Of Company of Heroes

Great game, I'll tell you what's good and not about it.

Pros:

Incredible Graphics
Immersive Gameplay
Deep Strategy
Great Sound
Physics
Individual AI

Cons:

Takes a Big Rig
Repetitive Gameplay
Plenty of Micromanagement

Let's start with the pros, we've all seen WWII games, how many times have we charged ourselves or our troops up to The Shingle ? How many times have we gotten behind that Panther to hit it's rear armour ?

To many to count.

The graphics on it's on is more than enough to drive you into purchasing this game.

Dynamic lighting, shadows and gritty gameplay add to this. You'll see explosions of varying sizes lead varying amounts of flying dirt and debris. The infantry units alone have no less than 500 animation...each.


Immersive Gameplay

Don't ask. You'll be so focused on one point that you may even forget that there is actually a another world called RL behind you. The great sound makes things that much better.


Deep Strategy

You blew up a tank, you for you, there's a tank carcass sitting there, who cares ?

Your enemy infantry charge up, stand behind the tank husk and use it as cover.

Your squad, out in the open with no cover gets shot to pieces.

The environment is fully destructible. Blow a certain window off a building and the enemy infantry garrisoned in that window suddenly become more vulnerable since they just lost much of their cover. Enemies hiding behind that tank carcass got you down ?

Toss a grenade over, either run out of their cover or die.


Great Sound

You will learn to fear the noise a 105mm Howitzer Barrage makes.

The sound of everything nearby is drowned out by that Howitzer fire and you can' stop it, the only thing you can hear is those infantry trapped in the middle of it yelling over the noise.

Don't let me get started on the realistic gunfire sounds.

The voice acting is slightly beyond incredible. You'll hear frantic radio calls, listen closely and your Volksgrenadiers will say something along the lines of "Stop pushing me" Speech changes according to the situation. If they come under fire, they'll go from calmly saying "Ya, ya, one way, then the other" right into "We are under attack by the Yankees !"

Your sniper goes from speaking in a hushed whisper "Sniper displacing" to yelling at the top of the lungs "They've got fucking MGs here !"

There's no holds on language, these guys swear as much as they like.


Physics

Any game worth it's name will have physics, in this case, it's the famed Havok engine.

Driving a tank into a small building will damage them, tank accuracy is based on the terrain it's on.

Run over a tree, you can use that tree as cover for your infantry.

Did your aircraft crash ? Well, it can still benefit you, how ?

Cover, the metal remaining can be used as cover, in this game, you'll either learn to use cover, or dig your own grave.


Individual AI

This is the first game of I've ever played in which your soldiers are smart enough to dive for cover on their own when they come under fire. Tank about to run them over ? Don't worry, they're smart enough to get out of the way...most of the time.

They'll hide behind sandbags whenever possible and retreat on their own accord.


Cons.

Takes a Big Rig

My computer is 4 years old, 512 mb of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9200 series graphics card.

The notorious 9200, one of 2 graphics cards that has a non-game crashing bug running with Company of Heroes. This bug is simple: Most models are invisible, the only ones that aren't are the building in the maps, trees and most terrain.

I need a 9500 or higher. Personally, an Nvidia would be the best.

My graphics card is also incapable of running Battlefield 2142.


Repetitive Gameplay

Unless you download plenty of new maps, the existing ones and campaigns get real boring, real fast.


Plenty of Micromanagement

A similar amount to Dawn of War, in Dawn of War, you decide on a specific number of weapons and soldiers a squad can have. This makes for some big choices.

In Company of Heroes, you click one button and you'll run into a semi-realistic number of weapons being equipped.

In Dawn of War, finding cover was a lot easier, just point and click.

In Company of Heroes with the destructible environment, you end up, positioning every squad in a formation as perfect as possible. More time wasted on getting your men into position.


Overall, great game, beautiful graphics and excellent sound with some fine strategy.

I'd buy it.

Regards, Boombaye1