Company of Heroes

World War II games are something that make most RTS (Real-Time Strategy) and FPS (First Person Shooter) gamers cringe with distaste. Long before the WWII setting wasn’t sucked dry, these games were entertaining and had a lot to offer game developers and gamers alike, but unfortunately it’s a totally different scene today. Just when it seemed like nearly every angle on this genre was exhausted, developer Relic Entertainment proves that there still is some hope left by breathing some freshness into this genre with Company of Heroes (CoH).

CoH sets itself apart from most WWII games by bringing you closer to the action with the help of some extremely engrossing action and its well handled tactical approach to the genre that hasn’t been seen before. It’s better than most RTS’ since it manages to keep the gameplay fast-paced and at the same time easy enough so that you can grasp it quickly. Unlike a lot of RTS’ where you keep pumping in units to ensure victory, in CoH, you’d rather have a small amount of units so that you can manage them well and position them at strategic points to flank your enemy as you push forward to victory. Sounds complicated? I’m sure it does to some of you, but don’t worry, the first few missions work well in training you on how to manage your army and basics like attacking and defending. And in this game it’s imperative to get your fundamentals right as the enemy AI isn’t like other RTS’, where they’ll blindly charge right into your line of fire to have a gazillion holes bored into their tiny heads. In fact you’ll come across a lot of situations where these little Nazis will sneak behind your lines to attack key positions, subsequently kicking your ass. But fret not, to help you cope with the challenge Relic has made your unit’s AI a lot smarter so if placed behind cover, your soldiers will provide cover fire to other units, and if you leave your tanks lying around they won’t chase enemy units into their base and get themselves blown up, unless your order them to. This really helps you cope well with some of the fast-paced gameplay this game has to offer and ensures you have enough time on your hands to enjoy all the eye-candy this game has to offer.

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Speaking of eye-candy, this game boasts of some drop-dead-gorgeous visuals, the likes of which you’ve never seen in any RTS till date; I mean if you zoom onto a unit, you can actually see his uniform in detail, how impressive is that? If that wasn’t enough, you can even see your enemy’s corpses fly around as they tear into a million gibs after you’ve bombardarded them needlessly (If you find gore distasteful please stick to The Sims or some game of that sort). The visuals and sounds of the artillery fire will leave you screaming for more, while the insanely detailed war-torn terrain will make the game more involving and true to life than you can imagine. And what’s more, these terrain altering explosions aren’t simple cosmetic as seen in Age of Empires and Rise of Legends; you can actually carve the terrain to either make it tactically more viable or if you’re feeling artistic. Even the cut scenes are masterfully crafted to fit the missions perfectly with a blend that will make you feel like you’re really at war. It’s been really long since I’ve seen an RTS that has found such a profound balance between visual perfection and downright ingenious gameplay.
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Even the resource management in CoH is really well thought of; instead of making your units march to-and-fro aimlessly between resource points to gather resources, you have to capture territories that have a specific kind of resource node and this helps you increase your resource income. This is a refreshing change from the most boring and annoying routine of gathering resources as you might have experienced in other games. It also adds a different flavor to the multiplayer angle by making you battle for a territory in order to win, making it a lot like a turf-war rather than ‘I saw, I killed, conquered’.

To test your resourcefulness even more, Relic has split the resources required into three kinds: Munitions, Fuel and Manpower. This encourages you to capture different kind of resource points rather than sitting in a single corner amassing units like you would in say Command and Conquer: Generals (God I hate that game!). Capturing resource points isn’t easy either, since only infantry can do it initially, so you have to make sure you always have a decent balance between infantry and tanks that’ll protect them. Although the resource structure seems a little complex and intimidating at first, it becomes fun as you progress and you’re bound to master it after the first few missions since you’ll require it to progress in the missions later on.

Being the entertaining package CoH is, I think it’s a real good buy for any RTS or WWII fan as it also offers a good amount of replayability (The single player campaign has 15 action-packed missions that will get over before you know it, but thankfully they have additional objectives that you can complete while you replay them). Although CoH doesn’t revolutionize the genre, it perfects it to a level that I never though any RTS could and in my opinion it’s amongst the best WWII based games made so far.