Very good World War 2 RTS
Company of Heroes starts out during the Normandy landings and you will be introduced to two main characters (and a few others) in the game: Lieutenant Condi (his older self is the narrator) and Captain McKay. Over the course of the game, you will fight in authentic battles such as Carentan and Hill 192 to name a few. In the campaign mode, you will be awarded with a medal for each medal, provided that you complete the task to get that medal.
In the campaign mode, you will be awarded with a medal for each medal, provided that you complete the medal objective. The campaign is not very long as it only contains 15 missions. After completing the missions, you might give yourself a go online or try out the skirmish (either for fun or to hone your skills). In the skirmish, you will get the chance to play as the Krauts (a.k.a the Nazis) as opposed to the campaign where you play from the Allies perspective only (Makes sense. After all, who wants to play as the Nazis in the campaign anyway when it’s all about the Allies?). Visually, the game is stunning to look at. Relic put a lot of effort in the detail of every individual soldier and the vehicles. Heck, the graphics can even rival most shooters out there (as what the Gamespot review mentioned). Even the animation is top-notch, though there are some instances where you will see some characters look stiff, especially when walking but still, it's a lot better than the Warhammer series itself, if you ask me. As for the environments, it’s pretty much destructible thanks to the Havok physics engine so if you’re one who likes to blow up stuff and see the effects, this game doesn’t fall short on this one.
The personality of the individual squad is well done (and colourful) for the Allies side. Some of what these individuals said can be pretty funny (and witty too) such as, 'I heard the Nazis are 8 feet tall' or 'Time to kill some Krauts'. I had quite a laugh when I heard some of these responses. A word of caution: There is a lot of profanity in this game. Well, not up till GTA level but still quite a lot for a video/computer game.
As for gameplay mechanics, Relic manages to repeat the same method used in the Warhammer series, that is, not to rely too much on tanks and armoured vehicles like what you see in most strategy games like Command & Conquer to name a few. As for taking cover, it’s much better than Warhammer as any piece of the game’s environment can be used as cover (be it a piano or a low wall). You can even take cover in buildings for better protection. This is where Relic shines and it reflects on this game as well.
The AI in this game can be challenging (and can be very hard as well), even in the campaign mode. I haven’t fully tested the skirmish mode but I can tell that the AI will be even more challenging than the ones you’ve encountered in the campaign mode. Not only is the AI challenging but some of the missions can be very hard to accomplish such as the ‘Capture Hill 192’ and ‘Mortain’ to name a few. I even need to restart some of these missions a lot of times in order to gain the medal and accomplish it. As for unit AI, it’s pretty decent and you don’t need to keep babysitting them when you’re occupied elsewhere but they do tend to bunch up quite a lot and this will lead to massive losses especially when they’re hit by either a grenade or a tank round for example. However, this game isn’t without flaws. The graphics are very demanding up till the extent that you will notice slowdowns and hitching especially during intense action. According to Gamespot, even on a high-end machine, the game will lag as well (on very high resolutions). Don’t expect to run this game at 512MB of RAM as you’ll encounter a lot of hitching during gameplay. Only when I upgraded to 1GB then, the hitching is non-existent. If you want to put everything to Ultra, do yourself a favour and upgrade to 2GB.
As for the graphics, if you want to play at the highest possible setting, it is best to get the top of the line graphics card like a Geforce 7900GTX equivalent or the latest Geforce 8800 GTX. I tried Company of Heroes on my friend’s computer (Pentium D with 1GB DDR2 RAM and X1600 Pro) and it ran fine but you’ll have to lower the resolution and some of the graphical options in order to get a playable frame rate.
I also encountered one very odd bug where the mouse cursor disappeared during the briefing in one of the missions. I found out that I opened up the overhead map menu instead of waiting for it to automatically pop up to initiate the briefing. Not very serious but can be slightly troublesome.
Overall, I recommend this game to those who like fast-paced RTSes like Dawn of War and if your computer is very high-end (if you want to play everything with maximum detail, that is). I rate this game 4/5 stars.
Pros:
- Great graphics
- Destructible environment
- Balanced gameplay
- Good ragdoll physics
- Good AI
- Good gameplay mechanics
- Interesting personalities on squads and units
Cons:
- Very steep system requirements
- Odd animation sequence
- Units tend to bunch up at times
- Some of the missions are frustratingly hard