1 player review you should read. long/detailed, well suited for unsure buyers. & sys specs w/ performance.
The bad: campaign stories are not as interesting as the original coh campaign, each separate campaign is short, longer learning curve for the new factions, needs the original coh as well to round out the experience.
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I love coh, it was what I was waiting for.... a worthy ww2 rts. And coh opposing fronts "coh OF" expands on this great formula with 2 new factions with loads of new units and content and a reinvigorated online community. It doesn’t try too much to go in a different direction than the original, which is a good thing. The gameplay is still great as ever but the real change is the 2 new factions, which are polar opposites of each other in many ways and need to be played differently to win. This review is what id hope to find in other reviews, with details about the game but not so much that it’s a game guide. This review will give you an idea of what to expect.
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--Gameplay--
I’m not going to include basic gameplay like how to set up mg teams, facing of weapons and where they can fire, different cover, etc. for that read my COH review. Although I hate not including that info, there’s too much to write and I don’t want to do it again. Everything for the most part remains the same, meaning great. To give you a summed up general idea infantry can use cover for added protection, tanks can plow through most obstacles and almost anything can be destroyed with real physics. Factions: --Common traits--both new factions can’t build observation posts or op's to reinforce resource points from capture. Unlike the original factions.
--Panzer Elite or PE-- is the fast hitting, mobile, vehicle heavy army that is well suited for aggressive players. With few infantry selections but don’t let that fool you, these infantry can be upgraded with at panzershrecks, long range rifles, and mid range assault rifles. Plus all infantry come with the repair ability. This faction has more vehicles than any other. Its vehicles are made to fit infantry rolls as well as regular tank rolls. Of the 2 new factions this one will be the easy one to learn because it’s got more in common with the original 2 factions than the British do. You have an immobile HQ building and you must build base buildings that produce different units. --PE infantry—"panzer grendiers" your basic guys that can build your main buildings, and can be upgraded with long range rifles, mid range assault rifles, or panzershrecks. "Assault grenadier heavy infantry" you anti-infantry troops. "Tank buster heavy infantry" panzershrecks infantry. "Luftwaffe ground forces" are special infantry that can build certain defenses. "Fallschrimjager" are elite infiltration infantry that can deploy anti-building flame bombs etc.
--PE vehicles--"Kettengrad" is an unarmed recon bike that can capture pts etc. "Scout car" mg armed scout that can use its ability of secure territory to make that territory produce more resources, like ops, but must remain there for the bonus to stay. "Armored car" is armed with a 20mm cannon good vs light vehicles. "Halftrack" is armed with an mg42 and can hold any infantry sqd up to 2 total. "Mortar halftrack" is unloadable halftrack but with a mortar inside. "Funkwagen halftrack" can steal enemy resources when in enemy territory. "Munitions halftrack" speeds up the recharging of any units abilities after use, and can drop goliath bomb cars. "Light AT halftrack" an anti-tank halftrack that has the ability to break enemy tank treads and immobilize them. "Panzer 4 infantry support tank" a stripped down version of the original German faction panzer 4, this one is anti infantry. "Hummel" is a long range mobile artillery vehicle. "Bergetiger repair and recovery vehicle" a tiger tank stripped of its weapons and made into a repair vehicle and it can also bring destroyed tanks back to life if their remains are not yet destroyed. "Marder 3 tank hunter" it’s an AT gun on treads that has a powerful gun but lacks armor, but can shoot far. "Panther" same as the other German faction’s panther, only this is called in by HQ and 2 come at once for alot of resources. "Wirbelwind" is a AA/infantry tank. "Hetzer" a cloakable tank suited for AT rolls. "Jagdpanther" your biggest, toughest tank.
--British army-----
A more defensive force with many tricky ways to go about combat, but has mostly specialized units, with few bread and butter units suited for everything. You only have 3 base buildings, starting out each game with a “HQ command truck”. And then you need to make a “lieutenant” unit to be able to buy the next “field support truck” which will arrive from off map. Then after you buy the “captain” unit you can buy the final “Armor command truck”. Any of these trucks can be deployed anywhere in your territory, but while your command HQ truck is moved all territories will be “out of supply” until you re-deploy it. And when upgraded all 3 trucks can boost the resources gained in the territory they are deployed in.
--Infantry--“Infantry section” your basic expensive infantry that can be upgraded with 3 different weapons, a sniper rifle, a light mg, and grenade rifles, and these infantry also can construct certain defenses like mg nest. “Sappers” these are your builders/repair just like engineers but since you have no normal base buildings all you build is defensive structures, plant bombs, and they can be upgraded with a mine detector, a piat which is a AT bazooka like weapon, or enhanced repair ability. “Lieutenant” is a command unit that boosts nearby infantry’s effectiveness. “Captain” is another command unit that can call in off map artillery but has to be within range to spot for it. “Commandos” are assault infantry that have a cool ability to place bombs anywhere on the map for 50 munitions, anywhere meaning in the center of a street or at resource points for defense. They can also throw regular grenades, and deploy concealing smoke around themselves. “Piat commandos” are anti-tank that can camouflage. “HMG commandos” and “Mortar commandos” as well.
--Vehicles--“Bren carrier” a light infantry transport armed with an mg. “Stuart light tank” is just your weak fast recon tank. “Cromwell” it’s you first real tank, although that’s an overstatement. “Cromwell command tank” this com tank is unarmed but boosts the effectiveness of your other tanks and its required to have one if you want to make firefly tanks. “Sherman firefly tank” you solid heavy hitting AT tank, now your in business. “M7 priest” it’s a mobile arty vehicle. “Churchill infantry tank” is a durable heavy tank that can deal with infantry as well as tanks. “Churchill avre” is a mortar tank that’s very deadly to infantry. “Churchill crocodile” is a flamethrower tank. “Tetrarch tank” a light tank that you get deployed by glider.
--------The 6 new command trees: (3 per faction)----------
-----------British---------------- Royal artillery support--seriously what it says, a heavy artillery support tree, with most of the upgrades being abilities to be used by you basic always available arty defenses. Abilities like creep barrage to over watch arty etc. As well as the ability to call in the M7 priests mobile arty vehicle.
Royal commandos support--allows you to call in gliders any where there’s not fog of war, different types of gliders give you different stuff, 1 gives you commandos, another gives you a light tank, both these can also spawn more of the same unit like a building would, until the enemy destroys it. The last glider option lands but doesn’t deploy units immediately, but you can make mg commandos, AT com, and mortar com. And there’s an off map arty barrage ability married with false arty flares which nicely rounds this all out etc.
Royal engineers support--improvements to defensive structures durability, enable all armor to go "hull down" meaning they dig into the ground and set up sandbags around themselves adding to their durability. Plus you can call in regular heavy Churchill tanks, and two other variants, 1 a mortar Churchill, 1 a flamethrower Churchill.
-------------PE---------------
Scorched earth--booby-traps can be placed by any infantry in any building or resource pt, which are very effecting against infantry, and best of all its completely free. Heavy roadblocks are also available here which is the only tank trap you can build. As well as the Hummel 150mm mobile artillery vehicle, my favorite big gun to pummel the enemy into dust with.
Luftwaffe--anti air support from AA guns defense emplacements to mobile AA tanks, plus two types of infantry both with versatile abilities. The first one is the Luftwaffe ground forces which builds AA gun defenses and other things like sand bags etc. And then there the Fallschirmjager an elite infantry that can plant bombs etc. and are effective versus infantry. And the big gun 88 AT/AA gun emplacement can be built as well. Butterfly mines can be dropped anywhere fog of war doesn’t cover, this is air dropped mines that cover a small area.
Tank hunters--basically you get your big tanks here, the jagpanther is the PE's version of the tiger, but looks more like a panther..... limit 2 at a time I think. The Hetzer tank looks unimpressive but fills an AT roll well, plus it can be camo'd when sitting still. AT mines can also be deployed.
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--Graphics-- everything looks fantastic, in fact it’s the best looking rts I’ve ever seen. The amount of detail can be mind blowing at times, causing you to watch more than play. New flame effects are cool. Although you’ll need a decent graphics card to have it looking good.
--Sound-- everything sounds the way it should, and the new soundtrack fits right in.
--Resources-- there are 3 different types of resources: manpower, munitions, and fuel. And on each map the territory sectors will have an assigned resource type. To capture a territory sector to gain the benefit of that resources income you need units that are able to capture, mostly infantry but a few vehicles can do it to. Once it’s captured it will start providing that resource to your total income, unless that territory is “out of supply”. A territory is “out of supply” when it’s not connected to your other territories which are linked to your HQ. what resources you need to build certain units depends on the unit itself, ex tanks require a lot of fuel as well as manpower. While infantry may just require manpower.
--Pop cap--every unit you make has a pop cap number on it. And your total pop cap number varies depending on how many territories you own. Infantry range from 2-6 depending on how many soldiers are in that sqd. Vehicles can go all the way up to 10+. And weapon emplacements also take up pop cap, such as arty/AT/AA/MG guns.
--Multiplayer-- after you blow through the campaign you only got skirmish and multiplayer left for replay value, but that’s all you’ll need. If you got high speed internet (which you pretty much need for OF and the changes it makes to the game menu) I recommend multiplayer because playing against another human is just a blast, and you won’t find a tougher challenge.
--Campaign-- this time you get 2 campaigns, the biggest change is you get the German PE campaign. It’s nice to see things from the Germans point of view, but they don’t do it very well. But the problem with the campaigns is it never really sucks you in making you really immersed into the story. The characters are almost interesting but don’t quite capture your attention. Although you get 2 new campaigns, each one is short to about 8-9 missions each. --My sys specs-- I can run this game on medium high settings, with this sys:
A pentium 4, 3.0 ghz processing speed, 3 gigs ram and a nvidia 6800. The nvidia 6800 is on the recommended requirements list to be able to play this game with higher settings but don’t be fooled this card may be recommended, but its still the minimum recommended card. And the 6800 is 2 full generations behind the current new cards. I don’t get any lag in single player or skirmish 2 vs 2 matches. Going 3 vs 3 or more will start to make it choppy, and for multiplayer 2 vs 2 on big maps or higher I have to turn down the settings a little to reduce lag.
--Overall-- If you’re looking for more variety added onto COH then this is for you. If your new to this I would recommend you start with the original COH first, as the new factions are not suited for beginners. But I think no matter what you should get both. The online community is now even bigger with this new stand alone expansion. This is the best ww2 rts series ever…….period.