A gritty, realistic masterpiece from Relic

User Rating: 9.4 | Company of Heroes PC
It is with high hopes that I picked up my copy of COH. Prior to this game, I have never played a WW2 strategy game b4 cos I feel that none of them can truly capture the essence of the war. But coming from the creators of Warhammer 40K and Homeworld, I decided to give COH a shot and boy, i'm sure glad I did.

Gameplay: One word - Realistic. The action is none stop, fast & furious, with strategic locations changing hands to and fro and great attention to detail. Never in this game will u encounter the Civilization way of 'soldier killing a tank'. Nope, u wanna kill a tank, grab some anti-tank weapons or better yet, another tank else u'll be blown to bits. Rushing your army at an entrenched location will probably get u killed in real life and in this game as well. You have to think of ways to overcome the enemy's defenses, like flanking, arty bombardments, or paradrop troops behind enemy lines. An the AI is the smartest i've seen in any strategy game, and i've played a lot of them.

Graphics & Sound: Sound is top class, really bringing out the terror & excitement of the war. TAnks, bullets etc all sound realistic and the voice acting from the soldiers is top notch. The graphics are great, a pity that there is significant slowdown on higher settings though.

Value: The single player will take u around 10-15hrs to complete and then u can go online and battle against real players. The AI skirmish mode ain't no joke either and serves as a good sparring partner.