Rated 
Company of Heroes
graphics, destructible environments, sound effects, great campaigns, tough AI
None
Posted May 17, 2007 - Company of Heroes is a great game! It's a real-time strategy (RTS) game based upon World War 2. A lot people say "Oh no, not another WW2 game." but as far as I can remember there haven't been a lot of WW2 RTS games - unlike first person shooter (FPS) WW2 games. I guess the Combat Mission games were a hybrid turn based/real time game and the Close Combat series - but if I remember correctly you were limited to the units you started with in both games - no base/unit building. In the campaigns in CoH, you can only play as the Allied (American) forces. The campaigns are challenging and varied. The 16 missions take place after the D-day landings and around that timeframe in 1944. In each mission you have a specific goal before you can move on to the next mission. They also give you secondary goals that if you successfully complete, you are award "medals". I played through the campaign focusing on the primary objectives. Then after completing the campaign, I went back to a few missions to try to get the medal. I was surprised that the "Normal" difficulty level is very challenging. There is no resource "collection" per se in CoH. But you do gain resources based upon resource points that you have captured. You have Manpower, Fuel, Ammunition. Using those resources, you build structures which then allows you to build certain units. HQ allows you to build Engineers, Barracks allow you to build infantry, Weapons Center allows you to build Machine Gun crews, Snipers and mortar teams, etc. In order to build a Tank Factory (which lets you to build tanks), you must first build a Supply depot. So resources and base building are still integral to the game. The level of detail is great. You can zoom in so close that it looks like a FPS (although you really can't play from that perspective). The audio is great too. Each side speak in its native language. When a unit is talking but that unit is off your immediate screen view, the game makes it sound as if the talking is coming over a walkie-talkie. The destructible environments are awesome. A tank runs into an electric pole and the pole falls down, the wire breaks and you see the wires spark with electricity. After the end of a mission the environment looks like what I imagine a battlefield would look like - burned out/destroyed vehicles, blackened earth, and artillery holes everywhere. Unfortunately the action is so intense that its hard to enjoy the visuals while playing. In skirmish mode you can play against the computer (offline) or against others over the internet. Again, I find the Normal difficulty to provide a very good challenge. In skirmish mode, in addition to resource points you also have victory points. Each side starts with a set number of points and if your opponent controls more victory points than you do, your points will decrease. The winner is the side that eliminate the other side or causes their points counter to reach zero. The Collector's Edition includes a bonus disk, a D-day map (not really useful in playing the game), bonus cards (each of which details the capabilities of a certain weapon/vehicle) all in a slim metal case. If you enjoy Real-time Strategy games and/or WW2 themed games, this game is a must have. It's fun, has amazing graphics and sound and good replayability.
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