Company of Heroes - PC Review

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This game is brilliant.

First a little history. I am a 43 year old gamer (and bad speller)who has been around since pong. I have gone the route of Pong, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, Atari ST and then the PC since the 386. Other than FPS (just not my thing, plus I suck) I have played all the different type of games many many times.

Even though these are my initial impressions of the game so far this is easily the most fun I personally have had with a RTS game since Total Annihilation. I have played the Age of Empires, Warcrafts, Starcraft, Rise of Nations, Dawn of War etc etc. All these games were different yet they had the same "feel" about them. COH feels new and that is something that the RTS genre really needed. The bar has been raised to a staggering height.

Why do I enjoy COH over these other RTS games.

1. Strategy: Flanking, Machine guns covering arcs, armor facing, etc. COH has real strategies that make you think instead of how fast you can click around the battlefield(more on this later). The battlefield is destructible which also adds a level of strategy. The brick wall that feeds enemy troops towards a choke point is great until that tank rolls through it giving the enemy another point of access. Wait until you come back to a great defensive point while you were busy at another area and see off-board artillery devistate your position.

2. Atmosphere: The atmosphere in COH's is awesome. The voices (warning crude language), graphics, etc. Every little detail is done to a new level of perfection.

3. A.I.: The A.I. is very good. Your troops will find cover if possible (unlike the report from a previous reviewer). If you have mortar teams back and a rifle company come upon enemy units they will automatically start bombarding that location. the computer player on normal is a very tough opponent for someone at my level in the skirmish mode (I have yet to bet him).

4. Resources: Resources are done like Relics pervious game Dawn of War with a added level of complexity. You have to take over points on the battlefield which will supply you with one of the three types of resources required. What is different is that each point is in a sector and these sectors must be joined back to your base (by being adjacent to another friendly sector). It is possible to lose a sector which will isolate some of your other sectors and their resource income. This adds even more strategy to the game.

5. Map: The map in the game is outstanding. It shows the sectors your troop locations with a symbol what they are, if they are pinned, suppressed, in combat. A excellent way to have a snapshot of what is happening.

Is this game perfect no but what is. Although some might find this game easy I (like most) find it very hard. Even with the advance A.I. I always feel like I am out of control and need to be at 20 places at once. The good thing is that you can pause the game, go through your troops giving them orders, gather your wits and then let all hell break loose again. I have not played online but at my speed I would probably get massacred. Even tough I think the language fits the game perfectly I agree with some that you should have the option of turning it off if you have kids around. I was also underwelmed with the first mission of storming the beach. I know they were trying to ease you into the game but i think they missed the marked and was more confused after the mission than I was before I started.

I highly recommend that you purchase this game, support Relic as they deserve it. Give yourself a treat pick up Company of Heroes.

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This little masterpieceis everything you want in a real-time strategy. I wasn't a fan of RTS before this gem came out--now I can't wait for the expansion pack that will offer more maps to play single player skirmishes... and perhaps even, weeeeee... a map editor!

The graphics are simply out of this world. I found myself watching a streetfight between the axis and allies and noticing that down there on the cobblestones was a broken piano. It's beautiful little touches like this that makes a game so remarkable. In fact there is all types of debris in the game, all types of house models, so much stuff that I can't wait to see each next map. The game is simply a delight to look at.

The AI really does run for cover, especially when there is a tank or a big gun shooting at them. If not--if they feel confident enough that they can take their adversary--they will stand boldy where they are, not bothering to take cover. I think, dare I say it, each little man has his own personality and will take cover when choosing to do so.

The campain is fun to watch. The game works like a first person shooter, but when the story stops and you get dropped into it, it pulls you back so that you can view the entire battlefield and have control over everything.

I can't belive how fun this game is. I never thought I'd get into a video game like this again, especially an RTS. The only reason why I gave it a less than perfect score was because they didn't provide a map editor. With a map editor, it would have been perfect.

And another thing... Why can't the allies or axis build trenches??? ... I want trenches!

Do yourself a favor and buy this game. It's worth every penny and more.

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First let me say other reviewers mentioned this is a difficult game to play and win because of all the action. It is difficult until you realize two very important things:

1) You can give orders to your units while the game is paused! This makes the game almost like a turn-based game. If you try to play without pausing it does become a very tough click-fest.

2) Relic themselves published a 'cheat' that allows you to adjust the game speed from its default of '10' all the way down to '1'. So if you do not like pausing you can simply slow the game in general.

So having said that how is Company of Heroes (CoH)? First the graphics are outstanding. They are almost equal to that of a FPS game of just a few years ago. You can fully rotate and zoom the view. Like Relic's previous 'Dawn of War' title you cannot zoom out very far but they did include an 'operational' map view that shows the overall battlefield with unit icons. This helps alleviate the problem with the inability to zoom out.

Sound is very well done. Weapons sound correct and the various audio clues of what is going on are vital. The units do swear, which is unnecessary and really adds little to the game, but it is humorous the first few times you hear it.

Game play is very similar to `Dawn of War' and most RTS games. What CoH does well is it includes the objective resource system from DoW but expands it to include four different resource objectives: fuel, munitions, gas, and area. Combinations of the four allow you to build and improve your units. In addition, as you capture resources you gain control of an area. It is also possible to cut off an area and thus lose the resources from it. This simple system encourages not only attacking but also higher level options such as flanking. This is unique to a RTS title and is very well done and works even better.

CoH is not a wargame but a RTS game with a bit of wargame feel to it. The game plays much like a normal RTS game. The unit choices are interesting and mostly historical. Most of what you would expect in a WW2 title are here. You can even call in artillery, airstrikes, paradrops, and other support functions. Engagement ranges are ridiculously short and this hurts some of simulation feel as vehicles and heavy weapons are not able to stand off as far as they should. But, again, this is a RTS title not a wargame.

The biggest complaint with the game is the AI. The enemy AI does a very good job overall especially for a RTS game. But the friendly AI reactions have some real brain dead moments that will either cause you a lot of grief or force you to micromanage more than you would wish. For example, an enemy tank will move up and fire on your infantry squad and wipe it out while a friendly tank of yours sits just half a screen away doing nothing about it. I've lost buildings to infantry attacks while my own infantry sat by and watched. Units will also make some silly moves. Tanks will sometimes ram each other and rarely try to flank each other or seek nearby cover.

But overall the limits of the AI and few other quibbles are overshadowed by the great game play and overall great `feel' of the game. It provides the most tactical and combined arms options of any RTS game to date and for that it succeeds and for that any RTS fan should pick up `Company of Heroes'.

Honest reviews on Company of Heroes - PC

Company of Heroes is the latest real time strategy game from Relic who are known for their excellent Dawn of War RTS titles set in the Warhammer universe.

In Company of Heroes Relic takes a more realistic approach to the RTS genre. Set during WWII CoH follows Able and Fox Companies from their landing on the beaches of Normandy through their closing of the Falaise pocket.

In CoH the gameplay has been adapted and enhanced from Relic's Dawn of War games. Instead of capturing generic control points on the map just for resources and territory, instead in CoH capturing points gives you control over that territory and in addition provides a population cap increase and generates more manpower. Manpower along with fuel and ammunition are the three resources that you will use to supply your army. While you gain manpower by capturing any control point there are specific control points that generate fuel and ammunition. Obtaining and defending those points successfully is a major part of the game.

Because of this gameplay mechanic, playing the game defensively is usually not a very successful tactic. The game rewards players that move in and capture territory. During the campaign as you capture territory and destroy the enemy you receive special command upgrades that allow you to obtain more advanced units, build units more quickly and call in air and artillery support among other things. These special abilities still cost you resources to use though and the person that has resources to use them when necessary will be the winner in an engagement.

The AI on both sides of the game is able to handle itself fairly well. Your soldiers are usually very intelligent about taking cover, but they still require micro-management to use their special abilities. All infantry units have special abilities that can tip the balance of an encounter in their favor, but without your guidance these abilities will never get used.

The vehicle AI is generally good with the exception of some pathfinding problems and an annoying tendency for vehicles to present their lighter armored backside to enemies at inopportune times. In tight combat situations micromanaging which armor side is shown to enemy gunners is critical and at the same time you'll need to maneuver your armor to flank the enemy and catch them from the rear. At certain points the enemy AI is very good at keeping their armor effectively positioned and at other times they ignore facing completely and present an easy target. Sometimes this is the difference between facing a green or veteran unit, but at other times the AI just seems to give up their back.

Another issue with vehicle AI is that vehicles when ordered to directly attack another vehicle like to run right up on that vehicle and collide with them rather than come to a stop at a distance and fire. This can be problematic when the enemy you attack is grouped to the rear of other enemies and your unit ends up presenting their rear armor to the other enemies.

The enemy AI can be challenging and in some scenarios overwhelming. The scenarios in general vary in difficulty that way, but usually the challenge is in finding the right mix of units and support to utilize. Each scenario presents primary goals to complete and a secondary goal which will earn the player a medal for outstanding performance. These secondary goals often involve inflicting additional casualties on the enemy or avoiding excessive losses on your side.

While there are only fifteen scenarios to complete these are packed with details and can often last for several hours as each scenario will have multiple goals embedded in it. For instance you might be tasked with capturing a town from the axis and then afterwards you must hold it for a period of time against a counterattack. The aforementioned secondary goals also add performance challenges that will make you rethink how effective you were in completing the scenario.

The graphic engine makes use of as much hardware as you can present. The units are well crafted and scaled, the terrain is detailed and the destructible environments are well done. Being able to reduce buildings and obstacles to rubble adds to the gameplay experience immensely.

Running on two year old hardware my play experience was limited by my Radeon 9800 Pro AGP graphics card with a measly 128mb of RAM and limited support for the latest technologies. In addition I'm running an Athlon 64 3200 with 1GB of RAM. While the game recommended running at 1024x768 with most of the more advanced settings turned down I found that even at that resolution I was getting a good amount of slowdown in large scale battles. I ended up lowering the resolution to 800x600 to keep things moving smoothly. I found the graphic presentation to be quite good even without being able to turn up the juice.

If you haven't bought/upgraded your machine recently with PCI Express and one of the newer video cards then you'll probably have the same experience I did in terms of performance as this game requires a lot of computer power in every area. Loading a scenario for the first time can take up to a minute on my machine even with a 10000 RPM SATA drive.

That said, once you are in the scenario there are no loading screens and save game loads within the same scenario are much quicker than the initial load. It's worth the wait.

The sound in the game is immersive. The explosions and weapon fire will rock you if you have a subwoofer attached to your sound system. The units will call out and alert you when they are under attack and in general respond appropriately depending on their status in a battle or otherwise. As one poster noted there is a bunch of harsh language mixed in, but I didn't find it to be out of place.

The campaign story itself is well put together, but certainly doesn't approach something like Starcraft in terms of tying the story and the scenarios together. This didn't detract from the gameplay, but I wasn't really drawn into the campaign story very much.

Overall, I found Company of Heroes to be a satisfying game in most aspects with only minor quibbles and very few obvious flaws or bugs in the initially delivered product. Unfortunately, now I think I think it's put me in mind to upgrade my computer.

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A very quick review since I haven't played the entire game yet.

First: this is a real fast paced game. You very quickly feel "out-of-control" and trying to keep your head cool is a very hard thing to achieve. Not unlike real war I guess!

Second: it is indeed a great game. It looks spectacular and the one thing you can't help but notice is how well polished it is. Yet another fine product from the fine folks at Relic.

A buying advice: get the regular edition, not the special edition: I got the special edition and the only difference is a small printed "real map" of D-Day, 10 little cards, a slim metalic box, and an extra CD with mostly text info and very little in the ways of content! I feel like I've been cheated.