Company of Heroes is utterly excellent. Great look, great AI, great gameplay, neat menus.
Relic Entertainment's Company of Heroes is a truly revolutionary game.
It combines the detail of Call of Duty 2 with the drama and realism of "Saving Private Ryan", and adds the standard RTS features of building a base and collecting resources (which the game does in a unique way I'll talk about later).
The game starts with the invasion of Normandy on Omaha Beach.
Once the trailer is over it'll shift into the game engine, leaving you amazed at just how good the game looks.
After that you'll run from cover to cover (the game has a simple but effective cover system. Exposed = extra damage, Normal = normal damage, Light Cover = less damage but destroyed eventually, Heavy Cover = much less damage, only destructible by explosions), and watch a couple of ingame cinematics, including a bunker satisfyingly blowing up to the cheering of your men.
The base building aspect of the game begins only on the 5th level, where you are also first introduced to commanding Armor.
This is not your casual RTS, where you can just build a base and "wait it out". If you are to succeed, you must go out and capture territory, which in turn will supply you with resources (the game has 3 resources: Manpower, the basic resource needed for everything you purchase, Munitions, needed to use special abilities and minefields, and Fuel, needed for global upgrades and vehicles.
The game looks spectacular.
Towns look authentic, explosions aren't just a burst of flame but also kick a lot of dust and rubble into the air.
The detail of pretty much anything and everything in the game equals that of any First Person Shooter.
There's also little details like craters being created after a particularly large explosion which your men can use for cover, and tanks and guns blowing holes into buildings, from which soldiers can later fire.
Also, if a tank turns a particularly tight corner in a town, it might just take a chunk straight off a building, not to mention being able to run down walls and destroyed vehicle husks.
Comparing a town before a battle and after can be quite shocking in it's realness, as EVERYTHING can be blown to bits in this game, and the rubble remains in the game and dynamically reacts to whatever's hitting it.
The game truly shines though in it's tactical element.
For example:
A German MG42 is positioned to cover a road.
A squad of US Riflemen advances up the road and starts a firefight with the MG crew. The inevitable outcome is the Riflemen lying as low as they can in a ditch, hoping to god they won't get hit, and not returning fire or moving.
Now, you have several options:
1) Bring up something heavy. A tank or armored car will do short work of the German crew.
2) Flank. Bring another squad around a protected flank or even drop some paratroopers behind the MG. As MG's and Guns have specific archs of fire, and must redeploy to fire at a different direction, which takes time, your flanking unit will be able to handle the enemies with ease.
3) Retreat. All infantry units have the option to split and run double-time back to their HQ.
This gives them a large defence bonus, but removed them from your command for the duration of the retreat.
Now that you know where the enemy is you can develop a plan to destroy him, and you saved some of your men's lives, for now.
You can also replenish damaged squads at your HQ and near Halftracks.
You can spend a lot of time micromanaging a single firefight, but you must remember that there's also a big picture, and the enemy will continuously attack from everywhere and try to capture your territory.
MG's, Mortars and AT guns will be key to holding you frontline.
Speaking of AI, it really is quite exceptional. Even on the Easy difficulty, the enemy will put up an impressive fight. It will probe your frontline for weaknesses, and send troops to attack your base and disrupt your supply by cutting off territory from your HQ.
It can also respond to threats quite intelligently.
Here's an example of a Skirmish I had:
The Axis got tanks quite earlier than I expected, and sent a StuG III charging at my base. I only barely able to hold it off untill Sticky Bombs arrived and I managed to destroy it.
A 2nd tank arrived, but this time the AI player knew better. I had 2 squads attack the tank frontally, but their bombs did little damage, so I retreated. The tanks began to chase, but then another of my squad's came up from behind to try to throw a Sticky Bomb at the engine, but the tank turned around and prevented this from happening.
Aside from looking and playing great, Company of Heroes also sounds fantastic.
Explosions on-screen will be heard full-on, muffling other sounds for a short time, while far off explosions will sounds distant and somewhat muffled.
Some weapons sounds a bit too hollywood-ish and unauthentic, but oh well.
Squads will confirm your orders in a tone reflecting what they are currently going through, and sometimes even say really funny stuff.
If you order a minefield to be placed, sometimes the confirmation will be: "If a mouse farts in this goddamn minefield, I want it's ass blown sky high!"
Units also report to you about what's happening to them, so you'll know if some distant unit is attacked by mortars or machineguns, etc. Also units outside the screen will speak through a radio.
My personal favourite sound effects are tank commander's orders.
If a tank has been ordered to, for example move from it's depot to some random location, you'll hear something along the lines of "Start the engines, driver, move out!", BUT, if it's being hit pretty hard and in the thick of combat, a movement order will be confirmed by something like: "DRIVE!!! GOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST GOOOO!!!!!!!!!!".
There's is going to be a LOT of intense radio-traffic in this game, and you'll have to understand it all to effectively react to your enemies' moves in time.
Company of Heroes has some really impressive menus.
The main menu gives quick and easy access to all the game's features, and also look really well, with an image of 3 American soldier's trying to look like tough-guys on a background of animated art cinematics from the game's campaign mode.
Final Words.
I've been playing this game since 2006. This is still at the top of it's genre. The graphics are still top-notch, and there's nothing quite like Company of Heroes' gameplay out there.
Among the 10 best of all time.
Anyone even remotely interested in RTS games, and even those who are not, should and must obtain a copy of Company of Heroes at all costs. I encourage even WWII RTS haters to just give this one a try.