Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution

The portion of the single-player campaign on show in Vancouver is certainly diverse. There are forested ruins, looming scenery and a frantic chase through a hillside maze with the Imperial Gard's heavily armoured tank forces moving ever closer.

Running away to regroup and refocus becomes a tactical necessity. The result is a furious game of cat-and-mouse, one which can only be won by capturing turrets across the landscape.

Relic is at pains to point out this latest iteration is more than an add-on limited to those who own the previous releases. It's an expansion in terms of price only. There's a full game to be enjoyed here, certainly from a PVP perspective and with only previous title campaigns being excluded from the experience.

Along with introducing the Imperial Guard, Retribution awards each race with one new unit. By the end of the expansion, everyone will have a new monstrous harbinger of death to cackle over.

The Orks receive a Battlewagon, complete with a front-mounted spiked roller useful for thinning enemy ranks. For the Imperial Guard, imminent justice arrives in the form of the Baneblade tank - a hideous tool of destruction armed to the teeth with 11 weapons.

The Chaos Noise Marines bring sonic weapons to the table - not, sadly, to invoke the brown note but rather to emit a blast of noise which prevents enemy units from firing.

One clumsier aspect of the earlier releases, now removed, was the need to maintain a Games for Windows Live account for the multiplayer component, plus a Steam log-in. With the advances made to Steamworks since the original launch - "Nerdy networking stuff, P2P networking and that sort of thing" - everything will now be bought under Valve's roof. Hard-earned ranks will, however, be carried over to the new system.

Time now to move on to the multiplayer session. Our first team-based effort is a write-off from the start. I generously offer to switch sides in order to give my former team-mates the chance to learn some tactics amongst themselves. It works and, after changing teams, they gamely rise to the challenge and emerge victorious...

The second result is equally decisive, with the fight critically staying alive until the final moments. Typically, a points-based round of capture-the-flag becomes a miserable experience when the writing on the wall reads 150 versus 500. But here, the maps are broad enough and the objectives spread far enough apart that opportunities to retake control of the situation always seem at hand. You never feel as though you're simply waiting for the inevitable defeat, with one eye looking towards the next round.

Attention to detail and strict adherence to the lore come as part and parcel of a Games Workshop franchise. The voice-acting is also highly accomplished and drives the atmosphere of the story forward in a way that commands your attention, even if the minutia of the universe has been a closed book to you until now.

Everything about the approach taken with Retribution suggests an intention to create accessibility for those coming to the series mid-way through. But existing fans can sleep easy, safe in the knowledge that they're being well catered for.

The RTS genre is often considered to be on the hardcore end of the gaming spectrum. With StarCraft 2, however, Blizzard proved that if you build it, they will come. If you found yourself caught up in the pre-launch hype for that game, dipped a toe in the water and found yourself pleasantly surprised, Dawn of War 2: Retribution needs to be on your watch list.