De-briefing and after-action report.
Right then, time to sum up Company Of Heroes.
Firstly, as an RTS, I’m a tad disappointed that Relic haven’t done more with the actual game mechanics. At times Company Of Heroes feels more like a re-skinned Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War. In fact, if you take a cue from Dawn Of War, defend your base and then rush the map with heavy armour and engineers, you’ll romp through to the end credits in no time. With the high system demands to get Company Of Heroes running with all the eye candy on, many players will have to knock down the quality settings, meaning they’ll get a game that graphically, is on a par with Dawn Of War too…
The pathfinding is a pain the bum too, especially if you try and get any sort of vehicle to form up facing a particular direction. Further, if you call a unit in from the other side of the map, they daft buggers will take the direct route, even if that means walking through enemy territory. When is a developer going to add in a ‘stick to occupied ground’ button for the route finding? At least this means I can call in my troopers without them strolling into a bunch of enemy machines guns or me having to leave the battle to shepherd them along.
Click for larger imageAnd of course, a major omission is the utter lack of being able to play as the Germans. Sure, I know this game is all about the invasion of Normandy, but how hard would it have been to have had some sort of German campaign? Ok, so we know historically the Germans lost, but even that could be worked into the game… perhaps missions involving holding a bridge for a certain amount of time before blowing it? Or defending an area until reinforcements arrive? Fighting an orderly retreat saving a set number of units? Come on, an RTS with only one campaign is really half a game.
On the upside, the fact I played this all the way through, went back and played it again with different tactics and then went onto play a few skirmishes speaks volumes. There’s something evilly addictive about Company Of Heroes, it’s like a digital version of crack cocaine. I even found myself restarting missions when I was over halfway through as I’d just thought of a better way to do things.
If you’ve got the oomph in your case then Company Of Heroes is going to delight the eye. Debris and dust goes flying from explosions, bullets kick up puffs of dirt, fires crackle through buildings and armour rumbles over the lot. The sounds, be they far off explosions and cries for help or ‘in your face’ machine guns and mortar shells, are brilliant and truly, just from the sound of it, I can now tell you what an MG42 sounds like… even from a couple of hundred yards away.
Click for larger imageThe sheer ferocity of the battles on some of the missions lends a desperate feel to the action as you struggle to control the front line, reinforcing where the enemy threatens to break through and at the same time muster enough troops to mount a counter attack. And talk about hard, even on the easy setting, Company Of Heroes offers up a challenge. Try cranking up the difficulty and you’ve got some seriously tough AI to face. But even on the higher difficulty settings, Company Of Heroes still doesn’t overwhelm you with enemies early on… you always have a chance… a slim one, but a chance.
So is Company Of Heroes worth the money? Well, it has to be said that it’s one of the most compelling RTS titles I’ve played of late… there’s just something so rewarding about using some decent tactics and taking a gun emplacement with no losses. That said, this time around Relic have trickled in the units too slowly, so when you really fancy trying out a unit that’s disabled in the production list, you’ll just have to hang on. This does give you a reason to keep playing but it’s also rather annoying.
Even if you take into account all the niggles I’ve just talked about, the fact remains that Company Of Heroes is just too much bloody fun to pass up. Whilst a novice RTS player might find it a bit of a handful on anything other than ‘easy’, anyone who’s played Dawn Of War and has an interest in World War 2 will love it. Put it this way… I’ve seen the wrong side of 4am for the last three nights and my missus isn’t talking to me because of this game, isn’t that recommendation enough?
Pros
Loads of fun that rewards decent tactics
Graphically great if you have a high spec rig
Real weapons and units, all nicely balanced
Historically inspired missions
Brilliantly frantic, desperate gameplay at times
Difficulty balanced just right
Cons
Needs a pretty hefty system to have all the eye candy
AI can be a stupid bugger
No Axis Forces campaign
Ends rather sudde…
It’s TV’s Band Of Brothers but in RTS form
HEXUS Awards
Company Of Heroes – PC
