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.
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