INS Official Review: Great Follow Up!
Also as always, the spelling will be 'naff'
The first thing that strikes us at INS is the plain, up front and uncompromisingly daring nature of Company Of Heroes.
The graphical capabilities are unmatched in many respects, other games on the market may match it's 'spec' but no other can mirror CoH's unique take on an RTS fully 3D world view. For starters, the camera control system is innovative and easy to use allowing player to quickly swap angles and perspectives during an engagement zoom right in and read the ID numbers on the tanks or watch a yank paratrooper scratch his arse.
The level of detail is truly sublime, the fully destructible world allows a deliberate of even accidental miss fire hitting some poor French sods house gives a result of crumbling walls, and often a nice hole in it's wake.
Cruising on through a ruined town such as Lorraine? Take a moment and actually look on the road by the houses and see parts of an old shot up desk, bit's of house ware or a random suitcase. No other game has ever gone so above and beyond to make you feel like you could actually be there in the thick of it.
If you destroy a tank, you get a hulk in it's wake. Sure plenty of games do that right? but how often do you see a hulk that's actually representative of what the tank was doing at the moment of it's 'maker meeting' i.e.: the turret faces the same way, the tank treads come off and angle them selves appropriately to the tanks direction of travel. Countless little details like these add to a unique and thrilling piece of eye candy.
To back up the superb graphical aspects, the sound system is almost grade A: perfect. The explosions sound real and if distant will sound more muffled and will actually sound like it happened 20km away. Weaponry such as rifles, SMG's etc. sound real and like they should, again if distant, they sound distant. Evan less obvious additions, such as if an AT gun strikes a tank and it bounces off slightly the sound is accurate, the same if the shell deeply penetrates.
To top that, the games even adds fantastic battle chatter. If soldiers are standing around doing nothing, they idly chat and say random things as if sat in a bar somewhere in Alabama. although, they don't have actual conversations. Alternatively, if in the thick of it. They shout almost as if shouting commands at each other, They will taunt or if there getting totally owned they can scream and shout in panic. They even swear. Yes, the 'F' word!
So, Graphics and sound are top notch then.
On to game play;
The game it's self if as you would expect a top down satellite style view, although at an angle to get the 3D aspect in full. The command system is fairly strait forward, all done with the mouse and although available, keyboard shortcuts are rarely used due to the little difference they make to the ease of play, unlike such as C&C Generals where using shortcuts in fast play is a must.
This is not to say there are no advanced command options, you can still do move attacks etc.
The game boats the best AI system ever seen in an RTS, this is the opinion of us at INS, and thoroughly agreed with by many.
Troops will behave like real soldiers, and will act as they want to keep there life's. They don't just stumble forward letting all hell break loose in there face whilst singing the holly dolly song.
- In example, they use all available cover. Anything from fences, trees, tank hulks even pot holes in the ground from where you're howitzers had cratered previously.
Vehicles have stronger armour at the front, yet are vulnerable from the sides and very weak at the rear. So try circle around. A nice tactic is to hide an AT gun and then ambush armour form the rear.
Opposing Fronts has 4 unique armies to play with,
These are;
The US Army
The British Army
The German Wehrmacht
The German Panzer Elite
Each entirely different to game play styles and there all great fun.
Those who played the original CoH know enough about the original two sides, the US Army and the Wehrmacht, so we will not detail them.
The British Army:
..Mobilises in completely unique way to all the other sides. They use a system of mobile command trucks witch must be unpacked and deployed to function. Once done they operate just like as a standard base structure that the other 3 sides use. This offers an array of advantages and disadvantages.
Using this method allows you to spread out more and keep the enemy restrained as when a truck is deployed in a sector it automatically locks it down making it immune to capture by the enemy until the truck is re-packed or destroyed. It also gives you a more 'forward base' style of deployment, you can set up on the enemy door step and throw units out if you wish, although to be fair such a tactic would be ill advised as alone truck is very vulnerable.
With the British you end up with various trucks spread out across the field, this can make defending said trucks rather difficult but the British excel at defences.
The British generally adopt a turtle style game play method of sitting behind impressive defences and hitting the enemy with artillery and commando strikes and precision attacks. The British Infantry squads are pretty nasty two when coupled with a Lieutenant unit.
The Panzer Elite:
These guys are pretty much the opposite, and suite a player who lies to rush and to quote the GS review 'bulldoze' through the sectors stopping only for quick repairs and reinforcement. The Panzer Elite have little by way of defences by default, however. One of the 3 available doctrines the 'Luftwaffe doctrine' allows you to drop a squad of specialized engineers who can build Flak 88 heavy cannons witch will shred armour apart from an extreme range. Flakvierling 38's witch are truly evil against infantry and air craft. Evan light armour will regret an encounter with one of these rapid firing monsters. They even have a mobile version of it available.
But, really the 'PE' suit rushing around dealing with threats as they arise, not sitting behind defences. There Tanks are unmatched beasts witch crusade through any thing the British or Americans have in counterpart. The Fearsome Jagdpanther for example.
Some people believe that the Panzer Elite is overpowered. As a rule it is generally thought that the Axis forces are more powerful than the Allies in Company Of Heroes, the same is true in Opposing Fronts in general. If a game is allowed to linger on then the Germans do generally push the allies back, bit by bit. The Wehrmacht can purchase upgrades to have all their units produced at the most elite rank. Where as all other armies must rank up with kills. If you lose an Elite Panther, so what. Build another. If you lose an elite M26 Pershing on the American side however. Then you must rank it up all over again witch can be a little unbalanced, especially when the game has been raging on a while and resources may have staked up somewhat. To beat the Axis, you really have to out think them in games like these. Try get them push back quickly and beat them in the armour race to win. Naturally all sides have their ups and downs however so no one is really drastically god like. The Axis sides are rather tricky due to resource strains.
On resources; Just quickly so people are aware, this game operates on 3 resource types.
Manpower
Ammunition
Fuel
All must be aquired by securing the corresponding territories. in Online play the need to spend resources is generally constant and it's rare you will stack up a crazy amount like you do in Many RTS games. So we say spend carefully!
So after this rather long review you can see that the game does offer a lot to the RTS buff. We here at INS do think that Company Of Heroes is designed for the experienced RTS players, and not the new comers to this game type. As newbies will find the constant requirement to adapt rather Hard. The micro management and strategic requirements are somewhat extreme and can be daunting to people who are not used to this game type.
But if you are an RTS vet, and fancy a new challenge, a game that really does require tactics and wit to bring home the title belt, then this is a must.
Thanks for reading this review and we hope it helps you better understand what CoH is all about.
- InFi[D]eL, The INS Team.
Last note: People say that you shouldn't buy this game if you do not own the original CoH, We say screw that. Owning the first one is advantageous but this game is not impossible and it's not difficult to limit a game to the original armies online. Just host a game and call it "Original Armies Only" that's not hard so we say to people to stop moaning about playing against the new armies!
SCORE: 9.5
Due to level of content, detail and enjoyment.
CLASSIFICATION: Immersive
Due to the fact the game realy makes you feel envolved in whats actually happening and the way the developers have made everything count.