REVIEW: Company of Heroes

October 7, 2006

So I finished up Company of Heroes last night. Very good game. I went into the game really knowing nothing about it, and if it wasn't for grayscale talking about it every 5 seconds, I wouldn't of even looked in to it. Well I am glad I did!

If you don't know too much about about Company of Heroes, I like to call it the Battlefield 1942 RTS. The way it is set up is pretty close to how Battlefield works. See, to gather resources, you need to capture and hold certain points on the map. There are three types of resources. Fuel, Munitions, and Manpower. So each of those has their own point on the map, or what I like to call "flags." You just need to make sure you hold the flags and to make sure those zone are linked together. I heard it is a similar system like in Dawn of War, but seeing as how I have never played Dawn of War, I can't really say. Rather than bore you with all the details, lets just get to what I thought about the game.

First off the graphics. Like I said, at first I didn't know a whole lot about Company of Heroes and everytime I saw a trailer of it, it looked like just another WWII FPS. When I found out that is wasn't an FPS and really an RTS, I was blown away. Company of Heroes has some of the best graphics I have ever seen for an RTS. The detail that Relic's engine give is insane. When you see the cutscenes and you get up close to the action while you are playing, it looks just like what you would see if you were playing Call of Duty. If you would of told me that it was an FPS, I would of believed you. This is some crazy, crazy stuff.

With that being said, you need a pretty beefy system in order to enjoy it in all that glory.... which I don't have. I mean, I have a pretty decent system, and I can run it at max settings, but if I want to play it, I need to turn a lot of the shit down. Still looks very good even with all the settings down, but no where near what it could look like.

Moving on to sound, again, another great job. The voice acting is top notch and the music is just like you would expect to hear in a game like Call of Duty. The sound does a fantastic job of giving really action packed battles. The explosions, the gun shots, your units cussing like sailors every time you give them an order, which I thought was just hilarious with some of the things that would say. I also loved how each unit/tank/etc. had their own sound and you could tell which was which. For example, if you heard a Tiger tank coming, but you couldn't see it yet, now would of been the best time to run the OTHER way. :)

Next is gameplay. Really, if you have played an RTS before, you really know how to play already. Not a bad thing in any means, its great really because it so easy to pick up and play. (At least for me it was.) What I really loved though, that I haven't seen in an RTS before is that moving your units on the battlefield has a huge impact of if you won or lost. Cover plays a huge roll in this game. If you have your units out in the open and the enemy is garrisoned in a house or behind some heavy cover, you will get your ass kicked. I have seen battles won by an outnumbered squad because they took their surroundings to their advantage. The AI in the game is smart enough to know where the best cover is, and to take it without any help from you. While you can tell them what to do and tell them where to go in the middle of a fight, the AI does a pretty good job by them selves.

Lastly, I will talk about the multiplayer. The way it is set up is very much like Battle.net. You have your ladders, and your quick play matches. You can also set up custom matches so you can just play with your friends. Pretty much your standard multiplayer like in an RTS. A good thing really. :) However if there was one thing that is a nagging issue is that there are only two sides (Allies and Axis, duh) and you can't really pick which side you want to play. Well, you can... sorta, but it ALWAYS has to be Allies vs. Axis. You can't have Allies vs. Allies, or Axis vs. Axis. I guess it makes sense in a way, but then you start to run into problems, at least for me, is that you find you are WAY better with one side than you are with the other. I guess this is one game where you just have to practice and be good with both sides. Maybe this will change in a patch in the future, but for now, I guess it really isn't much of a problem.

With all of that being said, if you are a fan of WWII games, or are a fan or RTSes, this is a great game that shouldn't be missed. Throw in a great single player game, and some ass kicking multiplayer, and you have a game that you can enjoy for a good long while. Catch me Xfire and maybe we can get a game going. :)