World War II has been done to death, but Relic goes and finds another way to make reliving it an utter joy.

User Rating: 9.8 | Company of Heroes PC
By mecheye | Review Date:
Few RTS's can mix intense strategy with personality, graphical prowess, and unique play so well as Relic's Company of Heroes. The gameplay takes most of its queues from Dawn of War, and that is not a bad thing at all. Like Dawn of War, the gameplay is based around controlling points on the map to gather resources to spend. In company of heroes this takes the form of manpower, ammunition, and gasoline. It's actually a brutal resource system, one that requires you to seek out more points, or be dominated by a foe with a much stronger economy. This game is really about attrition more than brute force and numbers. Sure you can amass a huge tank squadron and march on the enemy, but if you want to win a game in less than a half hour or hour (especially with the expensive german tanks), then that strategy will not work. And there are enough tank counters to make a fleet of tanks worthless. This game is all about coordinating units to do separate activities to dismantle and capture forward points of the enemy. Its very unique, because its not just about attacking all the time. Defending and holding positions can become everything. Finding ideal locations for defense is important, because terrain has a HUGE impact on fighting ability and defense rating. Units find cover automatically when engaging units, and can spend 10 minutes in a single fight because it became an infantry trench war. Then a bunch of tanks roll in and destroy everything and move on, only to be artillery bombarded and then all thats left is a smoky, crispy, and war-wrought field. Artillery shells leave huge dents in the environment, and tanks leave destruction in their paths, and craters amass from bombing runs. Its beautiful. The main thing that sets this game apart technically is the graphics. I have not seen a game this beautiful in a long time. Supreme Commander wasnt close, Command and Conquer 3 came close but lost, and i cant think of any others that would beat this. And there are enough graphical settings to make this game suitable for almost any decent PC. However, turning up all the settings all the way will kill most computers. : ) The AI should be noted as one of the best in RTS land. However, they can be exploited and patterns do develop. But they are absolutely relentless in difficult levels of play and can quickly overwhelm if not countered. And then they get tanks, and things get really ugly. This game is simply wonderful, most likely one of the best RTS's we will see for a while. I dont think C & C 3 really carried the hype, and Dawn of War is basically the same thing, just futurized. Maybe Starcraft II can knock this game off the top next year in 2008.

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