According to Kuzminski, these Ultramarines have a “distinctly Roman Empire influenced look that makes them stand out from the rank and file.”

The blog post focuses on the various annimations and look for the Force Commander, Apothecary, Tactical Sergeant, Tactical Marines, Terminators, the Rhino, Predator, and Land Raider, as well as the Dreadnought.

Relic has also pulled out some “old Space Marine armour sets” that have been the library and re-dressed them for the Scouts and Devastators. Devastators also wear the veteran helmets with gold laurelling.

Shack notes in the past, armor packs have cost $7.49, so it is likely this new bit will run the same, but nothing has been announced as of yet.

Hit up the blog for more information and check out the screens below.

The free update to the Relic Entertainment-developed game includes a number of balance changes along with new achievements, that, when unlocked, give access to new wargear in the game’s Last Stand survival mode.

You can check out the wargear at the game’s official web site.

The Dark Angels DLC pack is also available to download and purchase via Steam, Direct2Drive and GamersGate for $7.49. It adds eight new Dark Angels character models to the Space Marine faction, along with some cosmetic changes to the Space Marine units.

Owners of the Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War Retribution Collector’s Edition version can go ahead and download the Dark Angles DLC pack for free, according to a Relic rep on the game’s official message boards.

Announced yesterday, the Dark Angels Pack is slated for release on Steam, the THQ E-Shop and select digital retailers April 6 for $7.50.

The update will add in twelve new Steam achievements, which is not terribly exciting on its own, but each achievement earned will unlock an extra piece of wargear.

The update will roll out as a free patch on April 6.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is Relic’s second tactical RTS RPG hybrid in Games Workshop’s famous sci-fi universe, and has enjoyed ongoing developer attention since its release in 2009.

Watch below courtesy of IGN.

The Dawn of War II – Retribution multiplayer beta ended at midnight on February 24, and the game is set for release on PC March 1.

In addition, gamers can get access to the beta by registering on the Dawn of War Community site and following the instructions under the Beta Key giveaway tab.

Featuring all six multiplayer races including the new Imperial Guard faction, the beta will run through the end of February to test the new Steamworks network and matchmaking features and help balance the multiplayer mode. All new units for each race will be available in the beta along with the new multiplayer maps that will ship with Retribution.

The Dawn of War II – Retribution multiplayer beta is currently planned to run until midnight on February 24, at which point the developers will take all feedback into account to create a day-zero balancing patch.

Announced back in August, Retribution is slated for release on PC March 1.

We pointed you in the direction of these screens in a Saturday Shorts post, but now that the assets have been sent over to us, we though you’d like to have a little extra hands-on time with them at your leisure.

Retribution takes place ten years after the events in Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, and allows players to choose their perspective with the first multiple-race single player campaign in the game’s series.

As well as containing a single-player campaign, Retribution features new multiplayer units, maps and the Imperial Guard as the new playable faction. The Eldar, Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Orks and Tyranids are all playable as well through both the single and multiplayer modes. The Imperial Lord General has been added to The Last Stand heroes along with a new map, and multiplayer for Retribution will include base building.

As well as a Collector’s Edition being available, those who pre-order the game will receive additional items for a specific race in the campaign depending on which pack you choose out of the six different races. Ork is a Steam exclusive, Tyranids is a THQ online store exclusive, but all will be available as DLC after release. The Dawn of War II – Retribution Collector’s Edition contains all six skins.

Announced back in August, Retribution is slated for release on PC March 1 with Steamworks.

The multiplayer beta for the game ends on February 24.

THQ have been extremely coy with release date information for Dawn of War II – Retribution, but antipodean gamers can now draw firm red circles on their calendars. The stand-alone expansion launches in Australia on March 2.

According to Gamespot, you can fork out AUD $59.95 for a Collector’s Edition, and you’ll score some art cards, a poster, and a an early unlock of abilities and equipment.

If you’re after a digital copy, the Steam version is set to release a day earlier. A pre-order will net you a bonus set of equipment for your chosen race.

Playable even if you’ve eschewed the core game, Retribution shifts focus from the Space Marines and onto Orks, Tyranids, Eldar et al.

It also brings back some of the much-bemoaned missing base-building mechanics, for fans outraged by the action-bent of the core release.

THQ has announced pre-order incentives for its Warhammer 40K RTS title, Dawn of War II – Retribution as well as a collector’s edition of the game.

The CE will give players access to all of the available bonus Wargear for each of the six playable races in the game, a poster,  and six race art cards all wrapped-up in a collector’s box for $39.99, which is only available to North American gamers through the THQ store.

Those who prefer a particular race allegiance can instead pre-order one of the six available race packs for $29.99, which is the same price of the standard game. Each race pack includes four “unique ability and Wargear items” which can be used during the single-player campaign.

The Ork Race Pack is exclusive through Steam, and the Tyranid Race Pack exclusive through the THQ Store. The Space Marine, Chaos Space Marine, Eldar and Imperial Guard race packs are also available for pre-order through both outlets along with other digital distribution sites.

Race Packs are only available for electronic distribution and are only available for as an incentive at the pre-order stage, so once the game is released, it will cost you the normal pack fee through Steam.

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II – Retribution is slated for release on March 1.

We’ll mail THQ and see if Europe and the UK can get in on the same offers.

Are you hideously chemically addicted to video games? I know I am. In the last week I’ve spent over 200 hours gaming. If I ever run out of games to play, I turn into a giant fire breathing dinosaur, and go on a mega-rampage, destroying cities and killing thousands.

Luckily, that hasn’t happened for a while, because I’ve been able to keep myself stocked up on cheap games just like these ones you’re about to see after the break. Remember to visit SavyGamer.co.uk for updates on cheap games throughout the week.

Tron: Evolution [Special Edition], Xbox 360/PS3, £19.99 delivered

This game may have got middling reviews (Metacritic – Xbox 360/PS3), but if you’re an 80s kid like me then you can probably bump those scores up by ~10% for added nostalgia loveliness. It came out a mere ten days ago, and is already being heavily discounted. A sign, perhaps, that the days of publishers being able to crap out film license games as quickly as possible, at the cost of quality, are somewhat behind us.

The “Special Edition” is “Special” because it hasn’t had 3 characters removed from the multiplayer (which are missing from the bog standard edition). At time of writing CEX is offering £30 trade in for it, so Gamestation will match that to £31. If you play this quickly, you should be able to trade it in at a profit. If you’re getting anything else from GAME, you’ll be able to use one of these coupons.

Also available at that price is the totally different Wii Tron game Battle Grids, although that is currently (and worryingly) unreviewed.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Augmented Edition], PC, £29.99 delivered

This is probably around about the same price the bog standard version will be available for (current cheapest pre-order price is £27.99), and the Augmented version comes with an artbook, a bonus DVD with making of feature and soundtrack and some in game bonus stuff. Recent Square Enix Europe PC games like Lara Croft: GOL and Just Cause 2 have used Steamworks, so I bet this one probably will too.

What do we reckon to this one then? If you’d asked me a year ago how I would have felt about another Deus Ex sequel, I’d have probably muffled you to death with a pillow, but as the trailers are getting progressively sexier and sexier, I’m warming to the idea.

Fallout: New Vegas, Xbox 360/PS3, £17.99 delivered

New Vegas, for me, managed to be both a huge success and a massive failure. Few games tap into my desire to have all the money as much as the Fallouts, New Vegas especially. I basically need to have all the caps. Have you got any caps? You should probably give me your caps, because if you don’t, I am going to kill you and take your caps from you, then they will be my caps.

People are only worth the cap value of all the items in their inventory, and if keeping you alive isn’t going to somehow earn me that much or more, I am going to kill you and then sell all of your stuff. I don’t even do anything with most of these caps mind, but I need to have them.

Disappointingly, there are problems with New Vegas that were problems with Fallout 3 before it, Oblivion before that, and Morrowind before that. The local navigation is still rubbish, the 3rd person animation is beyond terrible, the HUD and inventory management is pretty lacking and the AI still does some questionable things. For all the talk of bugs,

I never encountered anything particularly game breaking until the final hour of the game, where it started crashing every 5 minutes. Hmm. Overall, I heartily endorse this game, but the Fallout 3 design is fairly dated already, and I hope Bethesda have big plans for the future of the series.

Work on the megapatch to fix lots of broken things is now complete, so it should be pushed out fairly soon.

You can also get the PC version for £15.97 delivered.

Rock Band 3, Xbox 360£22.99 delivered. To get this price, you’ll be needing a coupon from here.
I’ve not grabbed the third Rock Band yet, probably largely because I’m not good enough at it, nor do I care enough, to get any of the pro instruments. Still, the tracklist is rather special, with highlights including: The Smiths, At the Drive-In, The Flaming Lips, Blondie, The Cure, Jimi Hendrix, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bob Marley & the Wailers and That Guy from The Prestige.

Will this be the last Rock Band? I’d not be surprised if it was, with disappointing early sales of this title, and an uncertain future for Harmonix.

Deal of the week
Dead Rising 2, Xbox 360/PS3£17.99 delivered

Excellent, I’ve been waiting on a price drop on this for a while. It’s on my Christmas list, but it’s been at or near full price since release. I’ve played the demo of the demo a few times, and a particular highlight was the ability to make a drill hat for the zombies to wear.

I certainly enjoyed the original game, my memory my be failing me, but I seem to remember it having some of the longest load times known to Man, and I wasn’t totally happy with the save system. (Metacritic – Xbox 360/PS3)

Also of note:

Gran Turismo 5 [Signature Edition], PS3‚ £89.99 delivered (using a coupon from here)
Dawn of War II [Gold Edition], PC ‚ £10.85 delivered. Includes Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising. Registers on Steam.

Remember to keep your eye on SavyGamer.co.uk for gaming discounts throughout the week, and you can hassle me on twitter if there’s ever a specific game you’re after for cheap.

THQ has put out a new video for Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II – Retribution, which introduces the Eldar race.

It’s posted below.

Retribution takes place after the events in Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising and allows players to choose their perspective with the first multiple-race single player campaign in the Dawn of War II series.

Players will be able to journey through each story arc, no matter what race they choose.

As well as the single-player campaign, Retribution will feature new multiplayer units, maps and an entire new playable faction when it ships in Q1 2011.

Enjoy the trailer below.

Thanks, EvilAvatar.

Relic has announced a beta for Dawn of War II: Retribution will hit sometime in “the new year”, and also revealed the game will forgo the use of GFWL like previous titles in the series by using Steamworks only.

A new back end, guest passes, free multiplayer weekends

Retribution will use Steamworks for the “all new matchmaking and ranking set up” in the game, and will allow for other added benefits.

“This new back end will allow players to invite friends into matches from their Steam friends lists, and take advantage of the full set of Steam community features including groups, achievements, and Steam overlay chat channels. We are also going to include an all new matchmaking and ranking set up, built specifically for Dawn of War II – Retribution,” said Relic in a statement.

“The move to Steamworks will also allow us to provide features like guest passes, free multiplayer weekends, pre-loading and the ability to provide fast turn-around on future patches and updates.

“To accomplish this transition, Dawn of War II – Retribution will be a completely stand alone title in the series and will provide multiple campaigns to play, as well as all six multiplayer races, with new units for each of the existing five races and one new unannounced one. In a change from our previous strategies with expansion packs, we will not be patching this content back into Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising.

“Owners of Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising will get the chance to try out the full set of Retribution’s Steam features in a multiplayer beta that will take place in the new year. More details on the beta will be announced at a later date.

“Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising will continue to operate on Games for Windows Live, in order to preserve the owners of those titles ability to earn Live achievements as well as their established friends lists.”

Dual support of GFWL and Steam added “a lot of extra complexity”

Retribution’s producer, Jeff Lydell, told PC Gamer one of the main reasons for the switch to Steamworks was Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising players having to log into both systems to play.

The team felt this was “cumbersome”, and dual support of both systems added complexity to updates.

“Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising are hybrids of Steamworks and Games for Windows Live, and require the owners of those games to log in to both to play” said Lydell. “We’ve always thought this was cumbersome, and only implemented it because back in Dawn of War II’s development, we needed digital distribution and matchmaking features from both platforms.

“Since then both Microsoft and Valve have worked to catch up with each other, and on Dawn of War II – Retribution, we’ve decided to utilize the Steamworks SDK for networking and matchmaking.

“We couldn’t do the switch on Chaos Rising because of the method we used to link campaign progress by importing save games. When we started work on Retribution we had a different plan for the campaign content. Rather than continuing with the exact same characters and progression, we’ve added new campaigns for different races and new stories. This meant we were free to change up that aspect of the game.

“Dual support of GFWL and Steam did add a lot of extra complexity and testing time, across the team here at Relic, the QA team and with Microsoft’s certification team.”

However, despite the extra work involved which tended to slow updates to both games, Lyndell said the slower progress had more to do with “scheduling multiple fixes for a certification appointment”.

“We’ve been able to update Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising many times since we launched. We’ve done more updates to DOW II already than we did for the entire DOW I series across all four products, and it is more dependent on our commitment to responding to our community than it is on the networking provider.

“The biggest drawback is it’s rarely possible to release an update to fix a single issue, since we were usually scheduling multiple fixes for a certification appointment. That can snowball and slow down our development and testing time.

“I’m most excited that we are going to be able to take full advantage of Steam’s features like free weekend trials and cloud saving. We are also working with Valve on some new exciting features to be announced later.”

Relic said in its statement there’s “more exciting announcements in the coming weeks” regarding Retribution, so everyone needs to “stay tuned”.

We’ve mailed THQ to find out if Steamworks will be it’s exclusive partner on this in the future.

Dawn of War II: Retribution is slated for Q1 2011.

Relic has announced that it’s to release a patch for WK40K: Dawn of War II next week, and if you look over the notes for it, you will see loads of balancing and unit adjustments.

These changes will have an impact on the game’s various factions, the usual bugs fixes have been put in place, and some abilities were given unique keybindings.

The notes are rather extensive, and can be found through here.

Thanks, BigDownload.

If you still need convincing that Dawn of War II add-on Chaos Rising is all kinds of awesome, hit the link for the game’s last two explodo-trailers and a list of high review scores. Pretty simple, right?

The pack, which brings Chaos Space Marines to the fight as a playable race, released today. If this lot are to be believed, you should buy it:

Eurogamer – 9
Videogamer – 9
Multiplayer – 8.3

And here are the trailers. The first is a look at the game’s Last Stand mode, while the second is the launch trailer.

Chaos Rising is out now.

Shack’s posted some screens of upcoming Dawn of War II expansion Chaos Rising. Get your Chaos Marines on through the link.

There’s a proper trailer of it after the break, as well. It’s an expanded version of the teaser released when the pack was announced.

It’s out in the spring.

THQ has announced that its free DLC for Dawn of War II, The Last Stand, is now available worldwide.

In it, there’s an all-new cooperative survival mode which provides control of individual hero units and drops a small multiplayer team into a battle.

Players can choose between a Space Marine Captain, Eldar Farseer or Ork Mekboy and team up with two other squad-mates. Hero units level up and are fully customizable as new armor and weapons become available.

The Last Stand is included in an automatic update that also contains two new multiplayer maps, balance updates and bug fixes.

More information can be obtained through Relic’sofficial website.

Dawn of War II’s getting a new play mode in The Last Stand today – watch a video on how it works here.

Basically, you’ve got a marine team in an arena and you have to survive against increasingly tough waves of baddies. It’s got leaderboards, “arcade” style play, and so on.

Patch notes here.

The PC Gamer podcast has confirmed that the next add-on pack for Dawn of War II will be titled Chaos Rising.

Fitting considering it will feature the chaos faction.

Not surprising, really, but satisfying.

More information regarding the add-on is expected in the next issue of PC Gamer.

Thanks, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

The Last Stand is upcoming  multiplayer mode for Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II that will be a free download for players of the strategy title.

GameSpy got a hands-on preview, and the site says that two players will be controlling Heroes fighting off waves of enemies.

There is loads more than that through the link, along with a couple nice screens for it.

No word on when it can be expected, but word has it that it may be sometime in October.

Relic will be showing the new mode off at PAX 2009 next weekend, so hopefully we will know more then.

Eurogamer France a video of it. You should watch it.

Steam has put the THQ Collector Pack up for sale, and it’s a rather decent deal.

Until this coming Sunday, you can get the bundle for $74.99, which is 25 percent off the normal $99.99 price tag.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Company of Heroes
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
• Frontlines: Fuel of War
• Full Spectrum Warrior
• Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
• Titan Quest
• Titan Quest – Immortal Throne
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Gold Edition
• Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War – Soulstorm
• Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II

Head on over to Steam and see for yourself.

Digital download sites Steam and Direct2Drive have released charts for week ending August 8.

Looks like Dawn of War II led the group over on Steam, with the Aion Collector’s Edition pre-sale still going strong.

Over on D2D, Champions Online preorders have taken over, with Fallout 3 and the Sims 3 still doing well.

Here’s the full thing courtesy of Shack – notice Hearts of Iron III debuted on both charts:

Steam

1. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II
2. Aion Collector’s Edition (presale)
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Hearts Of Iron III
5. Counter-Strike: Source
6. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition – Director’s Cut
7. Red Faction: Guerrilla (presale)
8. TrackMania United Forever
9. Team Fortress 2
10. Prototype

Direct2Drive

1. Champions Online (presale)
2. Fallout 3
3. The Sims 3
4. Hearts of Iron III with Sprite Packs Bundle
5. Best of Indie Bundle Vol. 1
6. Rise of Flight
7. Hearts Of Iron III
8. Aion (presale)
9. East India Company
10. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition

The largest patch to Dawn of War 2 called There Is Only War goes live tomorrow.

Relic has added eight new maps, made changes to the balance system, and included a new “observer” feature for matching.

Patch notes can be found through here.

Thanks, Shack.

After a brief delay, the Dawn of War II There is Only War beta is now up, giving players access to the game’s map editor.

There’s a heap of new content too. Hit the link for details.

The next major Dawn of War II update will include a full map editor, Kotaku reports.

Called the “World Builder,” it’ll allow you to “create, edit, and play” on your own maps, and allow you to play with terrain, objects, nodes, weather and whatever else you fancy.

There’s more detail and screens through there. No firm date on the download.

Relic has announced that There is Only War, the next Dawn of War II update, will go into open beta in July.

It will include balancing, eight multiplayer maps, the ability to “spectate custom multiplayer matches” and some basic improvements.

The beta will be open to all Dawn of War II users and an exact date, along with more announcements, is expected soon.

More through Shack.

Dawn of War II got a whopping patch last night, adding two new maps, 2v2 ranked play, new kill animations and tons more.

Geek yourself out here. The game should patch itself when you start it up.

Relic has released more information regarding the upcoming patch for Dawn of War II.

Patch 1.3 will include new abilities, armor, wargear and weapons

The new scout armor provides a burst of speed to squads facing melee attacks, while new a weapon called the Roar of Revelation, is a shotgun that stuns and causes knockbacks from stealth.

A new sword, Ardent Wrath, dishes out 52 damage-per-second and can stun enemies with a charge attack. There’s also a new ability for the Dreadnaught assault cannon.

Cool stuff.

Via LA Examiner.

Kotaku’s running some screens of the upcoming new 2v2 maps in Dawn of War II.

The first, Medean Cliff Mines, is built around a central hub. The second, Ruins of Argus, is an urban map offering lots house-to-house fighting.

Take a look. They’re out imminently.

Relic has posted a preliminary list of notes on the Dawn of War II patch coming later this month.

Here are just a few things you can look forward to:

• A Two-on-Two game mode, with two new four player maps.
• Two-on-Two is a ranked game mode with leaderboard support.
• An improved, more challenging Skirmish AI.
• Push to talk voice chat and Company of Heroes style sub-selection options.
• New squad decorators and significant UI improvements.
• A performance test to help measure Dawn of War II performance.

Keep checking the official site for more details because the devs promise more updates soon.

A single-player Dawn of War II demo’s gone out – get it from BigDownload.

It’ll got you 333Mb. The game’s also been patched to v1.2.1, for those with the full version. Get the notes through the link.