The interface has been vastly improved over the original Dark Reign, where it took up almost half the screen. Various controls are tucked away in three corners of the screen. The build menu in the bottom left means you no longer have to find and click on the relevant building to produce something, you simply click the building icon on the build menu and start queuing production of whatever it is that building makes. On the right is the mini map along with a list of very useful unit command options – you can set a unit to be a Scout, meaning it'll run at the first sign of danger, a Terminator, meaning it'll attack relentlessly, or any of a number of other options that affect the unit's behaviour. Finally in the top right corner you get the power indicator, mission objective and controls for the incredibly flexible and useful waypoint system that lets you set troops going anywhere by any route with ease.

Camera control is also a breeze as there are numerous ways to move your view. You can press control or alt and move the mouse to rotate the view about the centre or front of the screen. Holding both mouse buttons will let you spin the view, number pad keys 7 and 9 spin the view 90 degrees… you certainly won't use all the camera control options but with so many available you're bound to find a method that suits you best. You can also quickly move the camera straight down to ground level or pull it up to the cloud layer with the F keys, a very useful feature for quickly viewing as little or as much of the battlefield as you need to at any given moment.

Though most of the units in the game aren't going to win any awards for creativity, as a whole they make for some nicely tactical gameplay. Although half of the battle is often getting up your base defences quickly, the rest of the fight often requires more thought. None of the units come close to being all-powerful as they're never versatile enough. The Mastiff is very powerful but takes time to fire and often needs a flying unit to act as a spotter for its targets. The Sprawler Juggernaut, basically a nuke on wheels, delivers a phenomenally devastating punch to enemy units and structures, but is slower than Christmas coming and horribly expensive. Units are never effective against both ground and air targets and are often able to only target one or the other. This means you have to mix units together in every assault force you put together, more so than in many other real time strategy games, and must then move and use them carefully to conquer the enemy.

The music in Dark Reign 2 is outstanding. It invariably gets the adrenaline going in short time, complementing the action perfectly with a strange mix of synthesised and orchestral sounds that nonetheless combine into that rare kind of game music that I'd quite happily listen to outside of the game itself.