the game fit in with the lore of the Warhammer 40k table top game. They have obviously done their homework, and it shows, making the game very popular with Warhammer 40k players. That said, by no means is it limited to just Warhammer players. It is challenging and fun regardless, and has plenty of classic moments popping up in the game play leading to “Did you see that!?!” moments. Highly entertaining, with each game different depending on who you play with this won't get old for some time to come.
And if you have a copy of Dawn of War II, you might as well download it – things don't normally come much better than free.

Lawrie Rose