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Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-18-2006 01:53:

company of heroes review (PC)

company of heroes, PC, RTS.

*note this review covers multiplay and skirmish, not the single-player campaign*

RTS, like most genres these days are in a state of stagnation, better graphics, bigger explosions, but little advance in gameplay. its with great pleasure that i present you with "company of heroes", a squad-based RTS set in WW2. made by the same guys that did dawn of war (DoW), theyve taken their experience there and learned a lot from their mistakes. the resource model is nice and unique, and more importantly has an impact on the tactics of how to play. you capture points just like DoW, however they must be connected to captured territory if youre going to get the resource (which is either manpower, munitions or fuel). so you can hold most of the map but still not get any $$$ if the enemy has broken your lines of supply. makes for very interesting strategy, in terms of where you decide to hold & defend versus what you just grab coz its there.

this game has some of the best AI ive seen in an RTS. the computer will automatically skirt around hardpoints with emplaced machine guns to avoid their firing arcs, your troops will take and use cover without having to be told, and its amazingly simple to get your men facing the right way to defend a certain access point or bridge. the enemy will also bail out when they see youve marked their position with an artillery flare, so its a lot harder to hit them. you also receive nice "panic" comments from your boys "taking fire from enemy armour!" so youre told when someone needs to retreat before you get them killed.

you get experience points for killing the enemy, which can be spend on power upgrades, which come as part of 3 types (infantry, armour, airborne) (blitzkrieg, defend, terror) of which you can specialise in one for the duration of the map. will be interesting to see how the balance works here, but so far all schools are heaps of fun to play with, and reward/require different tactics to win. theres special units you can buy as part of your specialisation, or call in things like artillery or bombing runs. the effects here are well cool!

another really cool feature if the retreat function, where your troops will run for your HQ (unless theyre pinned by enemy fire) which means you can keep them alive, and then buy reinforcements at a much cheaper price than if you had to buy them from scratch. so keeping your troops alive isnt as difficult if you choose to micro like that.

sound is suitably impressive, and hearing off-map artillery support even if youre not in the vicinity is well immersing! your soldiers make some funny comments as they go about their business as well.

im hardly running it at its prettiest, but at 1024x768 with effects on medium this game looks and runs like a dream, even on the larger maps. the game interface is slick and simple, everything is within easy access and whilst things are chaotic as fuck youre still aware of whats going on more often than not.

i cannot recommend this game highly enough, is easily the best RTS ive played since warcraft 3, and certainly the one that requires the most tactics. sure, its still a race to dominate the resources, but theyve done it in such a way that makes it a whole lot of fun. the only criticisms i have is theres no fast-forward in replays, and getting a single squad out of a building when the building has a number of squads can be a bit of a pain, but hardly game-ruining

should def keep me happy until supreme commander is released.

4 1/2 tanks out of 5.

Posted by Fir3start3r on Sep-19-2006 21:34:

Nice, I'll have to check it out...

Posted by Sunsnail on Sep-20-2006 02:57:

I've been playing this for the past few hours. It's extremely difficult

Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-20-2006 03:02:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
I've been playing this for the past few hours. It's extremely difficult

if youre playing against the computer, i suggest building loads of engineers and capturing as much territory as you can. then later you bring out the support weapons etc.

using this tactic i can beat the hard every time now. but the expert is still handing me my arse.

Posted by Sunsnail on Sep-20-2006 03:33:

Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-20-2006 04:03:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
wow nice. It seems to me that one of the primary goals in skirmish is to be first to get a tank. Whenever the computer can get a tank before me I usually die.

oh yeah! hehe. they always beat me to tanks! they normally build the lower-level tanks early though, pretty easy to dispose of with an anti-tank or some of the special units with rocket launchers.

just keep as much territory and harass there's. when i first played the demo i thought id never get the hang of it but now its ok. at the end of the day its all about dominating the resources.

good luck!

Posted by stren on Sep-20-2006 08:06:

i didn't read the post, but looks nice, more pics please

Posted by ONION on Sep-24-2006 07:15:

quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
if youre playing against the computer, i suggest building loads of engineers and capturing as much territory as you can. then later you bring out the support weapons etc.

using this tactic i can beat the hard every time now. but the expert is still handing me my arse.

To take this 'tactic' to a another level... Take note of the points in the map that your enemy always goes for - most of the time they will your Fuel ( and then your ammo )... Lock these resources down with an observation post... and keep an MG near them early in the game.

Later in the game add a Anti Tank as they will most likely use tanks to destroy them ( they can use engies too )... and reposition your MG so its not in a predictable spot.

Don't bother about Victory points early in the game... the resources are far more important... Victory Points come into play mid to late into the game.

Also flanking is important... a bit like circle strafing in Quake... MGs and Anti Tank units have a limitied area to where they can shoot... get behind them and kill em off.... or snipe them off

edit: pkc this post is directed at the nooblahz not u punk

Posted by CONNERMAN2000 on Sep-24-2006 19:19:

this was the game you were talking about to me not too long ago. definetely looks intriguing. whats also interesting is the number of TV commercials im seeing for this game. usually they never advertise PC games on TV, but not this time.

i think its because they are trying to push gaming for the PC with the whole "Games for Windows" campaign.

Posted by Fir3start3r on Oct-01-2006 19:52:

So, went out and bought the game; izzzz awesome!

It's also extremely difficult!

Even on easy, it's hard.

An awesome game that I'm not going to get tired of for a while...

Posted by Massive84 on Oct-05-2006 19:21:

DoW is very fun also. Keep playing it online lately. Will buy Dark crusade expansion when i can.